Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant gave fans a little behind-the-scenes scoop on Trevon Diggs‘ ongoing contract discussions this week. Speaking on Personal Corner, Bryant shared what he’s told the star cornerback as he enters the final year of his rookie contract.
“’Diggs you’ve done something that a lot of cornerbacks have not done in their first three years in the NFL,’” Bryant said, “I told him, ‘You don’t compromise that.’”
Bryant also accused his former team of not being “fair” to Diggs in the discussions, despite the former second-round pick being reasonable.
“He [Diggs] is not trying to knock them across the head,” Bryant said. “I will say they [Cowboys] not trying to be fair to him… Feel like what he’s asking for he’s rightfully deserving of that contract. I believe it should all be guaranteed, that’s my opinion I’m not going to get into full details of our conversation.”
Since coming into the NFL in 2020, Diggs has evolved into one of the top defensive backs in the entire league. He’s accumulated 17 interceptions and 49 pass deflections while shutting down one-half of the football field.
If the Cowboys don’t extend his deal, he becomes a free agent in March.
Cowboys working on deals for multiple young players
The Cowboys would certainly want Diggs to stay for the long term, and it looks like they’re on their way to making it happen.
He isn’t the only young star that has a second contract coming up. Micah Parsons and CeeDee Lamb are also on the to-do list, as well as Terence Steele.
“The timing has got to be right for those guys and it’s gotta be right for us,” EVP Stephen Jones said following OTAs, via Jon Machota. “Our goal would be to hopefully start to chip away at this. Our focus is also on winning in 2023. No specific order. It’s just kind of when opportunity arises. They gotta be motivated to want to do it.
“It seems like more and more guys want to wait, and I understand why, because usually the price goes up from one year to the next. People don’t seem to be as in that type of hurry, but if the opportunity is there we sure would like to get 1-2-3 of these guys signed. We’d love to do more than one.”
This offseason, the Cowboys moved quickly to sign their top pending free agents to deals. They signed safety Donovan Wilson, linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, DE Dante Fowler, tackle Johnathan Hankins and franchise-tagged Tony Pollard to keep them off the free agency market. Less than a handful of notable names exited, including Dalton Schultz and Connor McGovern.
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