Cowboys Have Several Complicated Contract Situations to Figure Out Soon

Dallas needs to decide what to do about CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons. Also, in Tuesday’s notes: checking in on Antonio Pierce’s first offseason as the Raiders’ head coach and the latest NFL draft talk.

How much longer will Lamb be in Dallas? / Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

It’s Tuesday, and we have 16 days left until draft night …

• Dallas Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb danced around the assertion that he could hold out this offseason, with voluntary work kicking off for the team next week in Texas, telling TMZ, simply, “I’ll be in Dallas.”

That situation underscores a reality facing Dallas this offseason, one completely lost in the hysteria that Jerry Jones’s “all-in” comment from January created. Lamb’s negotiation is just one of three massive ones looming for the Cowboys. 

The stall in Dak Prescott’s talks has been well-documented. And then there’s Micah Parsons, who has been among the NFL’s best defenders over his first three seasons, and is eligible for a second contract this offseason. Dallas has made guys in that spot (Prescott, Zack Martin, etc.) wait in the past. But that doesn’t mean the 24-year-old superstar will simply accept this at a time when his earning power is off the charts.

Prescott will likely cost more than $50 million per year to re-sign. Parsons could command more than $35 million per year. And Lamb, if he waits for Justin Jefferson to get his next deal, could be looking at more than $30 million per year. So if you add this all up, it’s not hard to conjure a scenario where the three cost close to $120 million per year in new-money APY on their next contracts.

It's complicated.

It’ll also be interesting to see if in, say, 2026, all three of these guys are still around.

Pierce (left) finished 5–4 as the interim head coach in Las Vegas last season. / Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

• The Las Vegas Raiders are the only team of the eight with new coaches to not get an early start with their offseason program—the Los Angeles Chargers, Washington Commanders and Atlanta Falcons started last week, and the Carolina Panthers, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans got going Monday. The Raiders are also the only one without the extra minicamp afforded to a new staff in Year 1.

What gives?

It turns out there’s a rule—that at least I didn’t know about—biting the Raiders here. Under the NFL and NFLPA’s agreement, if a head coach was interim coach for more than two games, then he and his staff are ineligible for the added time and extra minicamp in their first offseason with the team. Antonio Pierce, having coached nine games, was way over that threshold. So the Raiders, under Pierce, will start next Monday.

The silver lining here is that the number of players who have voluntarily come in to work out at the facility over the last few weeks has been very healthy, and that helps mitigate anything lost without that built-in advantage. You can chalk at least part of that up, of course, to guys wanting to be in Vegas, or living there full-time, in the offseason.

• A lot of NFL people were disappointed Iowa CB Cooper DeJean didn’t work out at the combine—a broken leg in November, with surgery to follow, made that a no-go—because they thought he would prove to be one of the real athletic freaks of the week in Indy.

DeJean proved to be worth the wait Monday in Iowa City.

The unanimous All-American, and two-time first-team all–Big Ten pick, burned a 40-yard dash in the low-to-mid 4.4 seconds at his belated pro day (one team had his low at 4.42, another had his two runs at 4.43 and 4.45). He posted a 38.5” vertical jump, and 10’4” broad jump at 6-foot-and-change and 202 pounds. And he did all of it just 12 days after being medically cleared on March 27.

Most teams I’ve talked to see DeJean as a Swiss-army knife in the secondary, similar to what Malcolm Jenkins was for the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles—capable of playing safety, and covering tight ends and slots inside, in addition to corner. Which, really, is what most teams are looking for on the back end these days. The confirmation of DeJean’s physical traits could well land him a home in the first round.

• Another big pro day comes Wednesday with Georgia’s Brock Bowers and Amarius Mims, two near-locks for the first round, set to work out.

Bowers is the one most interesting to me, mostly because as special of a tight end as he was at the college level, he is an outlier physically for his position in the pros. He came in 6’3” and 243 pounds at the combine, and that was actually bigger than a lot of folks thought he would be. And while he is a willing blocker, to be sure, he wasn’t used as a traditional tight end as much in Georgia’s offense—moving around the formation and playing all over the place.

That means, to bring the best out in him, you’ll have to have a plan. You’ll probably also have to have a more traditional tight end on hand to facilitate moving him around. Given that, then, teams want to know just how freakish he is as an athlete before they go all-in on accommodating a different type of player (this is a tight end who, in college, was getting the ball and breaking long runs on reverses, so there’s evidence there).

As for comps, on the high end, I’ve heard some say Shannon Sharpe, and some say Dallas Clark, so it’s not like the NFL is low on the guy.

McCourty (32) was part of a long line of former Rutgers players who teamed up with Belichick (right) in New England. / David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

• Logan Ryan retired Tuesday, and it brought back to mind how reliant Bill Belichick was over the years on his college coaching friends for background on prospects’ readiness to be a part of one of pro sports’ most demanding programs.

Leaning too much on said connections bit Belichick in the end (see: Harry, N’Keal).

But it’s worth mentioning that the Rutgers pipeline that we all poked fun at a decade ago wound up being pretty great to Belichick and his Patriots. New England spent three top-100 picks on Rutgers players between 2010 and ’13. One was Devin McCourty, a captain for multiple Super Bowl title teams and a future Patriots Hall of Famer. The other two were Ryan and Duron Harmon, who won rings (plural) in New England and each played over a decade in the league.

Then, there’s former undrafted free agent Tiquan Underwood, who is now on the Patriots’ coaching staff, and Jason McCourty, who joined his brother as a Patriot and won a Super Bowl. It’s clear the Piscataway-to-Foxboro pipeline wound up being very healthy.

• Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr. has visited the Chicago Bears and Arizona Cardinals, and it’s part of an interesting approach that’s really limited information to the teams that will have a legitimate shot at taking him. As we’ve said before, I would imagine the way he and Caleb Williams have handled the last few months is a sign that the first high school class (2021) to come through college and into the NFL during the NIL era is more business-minded and that we’ll see more of this sort of strategy from the super-elite prospect in the future.

• You can see the 30 visits piling up for guys like Texas RB Jonathon Brooks and UCLA edge rusher Laiatu Latu. The former is coming off a torn ACL (the hope is he’ll be cleared around July 1). The latter has a neck condition that wound up disqualifying him medically at Washington a couple years ago, and forcing his transfer. And both are examples of how these visits often are about more than simple interest from a team in a player. With these guys, it’s also about a team doctor getting another look at a medically flagged prospect.

• The Titans got started this week, and one of the underrated stories of this offseason, to me, is the new partnership between new coach Brian Callahan and QB Will Levis. The team was aggressive in adding Lloyd Cushenberry, Tony Pollard and Calvin Ridley to the offense, knowing it’ll need an answer on whether or not Levis can be the guy coming out of the new staff’s first year.