Contract holdouts are nothing new for the Dallas Cowboys during training camp.
The belief is that the Dallas Cowboys will get a new deal completed with receiver CeeDee Lamb before the season begins. Both sides are working hard to get the best deal possible. This is the business side of the NFL, but we’ll all feel better when we know that the team’s star receiver will be wearing the star for many years to come.
Once a deal gets done, everything’s breezy, right? It’s back to football and we can pretend this whole charade even happened. However, even after he signs, what will it mean for Lamb and his readiness to start the regular season? He has missed a lot of time in training camp where the team has been working on new installs and all the finer details of the offense. Will Lamb’s absence lead to any “rust” during the beginning of the season? Granted, Lamb is a seasoned veteran with a great deal of chemistry with Dak Prescott, but does that mean he will come back and hit the ground running?
Speaking of hitting the ground, is Lamb’s body in great football shape? We hear all about him working out on his own and running around on the beach, but is that the same as what he’d be going through in training camp? Lamb has only missed one game over his four-year career so he’s demonstrated he’s extremely resilient, but would missing these practices put him at greater risk of injury?
Before we speculate what this reduced camp could mean for Lamb, let’s look at some other notable Cowboys holdouts and see if there are any patterns.
Zack Martin
Holdout ended: August 14th (a month before the start of the new season)
This story actually started back in 2018 when Zack Martin wanted a new deal with one year left on his rookie contract that included a fifth-year option the Cowboys had exercised the year prior. It’s very similar to Lamb’s situation now as both were well established as one of the elites at their respective positions with multiple All-Pro seasons already under their belt. Martin held out, missing OTAs that summer, but the two sides finalized a deal in June that kept Martin under contract through the 2024 season.
At the time, it seemed like waiting had cost the Cowboys more money, but the length of the deal actually worked quite favorably for them. In fact, it was so good that Martin again held out last year in an effort to work a restructure that included a pay increase. The front office obliged and Martin returned to the team on August 14th with 27 days left before the start of the season. He was ready to go with no issues. He did miss Week 4 with an ankle injury, but these were the usual bumps and bruises he’s been dealing with over the last six years. And while it wasn’t the best season of his great career, it was still good enough to earn first-team All-Pro honors for the seventh time in his career.
Verdict: No lingering effects from the holdout.
Ezekiel Elliott
Holdout ended: September 4th (four days before the start of the season)
Elliott was staring at the same fate as Martin as the team exercised his fifth-year option and was in no hurry to work a new deal. Elliott’s stock was super high as he led the league in yards per game in each of his first three seasons in the league, so he wisely pushed for a new deal as soon as he was eligible. Zeke held out in the summer of 2019 and this standout went down to the wire as the Cowboys didn’t re-sign him until September 4th, four days before the start of the regular season. How did this impact Elliott’s performance that year?
On the surface, Elliott had a down year, seeing an 11.2% drop in rushing yards per game, going from 95.8 in 2018 to 84.6 in 2019. But that’s a little misleading as Elliott’s yards per game has dropped in every single year of his career, and that can be attributed to the wear and tear catching up to him.
What is more interesting is how he did in the first part of the season compared to later. Did it take him time to warm up? The graph below shows his cumulative yards per attempt with each new week factored in. In some years he did start a little slow, but 2018 wasn’t one of them. In fact, it was one of his more consistent seasons on a week-to-week basis.
Verdict: No lingering effects from the holdout.
Believe it or not, this holdout thing isn’t as common as we think. Sure, between Zeke, Zack, and now CeeDee, it makes four holdouts in seven years (if we count Martin twice), but before that there was a long drought. Of course, the time before that was a holdout for the ages.
Emmitt Smith
Holdout ended: September 20th (two weeks after the start of the regular season)
The Cowboys rose to glory in the ‘90s after Jimmy Johnson took over as the team went from 1-15 to Super Bowl Champions in three short years. Smith was a big part of that as he led the league in rushing in each of the last two years heading into the 1993 season, and he wanted to be compensated accordingly. Jerry Jones had other thoughts, so Smith decided to hold out until he got a new deal. This holdout was serious business and carried over into the regular season, but after the defending Super Bowl Champs lost their first two games of the season, Jerry had seen enough.
Smith was given his new deal and the Cowboys immediately started winning. The Cowboys proceeded to win 15 of their next 17 games including their second straight Super Bowl. Despite missing the first two games, Smith again won the rushing title for the third straight year. He won the league MVP that year, embodying what it means to be “most valuable.”
Verdict: No lingering effects from the holdout.
The media circus around these holdouts can be a little taxing and it’s certainly not fun for us fans, but from the evidence we have so far, none of these holdouts have proven a detriment to the Cowboys. Hopefully, that trend continues.