Here’s a guess: Jerry Jones gets it. Surely, he knows his Dallas Cowboys deserve their reputation beyond just general haters as the most overrated (and overhyped and overpaid) NFL team of the 21st century.
Make that ever.
Let’s connect the dots.
When Jones purchased the Cowboys in February 1989 for $150 million, he eventually watched them use The Triplets (Pro Football Hall of Famers Troy Aikman at quarterback, Emmitt Smith at running back and Michael Irvin at wide receiver) to snatch three Super Bowls in four years.
The last of those world championships happened after the 1995 season, when Patrick Mahomes was months old.
Since then, the Cowboys have soared to No. 1 on the Forbes’ list for NFL team valuations at $9 billion, but they’ve sunk during the playoffs. They’ve seen the Kansas City Chiefs evolve into those old Cowboys within the past five years after baby Mahomes grew into the league’s premier quarterback to produce a Chiefs run of four Super Bowl berths and three Lombardi trophies.
In contrast, the new Cowboys have just five Wild Card game victories during the post-Triplets era.
That’s five in nearly three decades.
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If you’re Jones, you know all of that.
If you’re Jones, you’re also still fuming over your 12-5 Cowboys losing 48-31 last season at home during the Wild Card round to the 9-8 Green Bay Packers.
So, if you’re Jones, here’s your revelation: Since your Cowboys continue to flop during the playoffs despite one of the league’s best quarterbacks (Dak Prescott), best wide receivers (CeeDee Lamb) and best pass rushers (Micah Parsons), why sprint to give any of those guys a raise?
Why even give them a raise?
Why have them on your team, period?
That’s why, if you’re Jones, you wait, and then you wait some more.
Did I say you wait?
According to Pro Football Focus, Lamb is the best wide receiver in the league not named Justin Jefferson (Minnesota Vikings), Tyreek Hill (Miami Dolphins) or Ja’Marr Chase (Cincinnati Bengals).
Nevertheless, it took a summer of mostly nothingness in salary negotiations before Jones reached deep into his piggybank earlier this week as Cowboys owner, president, general manager and grand poohbah to sign Lamb to a four-year contract extension worth $136 million.
Prescott wants way more than that.
All Prescott has done during his eight seasons at quarterback for the Cowboys is produce at a high level as an individual, and this goes beyond his three Pro Bowl trips. He was the 2023 NFL MVP runner-up, and he ranks fourth in league history in completion percentage with at least 1,500 pass attempts (67.0) and fifth in regular-season career passer rating (99.0).
We’re still connecting the dots.
With Jones shrugging nearby, Prescott is heading toward the final season of a four-year deal he signed in 2021 for $160 million, but at 31-years-old, he prefers having right now something like the recent contracts of some of his peers: Trevor Lawrence (five years, $275 million) of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Jared Goff (four years, $212 million) of the Detroit Lions and Jordan Love (four years, $220 million) of the Green Bay Packers.
If you go by average annual salary, Love and Lawrence join Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals at $55 million.
Jones knows about those numbers for others.
Jones also knows Prescott’s contract lacks a non-franchise tag and a no-trade clause, which means his fourth-round jewel out of the 2016 NFL Draft from Mississippi State can become an unrestricted free agent after this season along the way to joining a team without a star on its helmet.
"You could easily say, if you hadn't seen it by now, you haven't seen it," Jones told reporters Wednesday at the Cowboys’ training camp in Frisco, Texas, regarding Prescott’s contract situation. "I'm such a fan of Dak's and appreciate all of the great things that we all know that he's there. I appreciate his work ethic probably more than anything out here.
“I can't tell you how proud I am that we've got him this year to start this campaign. Needing to see, I just gave an explanation where when you look at a situation, you've also got to weigh, 'OK, what are the consequences of the other side of the coin.' Dak's situation, right now, for me, from my mirror, has more to do with our situation than it does with the merits of Dak Prescott being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys."
Was Jones referring to Prescott or to Parsons?
As for Parsons, he has spent his three NFL seasons finishing second twice and third once in voting for the league’s Defensive Player of the Year Award. His contract runs through 2025 after Jones grabbed his fifth-year option. Without an extension, Parsons will make $21.32 in 2025.
Now consider this. Spotrac listed the NFL’s five highest-paid pass rushers as Nick Bosa of the San Francisco 49ers at $34 million, Joshua Hines-Allen of the Jaguars at $28.250 million, Brian Burns of the New York Giants at $28.2 million, T.J. Watt of the Pittsburgh Steelers at $28 million and Myles Garrett of the Cleveand Browns at $25 million.
Even though Pro Football Focus ranked Parsons second only to Garrett last season as a pass rusher, Parsons sits in the poverty section of that money list, but Jones couldn’t care less.
Jones cares more about this: His current Triplets of Prescott, Lamb and Parsons have kept the Cowboys as just a tease during the playoffs.
A tease?
Actually, not even that.
So, if you’re Jones, and you wait.
