Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys suffered a 23-19 loss to the Washington Commanders in their 2024 NFL regular season finale on Sunday afternoon.

Quarterback Cooper Rush had taken over the starting job in place of Dak Prescott, who suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in Week 9 against the Falcons. However, in Week 18, Dallas went with Trey Lance, who had not started since the 2022 season with the 49ers.

This decision proved to be costly for Rush. One of his contract incentives was $250,000 for playing 45% of the Cowboys’ snaps. With the former Central Michigan star not seeing the field, he did not reach this number and, therefore, did not receive his bonus.

After the game, Jones, the owner and general manager of the Cowboys, was asked if his decision to play Lance had anything to do with Rush’s incentive. Jones denied.

“I didn’t even know about it until I read about it,” Jones said. “So nothing, nothing at all. Those incentives are in there for the team. We put them in there so if someone is, in his case, a backup quarterback who has to play, they’ve got the financial incentives, but they’re usually put in there because of the people representing them. And they should be. He did really earn some pretty serious incentives this year.”

Rush signed a two-year extension with the Cowboys prior to the 2023 season. His contract also had a second incentive where he would have earned another six-figure bonus for playing 55% of the snaps. However, that was unobtainable even if he played. Rush will now be an unrestricted free agent.

The Cowboys will enter the offseason with a lot of questions, starting with whether coach Mike McCarthy will be back. Even if he remains, there still may be some big changes coming in Big D.