If quarterback Dak Prescott‘s next contract is the first domino to fall, it might be a while before the Dallas Cowboys are able to sign prolific wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to a new deal.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, there hasn’t been any progress — or any substantive talks on an extension that lowers Prescott’s $61 million cap number for the 2024 season which in turn makes it difficult to negotiate with the likes of Lamb, All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons, and the Cowboys’ other star players.
“But their negotiations so far with Dak have been described to me a passive or even nonexistent,” Fowler said during a Sunday appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter. “There really hasn’t been anything going on, so their actions are saying that maybe if they have to sit on his $61 million cap hit this year then figure it out later then they’ll do that. They’ve been fiscally responsible not really spending any money, so they know they have to address this at some point in the offseason.”
The Cowboys and Prescott previously mutually agreed that the quarterback would play out the final year of his contract this upcoming season, but, Lamb remains very much in limbo.
Emerging as one of the league’s most prolific receivers, Lamb is coming off a stellar 2023 campaign in which he caught 135 passes for a career-high 1,749 yards with 12 receiving touchdowns.
According to Fowler, though, Lamb has to get in line behind Prescott before any deal gets done.
“My sense is they need to figure out the [Dak Prescott] situation first,” Fowler said, of any potential Lamb negotiations.
CeeDee Lamb Expected to ‘Reset the Market’
As Prescott and the Cowboys sit in a holding pattern, Lamb is sitting out Dallas’ offseason program.
Meanwhile, the cost of premier wide receivers continues to rise across the NFL.
In the aftermath of the Detroit Lions [briefly] making Amon-Ra St. Brown the highest-paid wide receiver in the league, by AAV, with a four-year contract worth $120 million, the Philadelphia Eagles upped the ante by inking A.J. Brown to a three-year contract worth $86 million.
According to one prominent agent familiar with the wide receiver market, St. Brown and Brown’s contracts will serve as the guideposts for Lamb when any negotiations get underway with the Cowboys.
“Those two deals will only help CeeDee,” the agent told Heavy, on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about a player he doesn’t represent. “They push the No. 1 wide receiver market above $30 million annually. CeeDee will probably reset the market based on how Dallas does deals.”
If the Cowboys stay true to form and plan on making Lamb the NFL’s highest-paid receiver, it may require lowering Prescott’s cap number to make that kind of deal possible.
What is The Cowboys’ Cap Situation in the Coming Years?
The Cowboys’ cap constraints have been well documented this offseason, with Prescott’s cap number a driving force behind limiting Dallas’ flexibility.
According to Spotrac, only four teams have less cap space than the Cowboys’ $4.49 million in spending flexibility this offseason.
However, with Prescott’s deal off the books in 2025, the Cowboys will have approximately $83.1 million in cap space, representing the ninth-most in the NFL. Then, in 2026, the Cowboys are projected to have approximately $283.06 million in cap space, the sixth-most in the league.
Those projections are bound to change once the Cowboys reach some sort of eventual resolution with Prescott, Lamb, and Parsons. But, as things stand it seems that deciding what to do with Prescott is taking precedent for Jerry Jones and the Cowboys.
