He mentioned at the time how impressed he was with The Star and he mentioned Dak Prescott, too, who was also present for the promotional 7-11 thing.
Said JuJu: “He’s a great quarterback. Catching balls from him in a facility like this, I wouldn’t mind it. … The Steelers are still working on trying to get out of the wooden locker rooms.”
JuJu Smith
In retrospect, maybe the Cowboys should’ve listened.
Presently, JuJu is involved in a “beef” with A.J. Brown of the bitter Eagles, who just lost the Super Bowl to Smith-Schuster’s Chiefs. (Well, Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs.) We don’t care much about that, and we never cared much for JuJu’s goofy Tic-Tok obsession, either.
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But a rebounding player on a cheap contract? That, we go for.
After signing a one-year deal with the Chiefs – paying him just $3.7 million – JuJu is now about to be a free agent again … and this time he’s coming off a season of rejuvenation in which he teamed with QB Patrick Mahomes to produce in a big way.
What if the 2022 Cowboys had a second receiver who caught 78 passes for 933 yards and three touchdowns … all for just $3.7 million?
Dallas never looked seriously at this idea last spring, believing that a rehabbed Michael Gallup would work just fine as CeeDee Lamb’s running mate.
Then came the drafting of Jalen Tolbert and the signing of James Washington, and Smith-Schuster single-handedly did more for KC than Gallup, Tolbert and Washington did combined in Dallas.
Smith-Schuster is about to have a host of suitors, and it has been speculated that one team that could show some interest is the Cowboys.
But here’s where the “speculation” goes a bit awry: Spotrac projects Smith-Schuster’s next contract to be worth $15 million APY. Could the Cowboys shuffle around cap room to make such a thing happen? Certainly.
But $15 million is pricy for a player like JuJu, who we could characterize as a “talented journeyman.” There are players on tiers higher than him who only make a bit more (Houston’s Brandin Cooks at $18 mil?) and there are players at the very top of the wideout food chain who are much more expensive but also much more productive (Arizona’s DeAndre Hopkins at $27 mil?) and as those two would have to be acquired via trade, there is also the ever-present (in the mind of owner Jerry Jones) Odell Beckham Jr. price tag unknown.
JuJu Smith-Schuster signing with the Dallas Cowboys in the spring? A fine idea, really – if we’re talking about “the spring of 2022.”