The Dallas Cowboys have reduced cornerback Trevon Diggs’ base salary for the 2025 NFL season by half-a-million dollars. The former Alabama defensive back had been scheduled to make $9 million but instead will be paid $8.5 million.

“The de-escalation is contractual, spelled out,” said Stephen Jones, the Cowboys’ director of player personnel, “so he understood when he decided he was going to train in South Florida, he understood what the consequences could be.”

Except for a three-day mandatory minicamp in June, attendance at Dallas’ offseason program is voluntary. But Diggs’ contract required him to participate in at least 84.375 percent of the offseason program at the Cowboys’ facility or have his salary reduced by $500,000.

Other than mandatory minicamp, Diggs was hardly there this offseason.

A knee injury caused Diggs to miss six of Dallas’ final seven games in the 2024 season. In 2023, Diggs played in only the first two games before a torn anterior cruciate ligament caused him to miss the rest of the season. Last year’s ailment affected the same knee, and Diggs had chondral bone graft surgery in January.

“I was upset yesterday,” Diggs told NFL Network on Tuesday, “because it’s not like I’m not putting the work in, doing everything I’m supposed to do. Of course, they do a great job here. But I just thought it was for my best interest to go somewhere else to rehab for my offseason. It’s unfortunate, but at the end of the day, hopefully, I’ll make it back.”

Diggs’ contract calls for him to be paid a bonus of $58,823 for every game he’s on the active roster during the 2025 season.

In July 2023, Diggs signed a five-year, $97 million contract extension.

“We expect a player paid like Trevon to be here all the time,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said on Monday. “We expect him to be leading. … It’s important to have the right body language in every respect when you are one of those rare, rare financially paid and gifted players. You’ve got to have some leadership about you.”

Even though Diggs tackled a rehab program in the offseason, Jerry Jones said the Cowboys had to stick to the contract and reduce Diggs’ pay for the 2025 season.

“He didn’t earn it,” Jones said. “He didn’t come. That’s in his contract that he doesn’t get that unless he’s going to be here. Think about it a minute: Do you have to go to work and show up and all that kind of stuff? Of course you do. We all do. Bottom line is those are contractual things, as Stephen said, and it would be very detrimental to the team not to abide by the agreement.”

The Cowboys held their first practice of training camp on Tuesday in Oxnard, California, and Diggs was confined to rehabilitation work after Dallas put him on the physically-unable-to-perform list. He can start practicing with his teammates as soon as he comes off the PUP list.

“I feel real good,” Diggs said. “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do. I feel real good. I’m ahead of schedule.”

A second-round draft pick by the Cowboys in 2020, Diggs was a first-team All-Pro selection in 2021 when he led the NFL with 11 interceptions. He earned Pro Bowl recognition again in 2022 before injuries affected his past two seasons.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.