Pump the brakes on all those happy holiday feelings, Dallas Cowboys fans.
HNGN passed along a report on Wednesday that the Cowboys brass, led by Stephen and Jerry Jones, were "very optimistic" about getting a contract extension done with mercurial wide receiver Dez Bryant ahead of the July 15 deadline; the final day by which franchise tagged players can negotiate new deals with their respective teams.
Dallas was said to be so comfortable with the likelihood that they'd get a deal done shortly after the holiday weekend, in fact, that they were willing to take a "negotiating break" to celebrate.
Unfortunately for fans of America's Team, set to celebrate America's Holiday, the latest report flies directly in the face of Wednesday's more positive revelation.
It seems, according to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report, that the Cowboys have not budged from their offer to Bryant and will not do so as they believe Bryant's threat of holding out of training camp and potentially into the regular season was just a bluff.
Per Cole, the team believes Bryant is having money problems and won't be able to survive missing game checks.
Their approach at this point will be to tell Bryant to either sign their offer or play the 2015 NFL season under the $12.8 million franchise tag.
Bryant, of course, indicated in June that he was willing to "pull an Emmitt Smith," meaning sit out the first couple weeks of the regular season if he wasn't given a new deal. The notion is silly, of course, because at that point the team wouldn't be able to do anything about his contract and it would ultimately amount to a pointless, money-losing tantrum on Bryant's part.
Still, as we've all seen time and again, professional football players are often young men with major egos who may not be fully equipped to handle the high-level negotiations, let alone money, that comes along with their station.
This situation will definitely remain one to monitor for Cowboys fans.
