When it comes to high-stakes contract negotiations, the first decision becomes one of the most important.
When is the deadline for getting a deal done?
For the Cowboys and receiver CeeDee Lamb, the deadline they set was a mistake.
Look at the Vikings and Justin Jefferson. They decided to make the clock strike 12 before the mandatory minicamp in June. And so, when a deal was finalized, he was available for a couple of offseason practices and all of training camp.
Lamb missed all of camp and all of the preseason. He’ll be playing catchup until he literally catches up. And there will be more pressure on him to play like he did last year.
It’s unclear whether the player or the team set the deadline. Given that Lamb, based on his comments from Tuesday, wanted to be at camp, chances are the Cowboys decided to make this week the week to move to their bottom line. Especially since owner Jerry Jones seemed to relish the extra attention that came from Lamb’s holdout.
Jones knew what to say and when to say it, in order to get the most bang for his unwillingness to commit to spending his bucks. Was it a coincidence that Jones said he had “no urgency” to sign Lamb, just as the Giants and Patriots were preparing to launch the preseason slate with a pair of Thursday night games? By saying what he said when he said it, Jones stole the spotlight from his chief rival in the division and his top rival in Club Oligarch.
It won’t help the Cowboys or Lamb get the most out of the 2024 season. It did help Jerry and his team get maximum press from the Lamb holdout — which would have been avoided if the Cowboys had handled Lamb’s situation the same way the Vikings handled Jefferson’s.
And, yes, this also applies to the 49ers and Brandon Aiyuk/Trent Williams and the Bengals and Ja’Marr Chase. The deadline should always come before training camp opens, in order to let the player to get properly prepared — and to reduce the pressure that player and team eventually will feel to get up to speed.