Why the Dallas Cowboys are unnecessarily dragging out Dak Prescott’s Contract
The NFL seems to exist in two realities: the one centered in Frisco, Texas, the peculiar and perplexing world of the Dallas Cowboys, and the other one in which the league’s thirty-one teams mostly play.
The continuous story of Dak Prescott’s deal is the most recent illustration of how the Cowboys, or more specifically, the Jones family who owns them and makes all of the major decisions, always march to the beat of a different kazoo.
It is a pretty simple amount of logic for most of the league’s teams to figure out something along these lines.
You must first determine whether to continue using your current quarterback as your franchise quarterback. After that, you get in touch with him and his agent, start talks, work out a solution that works for everyone, and finish the deal. This is a wonderful time of year to start because there aren’t many distractions and things are generally slow outside of the scouting staff’s busiest time.
It’s advantageous to sort things out quickly because other clubs may be negotiating a new contract with their franchise quarterback, which will likely drive up the cost of yours. Even if you are unable to resolve the issue quickly, starting the process merely buys you more time to address the issues and eventually get to the deal.
Instead, Dallas decides to pursue a different blueprint for reasons that elude us. They linger around, going so far as to appear ostentatious in certain situations. NFL Insider Ian Rapoport’s tweet served as the inspiration for R.J. Ochoa’s piece, which can be accessed above.
The entire concept of allowing Prescott to exercise free agency is, to put it mildly, perplexing and perhaps alarming. The first issue is that there is little chance that replacing Prescott will improve the quarterback position.
The team will not have the draft capital to select a top college quarterback in 2025, barring a true meltdown this season. Given that Prescott would be attempting to put up his best games to boost demand for his services and that Mike McCarthy is coaching for his own future with the team, such collapse seems difficult to imagine.
You could argue that the ownership is attempting to slightly hurt their own team’s chances by staying out of free agency, but it is probably just their usual stubbornness in not making a significant financial commitment there.
Even Even with a high overall pick, there is no guarantee that a college quarterback will succeed, especially in their debut season. And even with that, they would still have a dead cap of almost $40 million for Prescott, which worries the team’s cap expert Stephen Jones.
This is partially explained by another distinctive feature of the Cowboy way: the complex and frequently unclear language used by Stephen and his father Jerry to communicate themselves. There is, as Rapoport states, a “mutual understanding” on the circumstances, but it’s unclear exactly what that means.
This has given rise to a lot of conjecture on the actual plan. All of this could indicate that a rebuild with a new quarterback and coaching staff is in store for 2025. This may have happened as a result of the owners’ devastating playoff defeat at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, who may have concluded that Prescott will never be able to lead the team farther than he has already.
Dallas is still the most valuable sports team in the world, which contributes to its continued success regardless of on-field performance. The team has a variety of revenue streams. The Dallas Cowboys have become Cowboys, Incorporated in a sense.
At least in the eyes of the Jones family, their business operations come first and on-field success is really a bonus that doesn’t really affect the balance sheet. They work more at cutting costs to increase profits than they do at taking home victories.
This is directly related to Jerry’s fierce attachment to the general manager position and the attention it provides him as the team’s principal spokesperson; Stephen also shows a similar affection for the media’s unceasing attention. Their egos and the way the spotlight feeds them are too strong motivators for them.
Prescott is probably not that committed to the team if the ownership isn’t making a genuine effort to get him back. This suggests that if he can put together a strong season—which he will undoubtedly attempt to do—entering free agency will be the more profitable option for him.
Although his current contract has a no-trade provision, he might be willing to waive it if a team approached him about wanting to acquire him in order to get a sizable salary. His employers might find it appealing since it would provide them the draft capital they need to purchase a ticket in the yearly quarterback draft lottery.
There’s an opposite side. Assuring him that the owners do plan to work out an extension for him—just in their own sweet time—might be part of that mutual agreement. That side of things is provided by Josina Anderson, who appears to be highly integrated with the team.
It’s especially interesting that Anderson brought up Prescott’s past contracts. This song and dance has been witnessed previously, not only with the quarterback but also with guys like Ezekiel Elliott. When it comes to contract negotiations, the management plays games, the players wait them out and occasionally hold out too, and eventually the owners blink first and end up paying more than they might have if they had just acted in good faith and honesty.
Dallas appears to be glaringly devoid of those two qualities. Here, egos are a major factor because neither Jerry nor Stephen can see their own shortcomings when it comes to bargaining; instead, they frequently turn to the media in clumsy and futile attempts to sway public opinion and influence the players. The agents in question are too astute to fall for that specific ruse and continue making money.
McCarthy must be under pressure from all of this, fighting for his own future. Prescott leads the offense wherever he goes, so there’s no benefit to having a frustrated quarterback who might try to hold out. McCarthy still needs to be concerned about the entire squad in the interim. He continues to strive to do his best.His recent remarks regarding the perpetual nature of free agency are relevant.
In any case, just because they have not accomplished much with their usual stingy approach in free agency, doesn’t mean that they can’t still add players before the draft, after the rookies are selected, and up to and into the regular season. Recent reports that the team is still looking at Elliott and Dalvin Cook to fill out the running back room are evidence of this. It’s possible that they plan to bring one in to be insurance behind a rookie drafted to start, but it’s also possible that Rico Dowdle will be the starter they back up. Elliott in particular could fill a short yardage/goal line role that was lacking last season with Tony Pollard and company.
All of it is really additional evidence of the dysfunction we have been dealing with for a while.
It appears as though the head coach and the owners are not even talking from the same book. The way contracts are handled nearly seems to be intended to cause conflict and animosity.
The strategy is purposefully still unclear. We’ll have to wait and see how everything turns out, but pessimism is definitely warranted.
