It didn’t take long for the Dallas Cowboys to respond to Jeremy Mincey’s absence at training camp.
Unhappy with his contract, Mincey didn’t fly with the team to Oxnard, CA on Tuesday, and he wasn’t there for the first day of meetings on Wednesday. The team’s 2014 leader in sacks is the only member of the team’s 90-man roster not present at the team’s training camp home in Southern California at the moment.
“We expect all players under contract to be here,” said Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones, per Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. “Jeremy obviously did a great job for us last year. He was a big part of our success on the defensive side of the football. We have nothing but the utmost respect for him. But he is under contract.
“I think when he signed that contract last year, his representative was there, he was all for it and they signed it. It’s not a long-term contract. It’s over at the end of this year. But we fully expect him to be here.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because Jones reacted much in the same way to Orlando Scandrick holding out of OTAs in hopes of a new deal earlier this summer. Scandrick eventually arrived in Dallas and signed a reworked deal not long after. Whether this case will end like that case remains to be seen, but it seems doubtful at the moment.
“It is disappointing,” Jones said. “We expect him to be here. We want him to be here. He can be a big part of this team.”
The Cowboys can fine Mincey up to $30,000 a day for every day he hasn’t reported after Wednesday.