Franchising Dez Bryant Talk – Just Part of Negotiating
By Reid Hanson
Everyone breathe.While the possibility of Dez Bryant playing the 2015 NFL season under the franchise tag exists, it’s still not a very likely outcome at this point. Contrary to what Stephen Jones is saying, the endgame is still clearly to sign Dez Bryant to a long-term contract, this season.
How can we explain comments like this?
"“Right now we’re probably leaning that way,” said Stephen Jones. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t change. We’ll probably wait till the midnight hour to make that decision.”"
This is all part of the negotiating process. Star players absolutely HATE the franchise tag. Instead of getting multi-year contracts with multiyear guaranteed money, players are forced to play year-to-year. True, it is an excessive amount of money, but it comes with no long-term security.
A franchised player is one catastrophic injury away from never seeing another paycheck. It’s difficult to fathom in the non-athlete “civilian” world, but it’s a real concern for athletes of any sport. Especially a sport like football, where players are more prone to injury, have shorter career life, and get the least amount of guaranteed money. Long-term security matters a great deal to them because it could all end at any moment.
That’s exactly why Stephen Jones said what he did this week. Through these comments, the Cowboys are essentially saying that the Dez Bryant Camp is asking for too much. What exactly? We don’t know, but considering the Cowboys have never been accused of “stinginess”, it’s safe to say Dez is trying to break the bank. Can’t blame him either.
When two sides are far apart, it would be foolish not to use all the leverage available. In this case, the leverage is the franchise tag. Stephen and Jerry Jones are excellent contract negotiators. They are fair, efficient, and always get their man.
When Stephen said, “We’ll probably wait till the midnight hour…”, he was simply laying out the same strategy they use with every difficult contract in the past (and draft pick signing). They are notorious for waiting until the last minute to sign contracts. That’s when they are at their best. They make the players sweat, while they hold the ultimate trump card. Here, the trump card is called the franchise tag.
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With the franchise tag, figuratively
poking out of their pocket
, they run no risk of losing Dez Bryant. They can play this as cool as they want to. Dez is the one feeling nervous right now, and every day that goes by, he’s feeling it even more. Some may wonder, ‘Is this any way to treat your star athlete and face of the franchise?’ Yes. Because this is business and when this all gets resolved, which it will, all will be forgotten.
The Cowboys have no plans to have Dez Bryant actually play under the franchise tag in 2015. Even if Dez and Stephen don’t agree to a multiyear deal before the March 2nd deadline, and the Cowboys use the dreaded franchise tag, they can still negotiate a long-term deal before the season begins.
At the end of the day we need to accept this:
- There is a hard salary cap in today’s NFL. The Cowboys can’t pay everyone what they want or they won’t be able to field an entire team.
- The Cowboys are not trying to save money – They are trying to reallocate it. This means any savings from Dez Bryant, will be used elsewhere. It will not go back in the bank, it will be used on the team. If playing hardball with Dez is the difference between keeping or losing DeMarco Murray or Rolando McClain, or any other quality free agent, then by all means, play hard ball.
It will all work out in the end and Dez will likely be locked up by the Cowboys for the foreseeable future. He’s the most important person on this team not named Romo, and everyone knows it. Dez will get his – no worries, Cowboys Nation. This is just talk to make the other side nervous. And it’s working.