FRISCO, Texas -- It was an only with the Dallas Cowboys moment. As a reporter was asking a question at the predraft news conference, owner and general manager Jerry Jones noticed a good friend walking through the glass doors at The Star.
"Here's our President Clinton coming through the door out here," Jones said. "He's coming up here to say hello to us." Moments later, Jones nearly tripped off the stage as he went to greet former President Bill Clinton, an old Arkansas friend, who had walked into the interview room.
Where else would something like that happen in the NFL for everybody else to see? After a couple of minutes, Jones and Clinton went off to the owner's office to catch up.
Shortly thereafter, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones made an announcement regarding the team's intentions with George Pickens . "There won't be negotiations on a long-term deal," Stephen Jones said.
It was another perfect only with the Cowboys moment where contract negotiations have become a never-ending story. In 2023, All-Pro right guard Zack Martin held out of a portion of training camp looking to renegotiate his contract.
In 2024, the talks surrounded the futures of Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb with the Pro Bowl wide receiver missing most of training camp before an extension was reached. Prescott's record $60 million annual deal would be agreed to on the morning of the season opener.
And then last year, the mess that surrounded Micah Parsons ' contract saga that eventually saw the All-Pro pass rusher traded to the Green Bay Packers a week before the 2025 season started. It all pointed to more drama in 2026.
But Pickens, who will make $27.3 million on the tag, attended the mandatory minicamp in June and said he will not hold out of training camp. July 15, the deadline for Pickens to sign a long-term extension, came and went with barely a note .
It was like a balloon that flitters away when the air is released. The potential of drama was gone.
THE OFFSEASON WAS not in any kind of way a Cowboys production. And as they start training camp Wednesday in Oxnard, California, the focus is on the field -- how to improve a potent offense, how to rebuild a porous defense, how to become a playoff team -- and not on who will get paid how much and when or any other outside noise.
"I just think the focus is in the right place," Prescott said. "It's the Cowboys, right?
Quiet, I don't know if that's ever the right word, but the focus is in the right place. Everyone has channeled for the same goal: To get better 1% each and every day.
And I think from the free-agent signings and the guys we brought in, the vets, George obviously showing up excited to play on the tag, we can all focus on winning and what we need to be focused on." Entering his 11th season, Prescott is the longest-tenured Cowboy. Entering his seventh season, right tackle Terence Steele is tied for second with Lamb.
In his seven seasons, he has seen a lot, starting with the COVID season in 2020, through three straight 12-5 finishes and all of the off-field drama, whether real or perceived. "It's just been straight business, coming in here and working," Steele said.
"It hasn't been any distractions in the media or anything off the field. Yeah, it's the way it should be." All-Pro left guard Tyler Smith has been a Cowboy since 2022 and quickly learned how to ignore the noise.
"Every time you turn on the TV someone's going to be talking about the team," Smith said. "For me, it's just that I think the focus has been different.
The focus from the people in the building and what we're trying to do inside of here has been different." THE COWBOYS DON'T corner the market on drama -- it just seems that way. Part of that is because that's the way Jerry Jones likes it.
Last summer, as things were broiling with Parsons asking for a trade that Jones initially called a bargaining ploy, Jones was in Hollywood at the Egyptian Theatre for the premier of the Netflix series, "America's Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys." "I do believe, if we're not being looked at, then I'll do my part to get us looked at," Jones said that night. "The Cowboys are a soap opera 365 days a year.
When it gets slow, I'll stir it up. It's wonderful to have the great athletes, have the great players but there is something more there.
There is sizzle. There is emotion.
And, if you will, there's controversy. That controversy is good stuff." Not controversial but certainly headline-grabbing, the Cowboys were involved in t