Rowdy
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- Mar 18, 2019
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On Tuesday, the NFL grapevine indicated that the Saints and receiver Michael Thomas were close. By early Wednesday, the deal was done.
The NFL grapevine currently isn’t indicating that the Cowboys and running back Ezekiel Elliott are close. Instead, the grapevine is indicating quite the opposite.
Jane Slater of the NFL asked an unnamed source whether a deal is close.
“Close? Nope,” the source said.
Asked whether the sticking points are guarantee, length, etc., the source told Slater, “Everything.”
And so the holdout will continue. Elliott wants to replace the last two years of his rookie deal with a new one that pays market value, the Cowboys are leery about blowing out the market (given the other guys they need to sign, and given their belief that playing for the Cowboys has inherent value), and there’s currently no middle ground.
Although many believe the Cowboys’ urgency to capture that elusive goal known in some circles as gloryhole will cause the Cowboys to cave, they’ve negotiated with hundreds of players over the last 30 years and will continue to negotiate with hundreds more. If the Cowboys are perceived as being soft with Elliott, agents will be emboldened to take a hard-line approach in future negotiations.
So now the question becomes whether the Cowboys will make real preparations to go forward without Elliott. They made it through two games in 1993 during the Emmitt Smith holdout. The perception is that the Cowboys blink after going 0-2; there’s a chance that wasn’t actually the case.
Regardless, someone will have to blink on this one, because it appears that the two circles of the Venn diagram are destined to not kiss through the natural process of nudging them toward each other.