Dallas Cowboys’ executive vice president Stephen Jones said recently, in an interview on ESPN Radio 103.3, that signing Miles Austin to a long-term deal remains the team’s top priority. However, it is still wholly unclear when this deal might get done.
The Cowboys have been hesitant in their dealings with Austin due to the current labor situation, and the uncertainty surrounding the 2011 season. The team addressed this future uncertainty by signing most of their key players to deals before the 2009 season, but then, that was before Austin emerged as a legitimate No.1 receiver.
Austin received the first- and third-round tender, the most valuable possible, this off-season.
“Well, Miles is the number one priority for sure when it comes to signing somebody,” said Jones. “He is definitely the first one we’re going to address. At the same time, we’re trying to get our hands around what our future is in terms of the system we’re going to be operating under and we certainly want to gather all the information and try to make as good a decision as we can, because we’re not going to sign Miles for peanuts out here.
“It’s going to be something very significant, which he deserves, but the one thing different about our team than a lot of other teams is we’ve already signed a number of our players and our cap situation, our financial situation, is different and then when we come back and we have a new CBA and there is a cap, then we have to be prepared to operate under that and so we want to be very educated before we make this decision but I think history shows we’ve gotten the players signed that we want to get signed and Miles is obviously at the top of our list in terms of the type of player we want to have on our team.”
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