In July of 2015, Dez Bryant landed a 5-year deal with the Dallas Cowboys worth a total of $70 million after threatening a holdout. The contract made Bryant one of the highest-paid receivers in the league at the time – but he would never see the full $70 million, as the Cowboys cut him in 2018 with two years remaining, after determining Bryant wasn’t worth $12.5 million per year.
Four years later, Cowboys owner and GM Jerry Jones is navigating the holdout of star running back Ezekiel Elliott, and Jones has made it a point to shame Elliott for not honoring his contract. NFL teams, meanwhile, are free to cut players whenever it suits them, just as it suited the Cowboys in Bryant’s situation.
It doesn’t sound like Jones and Elliott’s camp are close to a resolution, if the owner’s latest comments are any indication. On Friday, Jones said in a radio interview that since Elliott hasn’t already led the Cowboys to a Super Bowl, “obviously he’s not the ingredient” to success on the field.
Bryant spoke out about Elliott’s holdout on Twitter Friday afternoon, and urged the running back to stand his ground. Bryant wrote that decades from now, Elliott will be happy he fought for a big payday in his prime.
Bryant also addressed some of the frequent criticisms that fans and analysts have used against Elliott, and said that if the Cowboys are concerned about Elliott’s off-field issues, they should part ways with him instead of using the concern against him in contract negotiations.
