Tuesday marks the opening of the window for teams that are going to place franchise tags on players throughout the NFL. A report had surfaced that the Cowboys were winding up to drop their tag on star pass-rusher DeMarcus Lawrence.

There’s a lot of logic to tagging Lawrence, which is why it seemed like a formality more than anything for Dallas to place it on him for the second straight year. While that’s all true and makes sense it seems like that might not be the case, at least in the immediate future. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Cowboys will not be tagging Tank come Tuesday.

Per sources, the Cowboys will not place the tag on Lawrence on Tuesday. They will try to negotiate a long-term extension possibly until the March 5 deadline for franchise tags.

Last year’s tag total was north of $17M for Lawrence and this year’s would top $20M. While his exact contractual status for the future is unknown there is no doubt that it will involve him making an enormous amount of money.

Of course, tagging Lawrence on Tuesday (or at any point) wouldn’t necessarily mean that he had to play on it in 2019. The Cowboys could simply tag Lawrence in order to protect him from other teams giving him a long-term deal, but maybe they’re feeling optimistic that they can get it done themselves over the course of the next few weeks.

DeMarcus Lawrence has become the pass rusher that Jerry Jones has coveted for so long. He deserves a big pay day and now is the time for it to happen. There isn’t a whole lot of time left, get ready for something interesting to happen one way or another.