Cowboys won't pay Miles Austin big money until he meets potential

The Cowboys believe Miles Austin has a lot of potential, but they didn't want to give him a high-dollar, long-term deal based on how good they think he might become.

"On your second contract, you get paid off what you've done, not what you might do," Stephen Jones said.

Austin is expected to sign his tender offer ($1.54 million for next season) soon, possibly today. He visited the Jets, but they decided not to sign him to an offer sheet. The Cowboys would have had a right to match the offer, and if they didn't, the Jets would have had to give up the 52nd overall pick.

"I would have been surprised if they were the numbers that I was hearing," Stephen Jones said when asked if he was surprised the Jets didn't make an offer. "That's a lot of money to pay a guy who hasn't done it."

Jones declined to reveal the contract terms floated by Austin's camp, but he mentioned that a second-round pick would get "20 percent of that." Based on the contract of Jacksonville DE Quentin Groves, the 52nd overall pick last season, that puts the Austin camp's proposal in the four-year, $18 million range.

The Cowboys expect him to compete with Patrick Crayton to start opposite Roy Williams, with Sam Hurd and possibly a rookie receiver as the darkhorses. If Austin wins that competition and establishes himself as a consistent deep threat, he might get $4.5 million per year.

UPDATE: The Cowboys just announced that Austin signed his tender. Exclusive rights... -- Continue reading at the publisher's site