Cowboys Reveal Zack Martin Mindset: 'You Move On Without Him!' - Jerry Jones
It's an old coaching credo that sometimes comes across as brutally cold. "We only talk about the players who are with us,'' they've long said.
And that is the new ownership credo for Jerry Jones as he discussed on Monday the contract holdout of a member of the Dallas Cowboys who one colleague believes is the best player in the NFL.
"You realize that not having him here, it could happen (via injury) on the next play,'' Jones said of other ways in which the player in question, All-Pro guard Zack Martin, might be unavailable. "You got to put that one on and say you just move on here without him.''
Brutally cold? Or brutally frank? Martin remains away from the Cowboys training camp in Oxnard as the veteran is looking for a new contract that would pay him like the top guards are now paid ($20 million APY), while Jones is taking the position that the franchise already paid him, with his $13.5 million salary for this year a result of previous massive paydays.
has missed 10 practices with the team. Therefore, Dallas has made sure to fine the offensive guard for every practice that he misses.haven’t made any progress with Zack Martin? Jones: “Not really. Surprised is really not the word there. It’s very costly. That’s just where we are. There are huge, significant ramifications happening here by anybody’s measure, financially. You say that sounds like a concern. No, I’m just trying to give you how you really have to look at it.”
By NFL rule, Martin is being fined $50,000 a day for his absence, which means so far the veteran has amassed $600,000 worth of punishment this summer. There is a stalemate, a game of Chicken, and there is no sign that either side plans to budge.
Jones told CowboysSI.com last week that the team has no plan and no need to negotiate or "compromise.'' And the owner more recently said that the salary-cap pie is already designed to fit a certain way ... and that Martin cannot be allowed a bigger slice.
“It’s not about precedent, it’s about facts,” Jones said. "We need the money to pay (Micah) Parsons (in the future). We need the money to pay the players that we got to pay in the future. That’s a fact.”
Martin has been a star in Dallas since the team drafted him in 2014, and he has indeed been an elite player. In nine NFL seasons, Martin has made eight Pro Bowls and has been a first-team All Pro six times and second-team All Pro twice. But right now? He's not in Oxnard. So in the front office's voice, and maybe in its minds, he might as well be injured. Or invisible.
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