There were a lot of factors that complicated the contract negotiations between Demarcus Lawrence and the Dallas Cowboys. It all ended with Lawrence getting a monster, five-year, $105 million contract, but things were not always easy. 

Lawrence, unlike the other high-end edge rushers who hit free agency this offseason, had already been franchise-tagged last year, and shown that his breakout 2017 campaign was not a fluke. Because he had already been tagged, his 2019 salary was set to be around $20.5 million, which raised the price tag on a long-term deal. Also, Lawrence had been putting off shoulder surgery for nearly all of the past two years, and if he and the Cowboys wanted him on the field for Week 1, that operation needed to happen soon. (It's happening later this week.) 

So when Lawrence, his agent David Canter, and Stephen Jones got on a conference call last week and things got tense, eventually the agent decided that the player should sign on the dotted line in order to stay where he wanted and having gotten almost everything he wanted out of negotiations in the first place. 

"I knew then that fighting over a half-million dollars would do a disservice to my client," Canter told Sports Illustrated. "I know that's who my responsibility is to."

Canter told Sports Illustrated that he and Lawrence set goals of $50 million cash flow in the first two years of the deal and $66 million in the first three, and eventually got $48 million and $65 million. 

And ultimately, that was about, again, what the player really wanted, which was to stay put. Earlier in the process, Canter sent Lawrence a chart to show how Dallas's offers stacked up financially against Khalil Mack, Aaron Donald, Flowers and Von Miller.

In the end, among those five, he was third in APY (average per year), third in full guarantee, first in guaranteed APY, first in percentage of the deal fully guaranteed, first in Year 1 cash (factoring in deferments, etc.) and third three-year cashflow. Best of all, he got all of it right at home. And now the Cowboys can turn around and work on deals for Dak Prescott, Zeke Elliott, Amari Cooper and Byron Jones.

That's pretty good! 

Lawrence essentially reset the top of the non-Mack edge rusher market, which makes sense for a player of his caliber, who has racked up 25 sacks, 49 quarterback hits, 29 tackles for loss, six forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, and two pass deflections over the past two years. Even if he had not gotten a long-term deal done, though, Lawrence's agent says there was never a chance that he would've held out for the entire year. 

"We were never going to turn down $20.5 million for one," Canter said, per SI. "This was not going to be the Le'Veon Bell situation."