Jerry Jones Pressures Zack Martin to Report to Training Camp

Since 2014, Zack Martin has played for the Dallas Cowboys, appearing in eight Pro Bowls to date and being named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team for the 2010s. Whether or not Martin will continue to play for the Cowboys is an open question. He’s currently holding off on reporting to training camp as he seeks a bigger contract from his team.

In comments made to the media over the weekend, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sounded skeptical that Martin’s refusal to report to training camp would pay off.

“There are a lot of consequences if he doesn’t,” Jones said, as per a report from NJ.com. “He’s been at the top of the money all the way through, drafted high and got a lot of money, got a lot of money over the years. It’s just hard to get it all.”

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As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram pointed out in a report on Martin’s contract status, he’s put himself in a high risk/high reward position. His current contract will pay him $13.5 million this season and $14 million next season. Those are impressive numbers, to be sure, but, as the Star-Telegram‘s Clarence E. Hill, Jr. observed, they’re significantly less than the $20.5 million fellow guard Chris Lindstrom is set to get from Atlanta this season.

That said, Martin will be fined $50,000 per day under the terms of the NFLPA’s collective bargaining agreement. Skip 10 days of camp, owe half a million dollars. (Full disclosure: typing that made me feel very, very sad.)

“We need the money to pay the players that we got to pay in the future,” Jones said of Martin’s call for a new contract. For now, neither Jones nor Martin seems willing to budge — even with (literally) millions of dollars at stake.