Sycophants obsessed with the Cowboy Way will disagree, as they often do, but Dallas receiver CeeDee Lamb has the right idea. Withholding services is the only way to grab the attention of a man who does not seem to realize the deleterious effects of his mismanagement.
In fact, I’ll go a step further and say that Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons should join him in not practicing another down without long-term financial compensation.
Long ago, good general managers, owners and coaches came to the critical realization that stability breeds success and that, when approaching a critical season, one of the key tenets is a sense—even if faint—of security; a sense that the sacrifices one has put on their body have been seen; a sense that they are not just going to be hurled out of the facility the moment they suffer a career-altering injury. We can see it in the way teams hire their coaches now. Gone are the Belichickian, Gruden-ian, Parcells-ian, paramilitary henchmen of years past, who have to operate publicly with little concern for someone's personal preferences and operate with the calculated coolness of an Alaskan detective. In are younger coaches who are just as revered for their team-building prowess; for keeping the door wide open; for leveling with their employees.
Gone next will be this absolutely ridiculous trend of waiting until the last possible second to sign valued members of the team to a contract. We’ve outlined this ad nauseam, but how much better is life for Detroit and Philadelphia, for example, having gotten ahead of their most pressing financial matters with the early signings of players such as DeVonta Smith, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Penei Sewell. Obviously, a team cannot pay everyone but they can pay their absolute best players before it is dangerously, frantically close to the deadline; before hard feelings and hurtful rumors and anonymous cat scratching creep into the fold and create those little moments of pessimism that force a player or a coach to ask, during the lean moments, “Do I really want to lay my body out there for these cheapskates?”
I feel like we need to say it until someone hears: The Cowboys are “attempting” (quotes for emphasis) to win a Super Bowl this year whilst nearly the entire staff is on one-year contracts. The head coach has no security despite winning 12 games a year each of the past three years. The quarterback has no security despite three Pro Bowl appearances, despite leading the NFL in touchdown passes a year ago, despite finishing second-team All-Pro and despite being a Walter Payton Man of the Year. The generational pass rusher has little security beyond next year’s fifth-year option despite logging 40 sacks and 89 quarterback hits in three seasons, along with three Pro Bowl and two first-team All-Pro nods, and a Defensive Rookie of the Year award.
The wide receiver is finally willing to take Jones Inc. to the mat … well, you get it.
A group holdout of the team’s star troika would be the only way to snap Jerry Jones out of this trance. During the elongated lead-up to Prescott’s last contract negotiation, I wrote about the franchise’s long history of believing that there is a certain privilege to playing for the sport’s most popular franchise. That posture informed a certain arrogance at the bargaining table and, indeed, they have gotten top-of-the-market players to take less at times (even before Jones, the team’s culture of throwing around steakhouse dinners, pressuring unsigned players via their weekly television show and fixing them up with summer jobs was incredibly commonplace).
But that advantage is changing. Sure, it’s great to be a Cowboy but if some name brand really mattered all that much, Notre Dame would be competing for a national championship every year and not getting boat raced by every five-star who opted into the SEC. The Yankees wouldn’t be caving in every August and September as their brittle roster collapsed. Prescott and Parsons would still be just as famous playing for the Jaguars. Lamb, often overshadowed, may actually heighten his personal brand awareness by going to a place where he can enjoy top billing.
Look around the NFL right now at all of the other pending holdouts. The Dolphins and Tua Tagovailoa have yet to come to terms in what is, legitimately, a complex situation. We don’t know if Tagovailoa is the product of a system or has simply, miraculously improved under head coach Mike McDaniel. We don’t know if he can function as a north star for this offense without Tyreek Hill. This is something that most sane people understand.
The Packers and Jordan Love? Another situation where the player has immense promise and is in need of a massive, market-altering extension despite a very limited sample size.
The 49ers and Brandon Aiyuk? Same deal. The offense is so prolific, and Aiyuk took so long to come around to playing within its rhythms. The team also drafted a potential replacement in the first round of this year’s draft.
Lamb is not a player who elicits question marks. Nor is Prescott. Nor is Parsons. Each of them is either the best player at their position in the NFL, or among the best players at their position. They don’t deserve to be held in the same purgatory. Kudos to Lamb for at least taking the first step toward changing that by throwing his feet up when it comes time to start padded practice.
Prescott and Parsons should be right behind him. It’s the only way to show Jones that, when it comes to this iteration of the Dallas Cowboys, it’s not about the Star anymore. It’s about a collection of them that a franchise has somehow stumbled upon but doesn’t appear grateful for in the least.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cowboys’ Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons Should Join CeeDee Lamb and Hold Out.
