Cowboys Clock Ticks On The Tag; Dak and Amari Await Their Fate

FRISCO - In the spring of 1990, I found myself invited into Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' Valley Ranch office. Fortunately for me, my visit coincided with a contract-negotiation phone call with the agent for veteran cornerback Issiac Holt.

After Jerry hung up the phone, with obvious positive progress made as near as I could tell, I asked him, "Given how close you seem to be to agreeing, why not just stay on the phone and close the agreement?''

"Well, Mr. Miiiiike,'' Jerry drawled, "Deadlines ... make deals.''

That was the first of a million times Cowboys Nation has heard the phrase. As it applied then: Dallas didn't need to do a new deal with Holt that day. So that day, it didn't happen.

This, however, is a new day, in many ways. This isn't about a journeyman cornerback. This is about a franchise QB and a Pro Bowl receiver, and about a franchise-tag clock ticking loudly - from now until 11:59 a.m. CT Monday, at which time the Cowboys, Prescott and Cooper must make gigantic decisions about their financial fate ... together.

By now, you know the Cowboys options. "Simply'' signing both stars to cap-friendly deals is optimal, but not so "simple.'' While the Cowboys, in Dak's case, have an offer on the table in cumulative excess of $35 million APY and $105 million guaranteed, the team surely wants this to be a six-year contract, say - while Dak's side, aware of how the cap will explode upward after the 2022 expiration of the present TV deal, has every reason to desire to be free agent as early as possible.

Cooper has long had on the table a proposal that would pay him like a "top-five'' player at his position. But as with Dak, the devil can be in the details; APY and guarantees matter but so do years.

Having watched the Jones family engineer its way to contractual "wins'' toward roster-building - complete with Cowboys watchers' general belief that "Jerry never loses a player he really wants'' - I continue to predict, maybe naively, that Prescott and Cooper will be Cowboys in 2020. (Our Cowboys Free-Agency Roster Primer is here.) That can mean two contracts, or one contract and a tag (assuming the CBA vote passes.

(UPDATE: On Sunday morning, it was announced that the CBA has been approved by players. So ... while this is good news for positive movement toward football being played, teams cannot use both the franchise tag and transition tag in this offseason. So one tag it is.)

But we're also all aware of a worst-case scenario: Dak is tagged. Cooper is free. Dallas keeps talking with Cooper in an attempt to retain him but he signs elsewhere. Dak has his $33 million exclusive tag but balks at its restrictions and holds out his services for the spring and maybe longer, a large problem when it involves the team leader of a club with a new head coach.

The reasons for pessimism are many, especially in our present beyond-football climate. But the reasons for Cowboys contractual optimism? I have one overriding one.

"Deadlines make deals.''

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