Although the Cowboys have come up short in back-to-back road games against quality opponents, they have seen a bounce-back season from Dak Prescott. The clock on a Prescott extension is ticking, as 2024 presents an unfavorable situation for the team.
Prescott is signed through the ’24 season, but as detailed previously, the Cowboys have given their quarterback leverage that perhaps no active NFLer can match. Prescott is set to carry a $59.5MM 2024 cap number — which would shatter an NFL record — and holds a no-trade clause. Having been tagged in 2020 and ’21, Prescott will not be a tag candidate in 2025. These components, coupled with the quality season the eighth-year veteran has put together, set the stage for the NFL’s salary ceiling being raised again soon.
Joe Burrow‘s $55MM-per-year contract checked in $2.5MM north of the bar Justin Herbert set this offseason. Despite the four QBs who signed big-ticket extensions this offseason all being at least four years younger than Prescott, Bleacher Report’s Jordan Schultz notes the Bengals’ Burrow deal will likely be considered the floor for a Prescott contract (video link).
Mutual interest exists between Prescott and the Cowboys on a new deal, Schultz adds. As of late November, the sides had not begun discussions. The Cowboys have until March 2025 before Prescott becomes a free agent, but the team will likely push to finalize an agreement well before that point. Prescott, 30, maximized his leverage when he signed his current four-year, $160MM deal in 2021. After two years of failed negotiations, the QB did not re-sign until just before the 2021 deadline to tag players. The Cowboys tagged Prescott a second time as a procedural matter, making another tag — no player has been tagged three times since the 2006 CBA made that route prohibitive — out of the equation.
Prescott leads the NFL with 30 touchdown passes, giving him a third season with at least 30, and sits behind only Brock Purdy and Josh Allen in QBR. How the Cowboys fare in the playoffs will obviously be pivotal to Prescott’s reputation, a matter constantly scrutinized due to the team’s popularity, but he will enter the 2024 offseason in commanding position regardless of how Dallas’ season concludes.
The team took care of Trevon Diggs and Terence Steele this offseason, along with ending Zack Martin‘s holdout with player-friendly guarantee terms. Prescott and CeeDee Lamb are squarely on Dallas’ extension radar for 2024, with Micah Parsons also becoming extension-eligible next year. Lamb is having an All-Pro-caliber season, while Parsons will command a defender-record deal. Prescott’s leverage complicates those contract timelines, and the Cowboys have the luxury of waiting until 2025 on Parsons — due to the fifth-year option — and would have a 2025 tag available for Lamb.
With each of the team’s three prime-years pillars on the extension radar for 2024, the Cowboys are set for another high-stakes offseason. Prescott finishing up his ’23 campaign strong will only strengthen his case for a deal that tops Burrow’s and approaches the $60MM-AAV mark.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result … where have I heard that before?
Albert Einstein, actually..
I’m still trying to understand how someone who didn’t have the sense to obtain a hair comb can be considered a genius.
link to merriam-webster.com
Does anyone else think teams will eventually get smart and stop handing out these massive contracts to quarterbacks? This past season showed that teams finally realized that RB’s weren’t worth paying big money. I think QB market will eventually level off also. It’s cheaper to pay a coach who can develop a QB than it is to pay an established QB who can overcome shoddy coaching.
Cowboys aren’t built to win road playoff games. It will be one and done for Dak and the boys.
Not being a troll. Please explain what it is about the team not being built to win road playoff games. Didn’t they beat Brady on the road, last year?
It would be hilarious to hear a HC claim that the reason his team won the SB was because they were built to win at neutral sites.
Please no
2023 for Dak from the media: ‘MVP candidate to bum, back to MVP candidate and then bum again.’.
As a 49ers fan you love to see it! Please sign Dak and McCarthy to new contracts,PLEASE!!!