While the DeMarco Murray pendulum swings back toward a potential Cowboys return, the top executives in Dallas are still tiptoeing rather delicately around the situation.
"It's really tough for a player to not look and see what his options may be, and at the same time he understands the business of football that we can only do so much at each possession," Cowboys VP Stephen Jones said Tuesday on Sirius XM Radio. "We've got to at the end of the day decide how we want to divide up the pie. Of course we certainly want to give a nice piece of it to DeMarco. We'll just see how that works out. We really feel we got a great relationship with DeMarco and his agent Bill Johnson."
Jones added that there are "certainly no guarantees and no promises that he's going to bring offers back to us and at end of the day I do think he wants to stay in Dallas. I know he knows we want him here."
The last line, about Murray wanting to stay in Dallas and the potential that he'll bring any offers he receives back to Dallas is interesting enough.
For a majority of the interview, Jones tossed out the kind of banal one-liners that are often associated with contract talks this time of year, things like "understands the business" and "look and see what his options may be."
But the truth is both sides are hoping to come to some sort of agreement. At the least, Dallas is hoping for a chance to match an offer.
As the Cowboys look around at the free agent market, the running back position doesn't seem as wide open and promising as it once was.
And Murray might find the same thing in regard to his market.
This is what will make the next few weeks all the more interesting, and what could eventually lead to Murray's return in Dallas.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast breaks down all the franchise tags and discusses where Ndamukong Suh will land. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.
