The Cowboys Trio Up for New Deals
What might be the issues with the Cowboys when it comes to extensions for CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons?
The Dallas Cowboys have three key players who are eligible for extensions and the question that some ask is how the Cowboys will be able to get all three extended.
As of this writing, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, who enters the fifth-year option of his rookie deal, has yet to report to training camp as he and the Cowboys negotiate an extension. Quarterback Dak Prescott is in the final year of his current contract and there's no word on whether or not he and the Cowboys will come to terms on a new deal. And edge rusher Micah Parsons is eligible for an extension but still has two years left on his draft pick deal, to include the fifth-year option which the Cowboys exercised.
Each player is in a different position regarding any contract negotiations. Furthermore, the Cowboys are not in that bad of a position to get all three players extended, because they do have the cap space available, though cash commitments could be another question.
We'll start with the Cowboys and their current situation: They currently sit at $28.5 in cap space, but that's with the top 51 rule in effect. That rule is in place during the offseason, in which only the top 51 cap hits count toward the cap. Once teams set their 53-man roster, practice squad and who is placed on injured reserve, all players will count toward the cap.
Still, that shouldn't prevent the Cowboys from extending their players. An extension for Lamb or Prescott could lower the cap number for either player. There are also ways to structure an extension for Parsons to keep it cap friendly. Furthermore, the Cowboys will have plenty of cap space for 2025 to accommodate those players.
As for cash commitments, the Cowboys currently have $207.2 million in cash commitments for 2024, the lowest of any team. On one hand, the money from revenue sharing is what goes toward player salaries. On the other hand, it's hard for the Cowboys to claim they don't have the cash available when they aren't committing a lot of money to the roster.
Therefore, neither cap space nor cash spending are the issues as to why the Cowboys have yet to come to terms with these players. So what could be the actual factors coming into play?
Let's start by looking at each player and the market for their positions.
CeeDee Lamb: First of all, if Lamb and the Cowboys don't reach an agreement on an extension before the start of the regular season, one shouldn't expect Lamb's holdout to extend too far into the season.
With Lamb missing mandatory training camp sessions, the Cowboys have fined him for each day he's missed. Once a holdout goes into the regular season, a team withhold game checks. That means, if Lamb's holdout goes into the regular season, he loses a portion of his $17.991M base salary.
That's a significant amount of money, more than Lamb is likely willing to risk just to get an extension. It's possible he could skip one game, but the longer he waits, the more money he forfeits.
Also, if Lamb and his agent want to re-set the market at the receiver position, the Cowboys could argue that, while Lamb is a top receiver, he's not playing with an average-to-good quarterback and, thus, can't make the same arguments that Justin Jefferson (the WR who re-set the market with his extension) had to raise the bar for receiver contracts.
With that said, Lamb does have a case to be paid better than some other receivers. I recently wrote that Lamb could make the case for getting a deal similar to AJ Brown, but that's not accurate, as Jason Fitzgerald recently pointed out with his recent post about the real receiver market.
Long story short: What happened with Brown and other veteran receivers is that they had contracts that were back loaded and got more money moved up into current years. In the case of receivers who were on draft pick deals, they got extensions that paid them well but didn't re-set the market the way Jefferson did.
While Lamb and his agent are not necessarily in position to argue for a deal that, from the actual standpoint, surpasses Jefferson in every aspect, they would be in position to argue that a new deal shouldn't simply give an "on paper" appearance of coming close to those numbers.
Lamb and his agent are free to argue for a contract that is front loaded instead of back loaded or for a contract for fewer years. A four-year deal, for example, gives Lamb a chance for another extension before he turns 30.
It's one thing for the Cowboys to say that Lamb shouldn't have to give Lamb more than $100M in practical guarantees. It's another thing for the Cowboys to insist that Lamb take a "two years then we'll see" deal that is back loaded and offers no salary protection beyond 2025.
Dak Prescott: The Cowboys quarterback is entering the final year of his contract. After playing on the franchise tag in 2020, he signed a four-year deal before the start of the 2021 offseason.
The Cowboys, in doing so, used two void years for cap purposes and added a provision which says that they can't use the franchise tag on Prescott when the deal expires. In 2022, the Cowboys restructured his contract and added two more void years.
If the Cowboys sign Prescott to an extension, they will have to deal with the pro-rated money from void years, along with any pro-rated money from a signing bonus. Currently, the Cowboys have about $26.1M in pro-rated dead money that would apply to 2025 if Prescott is extended now. (If not, the dead money rises to $40.1M because all pro-rated money applies to 2025, similar to if Prescott was cut.)
Recent extensions for Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagovailoa and Jordan Love didn't re-set the QB market, but they did surpass other QBs in multiple aspects. Prescott is thus in position to push past these quarterbacks and, perhaps, push past Joe Burrow, who sits atop QBs in all aspects ($55M APY salary, $146.5M in full guarantees, $219M in total guarantees).
Given that Prescott and his agent previously wanted a contract for no more than four years, it would not surprise if that's a condition of any current contract talks. And because Prescott turns 32 next year, it's possible he and his agent would prefer a deal for no more than three years, thus allowing him a chance to cash in before he turns 36, an age at which other QBs have declined in performance.
The Cowboys might be fine with going with another four-year deal, but they may hesitate to give him a three-year deal if they don't think they can structure such a deal to be cap friendly. They might also have issues with accommodating full and total guarantees in such a deal, particularly if Prescott and his agent want to re-set the market or simply surpass, say, the guarantees that Lawrence received ($142M full, $200M total).
Micah Parsons: The fourth-year player is due nearly $3M this year and $21.3M next year, the latter from the fifth-year option the Cowboys exercised. Some would consider Parsons the best defensive player in the NFL.
Thus, it's hard to argue that Parsons shouldn't re-set the market for all pass rushers. Some will point out that there's the issue of whether Parsons should be classified as a defensive lineman or as a linebacker.
However, while that is relevant when it comes to the franchise tag, the bottom line is, if one believes Parsons should be the highest paid pass rusher in the NFL, he should surpass all pass rushers, whether they are listed as defensive linemen or linebackers.
As things currently stand, Chris Jones tops the defensive lineman market at $31.75M APY salary, $60M in full guarantees and $95M in total guarantees. However, those numbers aren't close to Nick Bosa, the top-paid edge rusher, who gets $34M APY, $88M in full guarantees and $122.5M in total guarantees.
If you want to talk about off-ball linebackers, Roquan Smith doesn't come close to either player at $20M APY, $45M in full guarantees and $60M in total guarantees. Therefore, you can forget about off-ball linebackers when it comes to Parsons. If you think he should re-set the market for pass rushers, he needs to be paid more than Jones or Bosa.
The issue with Parsons is that he has two years left on his current deal. On one hand, if he signed an extension now, he could get a raise this season. On the other hand, he wouldn't necessarily gets as much new money if he signed a deal now as opposed to waiting until 2025.
With Parsons and his agent, the question is whether they think it is imperative to get a deal done now or to play the waiting game. There are potential rewards and potential risks in either scenario, so it boils down to what is more important to Parsons and his agent.
As for the Cowboys, why there hasn't been more movement with Parsons likely has more to do with the fact that they are trying to get a deal done with Lamb first. After that, they may be more concerned about negotiations with Prescott.
For the Cowboys' part, they have time because Parsons is under contract for two seasons. The time for more urgency will be 2025 because that's when Parsons enters the final year of his deal and, thus, the deadline looms closer to get an extension done.
The Cowboys aren't a team that lacks cap space and available cash to get these three players extended, but there are other factors that come into play which could explain why, as of this writing, the players haven't been extended.
I would not be surprised to see the Cowboys and Lamb come to terms on an extension soon. For Lamb, it doesn't make sense to extend his holdout too far into the season, lest he forfeit too many game checks. For the Cowboys, it doesn't make sense to be too stingy on certain contract aspects, even if they can argue that Lamb shouldn't re-set the receiver market.
Prescott's situation could be trickier, though if the Cowboys make the playoffs again — particularly if they win the division — they will have a hard time arguing they shouldn't extend their quarterback, even if they are hesitant to re-set the market in every aspect.
As for Parsons, it's not out of the question the Cowboys extend him this season, but it wouldn't be a shock if that didn't happen until next season. Regardless, when it comes to Parsons, the Cowboys will be hard pressed to insist that he take an extension that doesn’t re-set the pass rusher market.