Dallas Cowboys reportedly declining QB Trey Lance’s fifth-year option
It was never going to happen. But at the very least it is now basically official.
The Dallas Cowboys are declining the fifth-year option for quarterback Trey Lance, according to ESPN.
Unsurprisingly, the Dallas Cowboys will decline picking up the fifth-year option on quarterback Trey Lance, a source told ESPN.
That decision was essentially made last August when the Cowboys acquired Lance from the San Francisco 49ers for a 2024 fourth-round pick. Had the Cowboys picked up the option, it would have cost $22.4 million, been fully guaranteed and been at odds with the club’s stated preference to keep Dak Prescott after 2024.
As it stands, the Cowboys do not have a quarterback on their roster signed beyond this season with Prescott, Lance and Cooper Rush set to hit unrestricted free agency next March. The Cowboys are unable to use the franchise tag on Prescott and the quarterback recently said talks had not really started on an extension.
Odds were never high, if existent at all, as noted by Todd Archer here that Dallas would exercise Lance’s fifth-year option even way back when they first originally traded for him in August of 2023. The third overall pick in 2021, Lance’s option number (which would have been fully guaranteed) is extremely high at $22.4M. Given that the Cowboys have not really seen him play much at all outside of practice this was never going to be something that was legitimately explored.
Lance is the latest quarterback from the first-rounders in 2021 to not have his option picked up as the Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos, respectively, declined Mac Jones’ and Zach Wilson’s. The three of them are all on new teams entering their fourth season (as is Justin Fields who is now a part of the Pittsburgh Steelers) although the Cowboys paid significantly more for Lance’s services than any other team did for their signal-caller.
For what it’s worth the Cowboys had two fifth-year option decisions to make this offseason as Micah Parsons was the 12th overall pick in that draft. They (duh) picked up Micah’s option and will hopefully get an extension done with him sooner rather than later.
We will see about that.