There are few ideas more loathsome for Cowboys fans than that of DeMarcus Ware becoming a restricted free agent after this season.
However, without a new collective bargaining agreement or a new contract, that's exactly what would happen.
Pat Dye, Jr., Ware's agent, coming to Valley Ranch on Thursday to discuss a new deal represents some much needed progress in negotiations that are seemingly still a long way from a resolution. But progress is progress, I suppose, and locking up DeMarcus Ware--as Jerry Jones stated at the beginning of the summer--is a top priority for the team.
"It's closer than what it was," Dye said in today's Honolulu Advertiser. "We weren't in the same universe before (Thursday)."
"They made significant concessions in some areas and we made significant concessions in all areas," Dye added. "It's a matter of determining what his value is. We still have three, four or five fundamental differences."
One thing seems to be certain; whatever the contract is, it will be huge. Oprah Winfrey-in-the-early-nineties huge. Ware is arguably the best defensive player in the game--something that has probably been pointed out to the Joneses a time or two by Dye--which make the leviathan contracts of Albert Haynesworth and Terrell Suggs a probable threshold for Ware's camp to equal, or cross.
Dye remains cutiously optimistic about the deal, though it is still admittedly in the early, mostly undefined stages.
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"There is still some work to be done," Dye said. "We don't have a timeline. Both sides would rather have it behind them sooner than later. We will just see."
