Late Friday, Jerry Jones backed the Brink’s truck into Tony Romo‘s driveway with a five-year, $108 million dollar contract extension. Jones gave $55 million in straight cash, guaranteed.. Jones wasn’t about to get distracted by the young arms strutting into the league during next month’s draft. That’s why he hasn’t brought up a young quarterback to groom as Romo’s eventual replacement.
NFC East foe Philadelphia drafted Kevin Kolb and hid the knife they’d stab McNabb with in the back behind the clipboard he held for two years. Romo has been fortunate to live without a youngin’ breathing down his back.
However, Romo’s $108 million contract won’t weigh too heavily on the Cowboys cap immediately. The guaranteed $55 million will be stretched out over the life of his contract and frequently restructured until it expires or the Cowboys cut him. However, it will come back to bite the organization down the road.
As Romo gets older, his cap number will keep growing, making him more likely to get cut in the future if he can’t cut it.
General managers have started doing some of that Madoff math to fix the books and keep their quarterbacks paid and their salary caps flexible. Everyone else can go kick rocks. It’s a "what have you done for me lately" society for everyone except NFL quarterbacks. Why else would the Cowboys drop the second-highest guaranteed contract in NFL history on Tony Romo, while the Broncos just finished haggling over dropping $4 million from Elvis Dumervil’s Broncos contract after an 11 sack season?
The Cowboys just restructured Demarcus Ware’s direct deposit numbers last month.
Pretty soon, this frivolous spending will come back to haunt the Boys.
Ultimately, the Cowboys are so blinded by Jerry Jones’ lust for a title that they’ve locked themselves back into a rocky marriage with a gold-digging quarterback. Contrary to popular belief, Jerry Jones’ first partnership with a superstar quarterback didn’t end because of concussions. The Cowboys waived him and took a $10 million dollar cap hit after spending months trying to renegotiate his $7 million bonus.
The Cowboys have kicked the can down the road like Beckham. They better hope they’ve brought themselves a Super Bowl because at some point, some point very soon it’ll ricochet back and bust them in the mouth.
