What do you think happens with Tyron Smith this offseason?

It seems like it was a lifetime ago when a young Tyron Smith signed his eight-year, $97.6 million deal with the Dallas Cowboys. Such deals are unheard of, but this team knew what they had in Smith and they wasted no time in locking him down forever. Well, forever has finally arrived and Smith’s contract is officially up.

For years, Smith has been one of the biggest bargains in football. His $12.2 million average annual salary gets better with every year that passes. Of course, those great savings do fade a bit when injuries take him off the field which has been rather frequent in recent years. With Smith, there’s always some risk.

Now, he’s coming off one of his best seasons in years and the Cowboys will have a tough decision to make regarding his future in Dallas. Will he stay or will he go? When you lay everything on the table, we can envision Smith sticking around for one more year, and here are three reasons why it’s likely to unfold that way.

HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THE MONEY

Okay, to say he doesn’t care about the money is not completely true so we’re a little bit sorry for even luring you in with such verbiage. What we really mean here is, it’s not all about the Benjamins for Smith. The guy just played through an eight-year deal where he was largely underpaid for a great majority of the length of his contract and how many times do you remember him complaining about it? Zero.

And when the Cowboys offered up a creatively constructed restructured deal that would put less in his pockets if he wasn’t available, Smith agreed. His $13.6 million base salary turned to just a $3 million base, a $3 million signing bonus, and the rest laced with incentives based on playing time (and playoff results). Despite a relatively “healthy” season for Smith, the Cowboys ultimately ended up paying him a few million less than his original deal.