Could Dez Bryant Become Highest Paid WR in NFL?

Most of us are still sulking over the devastating, but not too surprising news that Sean Lee is out for the year; but, there is other news worthy of some attention. Word is that Dez Bryant has instructed his agent Eugene Parker to start working on a new deal, preferably before the season begins. According to ESPN the talks have now entered the preliminary stages. It’s probably in the best interest for the Cowboys to lock down Bryant as well before he has another monster year.

Bryant is in the final year of his 5-year rookie contract and is scheduled to become a free agent in 2015. The Cowboys will not let their star hit the market and they will not franchise tag him, expect a new deal to be announced soon. Afterall, part of the reasoning to release Ware was to pay some big contracts to younger and long term franchise guys like Bryant and Tyron Smith.

Dez fully believes he should be paid elite money, and I fully agree with him.

“Yeah, I deserve (a long-term extension),” Bryant said, via ESPNDallas.com. “I deserve it. I feel like I do. I put the work in, but I let that kind of stuff take care of itself. It is what it is. I let my agent talk about it and give me some feedback.”

“I’m loyal to the squad,” Bryant said. “I’ve always been. Me and my agent are going to talk about [a hometown discount]. We’ll talk about it. You know, this is big. This is life changing. Like I said, I’ve done everything asked of me, and we’ll see what happens.” (ESPNDallas.com)

I wrote about Dez being one of the 6 players left from previous regimes, and he’ll be the only one of the 6 to get a huge contract extension.

Here are the Top 5 highest paid WRs in the league:

1. Calvin Johnson
2. Larry Fitzgerald
3. Percy Harvin
4. Mike Wallace
5. Dwayne Bowe

You look at this list and its pretty good, but not that amazing. Harvin is a walking injury report, Wallace is a bust in Miami, Bowe is good, Fitz is solid, but aging.

To me, the true elite wide receivers in this league are Calvin Johnson and Dez Bryant.

Bryant has amassed 293 catches and 40 touchdowns in just 4yrs. “Megatron” had 270 catches with 33 tds. in his first four seasons. I know that’s just a slice of their careers, but when you’re looking at the best, you compare what you have with the best, and for the most part, Johnson is the best in the league. With that being said, Bryant’s numbers are increasingly on an upward tick and they have out performed Megatron’s

From a numbers standpoint, Dez could very well become the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. He already plays like one, and its time to get paid like one. #ThrowUptheX and #ThrowUptheMoney

It’ll be interesting to see how the Cowboys approach this deal, considering their newly found frugalness this past offseason when they let DeMarcus Ware go and let Jason Hatcher hit the market. The biggest difference here is that Dez is done with his rookie contract, he’s young, and have more productive season’s in front of him.