Good to Great players always get what the market dictates. There’s no mystery at any position what it will take to retain a player with high value like Cedee. The NFL is just like all other businesses when it comes to market value. You get what you pay for. There are zero mysteries.
When the Jones talk about waiting for the “leaves to fall”, being “comfortable with ambiguity” or “We don’t set the market”, they look and sound exactly like what they are: Football idiots on how to build a roster that can seriously compete for a championship.
They are great at making money. They are pitifully under-equipped to lead an NFL front office in the cap era. The evidence is overwhelming. They are hillbillies playing fantasy football and it is no longer even in question.
Our front office makes the same sequence of mistakes pretty often:
Step 1: They know they clearly have a very good player by year 3 and that they will definitely want to resign them.
Step 2: Refuse to hold meaningful contract negotiations in order to "let the leaves fall"
Step 3: Player's market value continues to increase with continued great play + rising market at their position value over time.
Step 4: Cowboys front office has absolutely zero leverage as the rookie deal runs out and has to sign a market setting deal when they could have had the player for 15-25% cheaper the previous offseason.
I will give them credit for the Diggs deal. It is a textbook example of how teams should be operating with proven All-Pro Players after their 3rd season. His injury was a tough break, but not on the front office.
What is even more maddening is that they will go ahead and sign huge deals early or coming off of serious injury with unproven commodities or just poor investments given positional value i.e Zeke, Jaylon Smith, Steele, Gallup, etc.
