Just because the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos weren't legally allowed to collude when it came to hammering out deals for their formerly franchise tagged wide receivers, Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas, doesn't mean that Bryant and Thomas or, more accurately, their respective representatives, couldn't engage in a little note-sharing themselves.
In fact, that's exactly what happened, directly leading to both Bryant and Thomas signing nearly identical five-year, $70 million deals prior to the 4 p.m. deadline on Wednesday, according to a report from Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com.
"It's permissible for players and agents to collude. In this specific case, coordination between Bryant and Thomas became a no-brainer because their agents, Tom Condon and Todd France, now work together at CAA," writes Florio.
"Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the two agents took full advantage of their new relationship to shake five-year, $70 million deals from two teams that, before Wednesday, hadn't gotten close to the $14 million annual average that two years under the franchise tag dictated for both players."
Per Florio, while Calvin Johnson and his mammoth seven-year, $113.45 million red herring of a contract - a contract that carries over $53 million in guarantees - was said to be causing the biggest headaches for Cowboys owners Stephen and Jerry Jones and Broncos GM John Elway as they attempted to lock up their high-impact offensive weaponry, it was actually as simple as the two-year value of the franchise tag - about $28 million - being exceeded by the guarantees in the first two years of each contract.
Bryant, of course, has $45 million of his deal guaranteed for injury. He has $23 million guaranteed at this very moment and $22 million guaranteed as of March 2016.
Thomas has $35 million guaranteed now, with $8.5 million becoming injury-only guaranteed in early 2017.
In the end, it wasn't surprising that the deals signed by the two players were eerily similar, beyond just the fact that they're both franchise tagged wide receivers looking for major contracts at the same time on the same market and boasting similar production.
"By coordinating, Condon and France were able to squeeze out a lot more than the $28-million-over-two-years line of demarcation between signing a long-term contract or simply playing under the tag," writes Florio. "Their ability to permissibly collude helped make that happen."
The question as to whether the Cowboys and Broncos colluded, of course, has not yet been answered. And if a report from earlier this week is to be believed, the down-to-the-wire deals signed by Bryant and Thomas may mean that we'll never actually find out.
