A recent report from a Twitter/X user has Cowboys Nation up in arms at the prospect of yet another difficult contract negotiation.
Why can’t these things just be handled promptly and efficiently like so many other teams in the league are capable of doing? Every year it’s the same story with the Dallas Cowboys.
They wait until everyone else in the league who is eligible for a contract receives a new one, most times resetting the market before finally getting something done a few months too late.
It’s a disturbing pattern that has become predictable and leads to holdouts like star WR CeeDee Lamb is reportedly threatening to do.
As far as the post on Twitter/X that I mentioned above, it comes from a user with the handle @prettyrickey213 and he says Lamb will request a trade if his new contract offer isn’t at least $32 million per season.
I know better than to believe everything I see on Twitter/X but this account has 27,000 followers so let’s pretend we know he is a legitimate source.
Lamb isn’t the only player who has been rumored to be traded by the Cowboys possibly. Would they dare trade away Lamb, Micah Parsons, or even Dak Prescott?
CeeDee Lamb
Let’s start with the subject of the Twitter/X post. Lamb has shown marked improvement each season since being drafted from the University of Oklahoma in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Nobody expected Lamb to slide all the way to Dallas with the 17th overall pick but nobody in Dallas was questioning it. They ran the card up after Atlanta chose CB AJ Terrell, the War Room exploding with joy in the process.
He has turned out to be everything the Cowboys wanted him to be when drafted. Would they trade him away?
Despite the Jones’ struggles in signing players on time, don’t underestimate their ability to swing a deal in their favor. First and foremost, they are businessmen who have shown they aren’t afraid to acquire talent.
Trading away CeeDee would break many hearts but it would also keep quite a bit of cash in the salary cap to address other areas of need.
The problem with trading away Lamb now is that they would need to make sure to receive a playmaker in return from the other party because nobody on this roster can compare to what Lamb brings to the field.
I don’t see this trade happening since the Cowboys love to keep their young and homegrown talent but we must prepare for the possibility.
Micah Parsons
Micah Parsons is in hot water with the fanbase and he doesn’t seem to care. I’m not one of these people, but there are many out there who want him to focus on football instead of his podcast.
That’s just more of the same that we see every offseason. Players can never get it right. If they take a vacation, they should be working. If they work out on their own, they aren’t team players. In Micah’s case, he’s catching flak for not being a leader.
What people need to understand is that not everyone has leadership qualities. Some players just come in and do their job and go home. Micah might be one of those guys and that’s ok.
Trading Micah actually seems more plausible than trading Lamb. Despite being one of the best pass rushers in the league, he hasn’t exactly stuffed the stat sheet in the playoffs when his impact is needed the most.
This isn’t a knock on him as a player. He’s incredible, but he is undersized for a defensive end and his body seems to wear a little more than others by the end of the season. A 250-pound player constantly battling 320-pound offensive tackles isn’t a recipe for longevity.
Parsons is also the most likely to be traded simply because of the return the Cowboys would get for him. Compare it to the package the Raiders received for DE Khalil Mack when they sent him to Chicago.
It took two 1st-round picks plus some throw-ins to get that deal done but Parsons is the superior player despite being undersized. It would take at least those two 1st-round picks plus more early-round picks even to get the Cowboys to the table.
Dak Prescott
Finally, we get to the most popular player the four-letter networks like to focus on, QB Dak Prescott.
If you keep up with sports at all, you know that Prescott has all of the leverage in contract negotiations. He has a no-trade clause and his $59.2 million cap hit is the highest in the NFL.
He seems content to play out the final year of his contract and hit free agency. That might be a good idea for Prescott but it’s a nightmare scenario for the Cowboys. All three quarterbacks in the room are on expiring contracts.
This time next season there could be an entire new quarterback room. It’s not likely, though. If history shows us anything is that you don’t get rid of above-average quarterbacks just because they can’t get over the hump in the playoffs.
Football is a team sport and blaming Prescott for the lack of team playoff success is lazy.
If the Cowboys did try to trade Prescott to a team of his choosing, what could they get back for him? A first and second-round pick two seasons in a row seems like a good place to start and it would likely take more than that.
Teams don’t move off of franchise quarterbacks unless it’s worth it. Ask the Commanders how their quarterbacks have fared since they let Kirk Cousins walk in free agency.
Trading any one of these three players would be bad for the talent level of the team but it’s a scenario we need to be prepared for.