Former Eagles executive questions Cowboys’ contract strategy

Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones. Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran/USA TODAY NETWORK

A former Philadelphia Eagles executive thinks the Dallas Cowboys cannot stop making the same mistake regarding their contract talks.

Joe Banner was the Eagles’ president from 1995 to 2012, a period in which the Eagles and Cowboys were regularly competing with each other for playoff success in the NFC East. On social media Friday, he recounted how the Cowboys had always liked to delay contract negotiations as long as possible, a tactic they have been accused of now as well.

Banner went a step further, admitting that he and the Eagles’ front office at the time viewed the Cowboys’ negotiating tactics as a “significant competitive advantage” to their team. He openly admitted that he does not understand why the team has continued to persist with it.

When I was at Eagles we thought that Cowboys plan to resign players as late as they did, provided a significant competitive advantage for us. That remains true and obvious to this day. Not sure why they have continued with this strategy.

— Joe Banner (@JoeBanner13) July 26, 2024

It is never great to see a rival publicly call one organizational strategy out as a competitive advantage for rivals, but it is tough to disagree. The Cowboys have slow-walked contract talks with both Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb this offseason, even as other players at both positions on other teams have signed huge new contracts. Prescott, at the very least, is probably going to be far more expensive to re-sign now than he would have been even a few months ago. Beyond the numbers, the waiting game also creates a bunch of needless drama from the Cowboys’ perspective.

Still, there are no signs that owner Jerry Jones plans to change his ways. It’s not clear what his endgame is, though he remains hugely confident that the deals that need to get done eventually will be. Even if he is right, they’ll probably end up being more expensive and dramatic than they had to be.