Caleb Harris
FRISCO, Texas – Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said “We want Dak Prescott. That’s it.” when asked how motivated he is to keep Prescott as his team’s long-term franchise quarterback.
Jones made this comment two days before 2024 NFL Draft on April 23, and based on how emphatic he was in saying it, the natural conclusion would be that a new deal for Prescott, who enters 2024 in the final season of a four-year, $160 million contract he signed in 2021, it was imminent. However, nearly a month has passed and Dallas already has two organized team activities (OTA) workouts under its belt without Prescott receiving a new contract.
Prescott, the 2023 season leader in passing touchdowns (36), is unfazed by the lack of a deal at this point while also emphasizing the importance of not resisting as much of his receiving core tends to be youngest outside of Brandin Cooks (age 30).
“Business, business is business. I’ll leave it where it’s dealt with,” Prescott said Wednesday at Cowboys OTAs. “Right now it’s about giving my best for this team right now. The OTAs are helping these guys and just focusing on that and I know my business will take care of itself. [in talks with Jerry and Stephen Jones] and just controlling what I can now.”
The three-time Pro Bowl quarterback, who will turn 31 on July 29, entering his ninth NFL season, is coming off a season in which he earned Second-Team All-Pro honors in 2023 and finished as the league’s MVP runner-up to Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, while also putting up his most efficient season of his career (105.9 passer rating).
If Prescott’s deal isn’t completed by March 2025, he could hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent. Prescott’s current deal has a no-trade and no-franchise clause. If he were to become an unrestricted free agent, the tender would almost certainly result in Prescott becoming the NFL’s highest-paid player based on average annual salary and surpassing Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s $55 million per year average. , in its five years, US$ 275 million. business. He said in April that he is “not trying to be the highest paid necessarily“, but with the soon-to-be 36-year-old Kirk Cousins signing a four-year, $180 million contract with $100 million in guaranteed money to join the Atlanta Falcons after tearing his Achilles in 2023, Prescott’s contract value would increase much higher than that.
“I don’t play for money,” Prescott said. “I’ve never cared about it, to be honest with you. Yes. I’d give it up just to play this game. So I let the business people say how much they should give a quarterback in my game. A person of my kind, leader of the My piece, is like I said, control what I can control and take care of that part and the rest will take care of itself.
Dak Prescott season 2023
|
Completion percentage |
69.5% |
2nd |
| Passing Yards | 4,516 | 3rd |
|
Passing Yards/Att |
7.7 |
6th |
|
Pass TD |
36 |
1st* |
|
TD-INT |
36-9 |
2nd |
|
Passer rating |
105.9 |
2nd |
| Expected points added/played | 0.18 | 2nd |
*First in Cowboys history to be definitive NFL surpass the TD leader in a season
The Cowboys quarterback has already sung and danced with the Jones family and Dallas front office once before for his second NFL contract following the rookie contract he received as a fourth-round draft pick in 2016. Now that he’s been paid As an established quarterback, Prescott doesn’t take extended negotiations as personally as he did years ago after the team tagged him twice before ending his four-year, $160 million extension. What’s also different this time is that he has the upper hand.
If a deal isn’t reached before the start of the season, the threat of his upcoming free agency will become incredibly real for the Cowboys. Starting over at quarterback certainly isn’t what 81-year-old Jerry Jones would like to do in 2025.
“I think it depends on personal relationships and position and how much this pay might affect others, understanding where I am, what my salary means to a team and to an organization,” Prescott said. “I don’t really take things personally. Maybe in my first contract, maybe things were a little different than they are now. Firstly, it’s my age and who I am, where I am in my life, and I think the fact that that first deal was closed. The understanding that I have a lot of decision in this too.
If Prescott’s Cowboys had advanced to the 2023 NFC Championship Game instead of collapsing in the 2023 wild card round against the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers after a third consecutive 12-win season, a feat accomplished for the first time in Dallas since the 1990s Super Bowl glory years, your deal would probably already be done. Dallas COO and EVP Stephen Jones had this to say when he said “the elephant in the room is our success in the playoffs.”
The Cowboys have not reached the NFL conference final round since the 1995 season, their last year with a Super Bowl championship. So much Dallas’ NBA team – the Mavericks – and NHL team – the Stars – are currently in the final round of their respective sports conferences, and the North Texas baseball team, the Texas Rangers, are the defending World Series champions. His success only motivates Prescott to take the Cowboys to similar heights.
“It’s not jealousy, it’s just that it cheers you up, 100 percent,” Prescott said. “Yes, any competitor should definitely, in my position, team leader, understand what it means to win here, not succeed, and then see their brothers on the other side of town going and making these things happen, I want that for them … I want that because it just raises the stakes and makes things harder for me. And I’m all for it, the Rangers did it.
