Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant doesn’t want to think about a contract extension once the 2014 season is underway, which leaves the two sides a short amount of time to come to an agreement if it is going to happen before Bryant plays out the final year of his current deal.
There are ongoing talks to see that a deal does get done, including one-on-one meetings between Bryant and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones this week. Tim McMahon of ESPNDallas.com reports that Bryant is “encouraged by the individual attention” he’s received in what Jones calls a rare situation where he’s met directly with a player.
“We have had good visits,” Jones said. “It’s a little different to be talking directly, for me to be talking directly with the player. I know of two that I’ve spent a lot of time directly talking with in some pretty sensitive areas when you’re talking about money. We all understand what that means. One of them Michael Irvin. He asked me to induct him into the Hall of Fame later and Emmitt Smith, he asked me to induct him into the Hall of Fame later. Troy [Aikman] always had Leigh Steinberg there, but we kind of talked straight in there together. But Dez and I have been visiting for years, ever since he’s been a Cowboy regarding things, and so it is a fairly unique situation that we’ve talked as much as we’ve talked, made it pretty easy and maybe propitious to be able to talk to him about his contract. That’s why we were actually talking there.”
The visits have been good, but Jones said that he doesn’t know if the two sides will make enough progress to get things finalized by the start of the regular season. If they don’t, the franchise tag could be in play for the 2015 season but there doesn’t seem to be much concern that Bryant will be anything but a Cowboy.