Report: Dez Bryant Was in “Financial Distress” Before New Deal

In the weeks leading up to the franchise tag deadline, when it was looking like the Dallas Cowboys would be unable to get a long-term deal done with Dez Bryant, it was reported that the team’s confidence going forward without a new deal came from a belief that, mad about the tag or not, Bryant needed the money--and as such, would report to training camp (and not, as other reports suggested, hold out through camp and into the regular season).

Of course, a long-term agreement was struck at the deadline, making all those mid-holdout whispers forgettable. For awhile anyway.

We’re reminded of them now because a new report has at least that part of what was a cloudy story being true. In an interesting piece about the nuances of Bryant’s new deal on Monday, Bleacher Report’s Jason Cole cites four sources who say Bryant was in “financial distress” before signing the new contract on July 15.

As the report goes, this financial peril might have helped the Cowboys sign Bryant to a more team-friendly deal than he would have ever signed otherwise.

"What the Cowboys did is brilliant," a source familiar with the deal says in the piece. "They gave Dez an extra [$3.2 million] to get the long-term deal now and make him show up. But if something goes wrong and he defaults on the contract, they still have it. They don't have to go after him. He has to go after them, and that's a lot harder to do if you have other legal problems."