Projecting CeeDee Lamb contract extension: What Justin Jefferson's $140,000,000 deal could mean for Cowboys star
CeeDee Lamb wants a new contract from the Cowboys and Justin Jefferson's 4-year $140 million contract with the Vikings has just reset the wide receiver market. The Minnesota star will earn an average of $35 million annually. So, the question becomes how much should the Cowboys offer their player and how much should he accept? To answer this, we need to look at certain numbers.
We can compare three wide receivers that recently signed a deal. There's A.J. Brown, who signed a 3-year $96 million contract. Amon-Ra St. Brown signed a 4-year deal worth $120 million with the Lions. And now there's Justin Jefferson.
If we list them out from highest to lowest in terms of average annual value, we have the Vikings player at $35 million, followed by Brown at $32 million and Amon-Ra St. Brown at $30 million.
Just for perspective, Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb both joined the league in the 2020 NFL Draft, A.J. Brown did so in 2019, and Amon-Ra St. Brown did in 2021. The Vikings and the Lions players are 21 years old, the Cowboys receiver is 25 years old and the Eagles star is 26.
Comparing their individual career stats now can help us get a better estimation of what CeeDee Lamb's contract will look like. Justin Jefferson has 5,899 yards in 60 games. That's a whopping 98.3 yards per game on average. He has achieved this in 392 attempts for an average of 15 yards. He has 30 touchdowns in this period.
A.J. Brown has played 77 games and accumulated 5,947 yards for 77.2 yards per game. But his production is phenomenal as he has reached this number in just 379 targets, which equates to 15.7 yards per catch. He also has 42 touchdowns, showing his value in the end zone.
Amon-Ra St. Brown has played 49 games and he has a total of 3,588 receiving yards. That's 73.2 yards per game and his 315 receptions give him an average of 11.4 yards. He has 21 touchdowns in his career so far.
Looking at CeeDee Lamb's statistics, we see he has amassed 5,145 yards in 66 games at an average of 78 yards per game. His 395 targets mean he has covered 13 yards per catch. He also has 32 receiving touchdowns. Therefore, we see that he is higher than Amon-Ra St. Brown in every category and should get a contract above an average annual value of $30 million.
CeeDee Lamb is also clearly behind in every category when compared to Justin Jefferson, except for total receiving touchdowns. That means that his contract valuation will likely be less than $35 million on average annually.
A.J. Brown has a better yards-per-catch figure than the Dallas player but slightly lags behind in terms of receiving yards per game. The Cowboys receiver also has three receiving touchdowns, whereas his Eagles counterpart has just one. Their average total touchdowns per year is similar as well and comes to between 8 and 9 per season. Lamb is also a year younger than Brown, which is also the gap between their arrivals in the NFL.
Based on that, one expects CeeDee Lamb to get a 4-year deal with an average annual value close to what A.J. Brown has, which is $32 million. That gives us $128 million over that period. Taking in some variation, we expect the contract to be worth 4 years and vary between $124 and $132 million.
CeeDee Lamb's agent likely to get a good deal for his client after seeing Justin Jefferson's contract
An interesting note was provided by Clarence Hill that Justin Jefferson and Dak Prescott have the same agent and CeeDee Lamb's representative also worked together with him.
Therefore, one expects the Cowboys wide receiver to be in good hands and will get a fair contract that reflects his market value as projected before.