The Dallas Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott are not close on any sort of agreement for a contract extension, and with the 2024 campaign drawing nearer and nearer, it’s looking more and more like Prescott may play out the season on a one-year deal.
But could Prescott hold the leverage here?
Bleacher Report’s Jordan Schultz seems to think so.
During a recent appearance on FS1’s Speak, Schultz praised Prescott for the way he is handling the current negotiations (or lack thereof) between him and the Cowboys.
“The reason that Dak is playing this well is because he already knows, he is preconditioned to see, ‘I have all the leverage,'” Schultz said.
Schultz mentions that Prescott has a $55 million cap hit, a no-trade clause and a no-tag clause and that he will be just 31 years old by the time he hits free agency next offseason. That’s about five years younger than Kirk Cousins, who just landed a four-year, $180 million deal from the Atlanta Falcons.
“If you are Dak Prescott, you are handling this perfectly, because the worst-case scenario is you play it out, you have another Pro Bowl type of season, and suddenly you become the highest-paid quarterback in the league or one of them,” Schultz concluded.
Prescott is coming off of a fantastic 2023 campaign in which he finished second in MVP voting after leading the NFL with 36 touchdown passes.
Here is the problem with Schultz’s argument, though: that isn’t the worst-case scenario.
The worst-case scenario is that Prescott actually plays more like 2022—when he led the league in interceptions in spite of playing in just 12 games—than 2023 and ends up losing money.
That’s not to say that is going to happen, but the chances of Prescott replicating his success from this past season seem somewhat slim based on his history.
Prescott is unquestionably a very good quarterback, but he is evidently seeking $60 million annually, and if he regresses at all in 2024, he certainly won’t be getting that much money from anyone.
We’ll see if Dak Prescott is in fact playing this the right way come next season.
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