Contract Talks Ongoing Between Cowboys & G Zack Martin

Cowboys executive VP Stephen Jones mentioned that they’re still in contract negotiations with G Zack Martin regarding a long-term extension, but there’s no deadline for a deal to get done.

“I’m never going to put a deadline on something like that,” Jones said, via Todd Archer of ESPN. “Sometimes players don’t like to think about it a lot, but then you’re able to work behind the scenes sometimes and still get it to where they’re comfortable. But obviously we’re going to respect Zack and how he wants the mechanics of the process to work and we’ll work within those. I fully suspect we’ll work something out at some point in time and he’ll be a Dallas Cowboy for most of his career, in my mind.”

While Jones is optimistic, he’s well aware of the fact that this is a process and there’s no guarantee that they’ll a deal in place by the start of the season.

“We’re making our rounds there,” Jones said. “It takes time, that’s usually kind of how these things work. There’s a whole lot of zero progress and then all of a sudden you start to make some. And then you get to where you can get the deal done.

“It’s too early for me to speculate whether we’re close or whether this thing can get done or not. We’d love to get it done, but there’s two sides to this. Certainly, it’s not easy to figure out exactly where it should be, but the good news is I think Zack really wants to be a Dallas Cowboy and we really want him to be a Dallas Cowboy. That’s helpful.”

Martin, 26, is a former first-round pick of the Cowboys back in 2014. He was entering the final year of his four-year, $8.967 million contract and stands to make a base salary of $1,642,881 for the 2017 season when Dallas picked up his fifth-year option earlier this offseason.

Martin will make around $9.341 million for the 2018 season under his fifth-year option, which is guaranteed only for injury and won’t prevent them from working on a long-term extension over the next year.

In 2016, Martin appeared in all 16 games for the Cowboys and is rated by Pro Football Focus as the No. 3 guard out of 75 qualifying players.

We’ll have more regarding a new deal for Martin as the news is available.