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Bryant, Cowboys Agree To Five-Year, $70 Million Deal

Written By Bob Harris | fantasy football | Posted 15-Jul-15 @ 14:33 PT

Fantasy football owners now have a little more of that coveted thing we call certainty. There will be no training camp holdout or missed regular season games. ... With the deadline less than an hour away, Dez Bryant and the Cowboys have agreed to a five-year, $70 million deal that will pay him an average $14 million per season, league sources told ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

As far as the contractual details, the $70 million includes $45 million in fully guaranteed money. That starts with a $20 million signing bonus. Bryant will make $3 million more in salary for the 2015 season and $22 million more will become fully guaranteed in March 2016.

As Profootballtalk.com's Josh Alper noted, that’s not quite Calvin Johnson money, but the $14 million per year average and $45 million in guaranteed money slot Bryant in just behind Megatron on the list of wide receiver salaries.

Alper went on to suggest that given Johnson’s higher starting point, that’s probably about as much as he could have expected to get by signing a deal this year and it should make for some interesting negotiations for A.J. Green, Julio Jones and, assuming the Cowboys and Broncos didn’t agree on salaries for their franchised wide receivers, Demaryius Thomas in the near future.

Meanwhile, Bryant did not take part in the team’s off-season program, but offensive coordinator Scott Linehan isn't too worried. “He’ll be ready to rock and roll when it’s all said and done, I’m sure of that,” Linehan recently said.

I'm sure of that as well.

Since joining the Cowboys as a first-round pick in 2010, Bryant has been one of the NFL’s most dynamic receivers. In five seasons with the Cowboys, Bryant has caught 381 passes for 5,424 yards and 56 touchdowns. No player in team history has more catches, yards or touchdowns in the first five years of his career than Bryant. That’s not going to change based on skipping the off-season program.

Indeed, with Tony Romo coming off back surgery the previous two years, Bryant hasn’t practiced with his QB in the off-season much anyhow, and that seems to have worked out well enough. Look for continued high-end production.