Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones loves Dak Prescott. He believes in Dak Prescott. He thinks Dak Prescott can lead the Cowboys to a Super Bowl.
But he apparently doesn’t believe in him enough to prevent him from testing free agency next offseason.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL media, Dallas will not be providing Prescott with a contract extension before the start of the 2024 campaign, which means that Prescott will play out the final year of his deal and potentially be up for grabs next March.
The Cowboys are betting on themselves here. They don’t think Prescott will be able to get $60 million per year on the free-agent market, and you know what? They may very well be right.
Prescott is very good, but he isn’t Patrick Mahomes. He is just 2-5 in the playoffs, he has a fairly checkered injury history, and he is just two years removed from leading the league in interceptions in spite of playing just 12 games.
This is not an indictment on Prescott. I actually like him a lot, and while many would place him around the top 10 or 11 quarterbacks in football, I honestly think he is closer to the top five than he is to 11th.
Other than Mahomes, there aren’t many quarterbacks in this league you can definitely say are better than Prescott. But the thing is, Prescott also has not separated himself from any of these other guys.
He isn’t clearly better than the Justin Herberts or even the Jared Goffs of the world. Youngsters like C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love are right on his tail, too.
Basically, he isn’t worth the $60 million annually that he is apparently seeking, and given that he wouldn’t exactly have a huge market next offseason (how many teams would actually be a fit for Prescott in 2025?), Dallas may be thinking wisely in letting Prescott find that out.
Put it this way: Kirk Cousins just got $45 million per year. Yes, he is six years older than Prescott, and yes, he is coming off of a torn Achilles. But is Prescott getting $15 million more annually than Cousins? It seems doubtful. Perhaps somewhere between $50-55 million is more realistic.
The Cowboys really need to crunch things financially. They have to extend CeeDee Lamb. Micah Parsons is coming up for a new deal. They have to address an offensive line which is not nearly as good as it once was and which just lost Tyron Smith.
This is why Dallas didn’t splurge in free agency this offseason, and it’s why Jones and Co. were smart not to do so. The Cowboys need to take care of their own players first, and evidently, they are even having difficult doing that.
Obviously, there is a significant gap between Dallas and Prescott. Why else would the two sides be perfectly fine allowing him to play out the final season of his deal without a new contract? Prescott clearly feels he is worth a certain amount of money ($60 million per year, perhaps?), and this is essentially the Cowboys’ way of saying “good luck.”
Dallas is testing fate here. There is no doubt about that. But is there really much of a chance Prescott goes elsewhere next spring?
Seriously: how many clubs are genuinely going to be in need of a quarterback next offseason, and how many of those teams would actually represent a legitimate fit for Prescott? Surely, Prescott is going to want to be on a winning squad. It seems highly dubious that he would be comfortable playing for, say, the Denver Broncos. Especially given that he will be 31 years old by next March.
The Cowboys have won 12 games three years in a row. They have been good for quite some time now, and they aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. Plus, the cachet that comes with being quarterback of America’s team will far outweigh a few extra million dollars somewhere else. Both now and in the future.
So maybe Jones has known what he was doing all along. He doesn’t actually think Prescott will take his talents somewhere else, and even if he does? Oh well. The Cowboys probably weren’t going to win paying Dak Prescott $60 million a year anyway.
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