Stephen Jones sat down with DLLS Sports on Tuesday and said the quiet part out loud. Asked about the Dallas Cowboys‘ receiver room beyond 2026, the executive vice president skipped the usual front office deflection. Dallas had figured out how to pay both CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens at the top of the market for this season, but not, he made clear, for the ones that follow.

“You look at Dak, like anything, you don’t get to play this game forever,” Jones said. “You look at the situation we have with George Pickens going alongside CeeDee. I don’t know of any teams that really can pay two top receivers, top of the market. So that’s going to be a really difficult situation as we move forward. We’ve managed to figure out how we can do it for this year.

“Certainly, if everything works out the way we think it is, which CeeDee and George both have huge years again, then it’ll be a bigger challenge next year,” Jones continued. “George is really wanting to put back-to-back years on top of one another so it’ll help his market. And certainly I know at some point, as does every player in this league, will want to be rewarded with a long-term contract. So that certainly puts pressure on us to have a unique situation there.”

The contract situation behind the two receivers explains why. Lamb signed a four-year, $136 million extension back in August 2024 that runs through 2028, and Dallas reworked that deal last March to free up roughly $20 million in cap space.

Pickens arrived a few months later via a trade with Pittsburgh, and signed a one-year contract with the Cowboys. Pickens ended up outplaying himself and what the Cowboys expected, posting 1,429 receiving yards (third-most in the league) last season. Many believed (still do) that he deserved an extension, but the Cowboys have franchise-tagged him this season. The WR will make a little over $27 million this year.

A long-term deal never materialized before the July 15 deadline, and the Cowboys made it clear ahead of the draft that they weren’t interested in negotiating one during the season.

This isn’t the first time the subject has come up this offseason. Back at training camp in early August, Jones told Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein much the same thing: that keeping both receivers paid at the top of the market is realistic, but only once the rest of the roster’s spending gets sorted out.

“Yeah, just you got to tell me the rest [of our spending], too,” Jones told Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports. “At some point, you’ve got to figure that out. But no, I think it’s realistic.”

For three straight seasons before Pickens showed up, Dallas cycled through different names behind Lamb, including Noah Brown, Brandin Cooks, and Jalen Tolbert. Last year, that search finally ended.

Together, Lamb and Pickens combined for 168 catches, 2,506 yards, and 12 touchdowns, helping push Dallas to the second-most passing yards in the league behind only the Rams. Dak Prescott was so pleased with the results that he gave the offense its own nickname this offseason: the Greatest Offense There Is.

Jones seemed to agree with the hype.

“I’d say the two of them did pretty damn good,” Jones told Epstein. “Would you take that again? Hell, yeah, you would.”

However, many also suspected that the expensive contracts Lamb and Prescott were signed on might have been a reason why Dallas did not offer Pickens an extension. Lamb said earlier this year that he doesn’t mind if Pickens earned more than him, but the latter deserved to be on the team.

Lamb, meanwhile, made his priorities clear.

“I’m sure we can make a way…” Lamb told Epstein, voicing his support for Pickens once again. “Jerry, can you please figure out a way?”

A month ago, Jones sounded like a man confident he’d figure it out. However, now, he sounded like someone bracing for how hard that figuring out is about to get.