Dak Prescott

Dak Prescott Was Likely To Up Price If Cowboys Negotiated In-Season

September 12th, 2024 at 10:19pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Cowboys completed a rare instance of an extension being finalized the morning of Week 1 Sunday. While the other teams who completed pre-Week 1 extensions hammered them out in the days leading up to their respective openers, the Cowboys were still negotiating the morning of their Browns matchup.

A Saturday report suggested a small chance existed the Cowboys could come to terms with their ninth-year quarterback, but they ended up doing so just before noon CT — around four hours before their Browns tilt. As the Cowboys and Dak’s agent negotiated before COO Stephen Jones left for Cleveland, ESPN.com’s Dan Graziano indicates the team was motivated by the soft deadline Week 1 brought.

Prescott, 30, had said he was OK continuing talks into the season; though, he seemed less thrilled about the prospect when he broached it again late last month. Had Prescott begun a contract year, he was likely to keep upping his price as free agency would have loomed closer and closer as the season progressed, per Graziano. Considering where the Cowboys ended up, it is understandable they were leery of where the numbers could go if their staredown with the QB dragged into the fall.

These negotiations ended with Prescott becoming the NFL’s first $60MM-per-year player, representing remarkable growth on a market that stood at $30MM (Matt Ryan‘s second Falcons extension) barely six years ago. Dak’s $60MM AAV checks in $5MM north of where the market’s ceiling previously resided, but the likes of Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love did not possess the leverage Prescott did.

The Cowboys again bent on term length (four years), as they did for Prescott in 2021 and CeeDee Lamb this year, and again gave their quarterback no-trade and no-tag clauses. Not that a no-tag clause would have mattered much, as no player has received a third tag in nearly 20 years — since the 2006 CBA made doing so punitive — but the Cowboys showed the results of negotiating without leverage.

Still, they were able to keep Prescott away from free agency. Guaranteed money brought the final stage of these talks, Graziano adds, and Dak indeed secured more in guarantees than Deshaun Watson did on a five-year deal. That said, Watson — for now, at least — is tied to $230MM fully guaranteed; Prescott’s $231MM number represents the total guarantee. Though, the Cowboys will have a difficult time escaping this contract due to the above-referenced clauses and the financial penalties that come via the guarantee structure.

Dallas gave Prescott $129MM guaranteed at signing. That is not a top-market number, as it checks in seventh among QBs. But Prescott, as should be expected, secured a player-friendly cash flow. His 2024 and 2025 base salaries are guaranteed at signing, and Graziano adds the $40MM 2026 base salary shifts from guaranteed for injury to a full guarantee in March 2025. That same structure applies for Prescott’s $45MM 2027 base, which locks in as of March 2026. Prescott is due $55MM in 2028 base salary; $17MM of that amount will become fully guaranteed in March 2027. Dak’s one-, two-, three- and four-year cash flows lead the NFL, SI.com’s Andrew Brandt tweets.

No-tag and no-trade clauses being present in Prescott’s 2021 extension (4/160), coupled with his previous 2024 cap number ($55.13MM) and potential 2025 dead money penalty if not extended by March ($40.13MM), made it a lock he would secure whopping terms from the Cowboys if he agreed to avoid testing free agency.

This extension includes four void years, with the Cowboys having the option of restructuring the deal down the road as well, but still includes a high 2024 cap number. Dak’s extension dropped his cap hit by less than $11MM, with the new ’24 number settling at $44.61MM. With the Browns restructuring Watson’s deal a second time, the Rams reworking Matthew Stafford‘s contract and the Cowboys paying Prescott, Kyler Murray‘s $49.12MM leads all players and represents the highest single-player cap hit in NFL history.

This nixes what would have been a historic free agency sweepstakes and ties Prescott to the Cowboys through 2028. This will put Dak in line to become the longest-tenured QB1 in team history, surpassing Troy Aikman‘s 12-season run.

Extra Points: Hill, Watson, Prescott

September 9th, 2024 at 9:12pm CST by Ben Levine

Following Tyreek Hill‘s detainment before yesterday’ game, Andy Slater of Fox Sports 640 South Florida released the bodycam footage from Miami-Dade Police. The release of the video follows a statement by the Miami-Dade Police earlier today in which they said that Hill was not immediately cooperative with officers (per Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com).

The video shows that Hill was initially pulled over for speeding while approaching Hard Rock Stadium. After the Dolphins wide receiver was pulled over, he was asked to keep his window down. As ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques and Xuan Thai detail, the “incident escalated when Hill didn’t comply.”

After exiting his vehicle, Hill was grabbed “by the back of the head and neck area” and forced to the pavement before being placed in handcuffs. After being walked to the sidewalk, Hill was forced to the ground again after not immediately complying to an officer’s demand to sit down, with the wideout citing recent knee surgery.

The footage also shows the police tensely interacting with tight end Jonnu Smith, who parked about 25 feet away from Hill. Smith “was ultimately given a citation.” Defensive lineman Calais Campbell can also be seen in the footage approaching police with his arms raised.

Following the release of the footage, the Miami Dolphins released a statement. While the organization lauded the release of the video and acknowledged their relationship with the Miami-Dade Police, they also requested “swift and strong action against the officers who engaged in such despicable behavior.” Per Armando Salguero of Outkick.com, the officer at the center of the video “was placed on administrative duties” and has hired a lawyer.

More notes from around the NFL…

Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson is facing a new civil lawsuit claiming him of sexual assault and battery during an incident in October 2020, per ESPN’s Daniel Oyefusi. Watson “sexually assaulted the woman for several minutes” before storming out of her apartment. Watson was previously accused of sexual assault and inappropriate conduct by more than two dozen women. He avoided criminal charges but was served an 11-game suspension after the league and the NFL Players Association reached a settlement. Watson settled 23 of his 24 civil lawsuits, and this latest suit joins the one remaining civil suit from 2022. An NFL spokesperson declined comment when asked about the matter, per Jonathan Jones of NFL on CBS.
Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com has the details on Dak Prescott‘s new contract with the Cowboys. The four-year, $240MM extension features an $80MM signing bonus and $129MM guaranteed at signing. The quarterback will have another $40MM guaranteed next March, and another $45MM will be guaranteed the following March. The deal also includes a no-trade clause, a no-franchise tag clause, and a no-transition tag clause.
The NFL sent a memo to more than 20 players and their respective teams before Week 1, warning the players that they could face suspensions if they violated the safety and sportsmanship policies. While the players’ identities weren’t revealed, ESPN’s Adam Schefter notes that the individuals “have been penalized and scrutinized in the past,” with all of the players having been suspended over the past two years for on-the-field incidents.

Cowboys, Dak Prescott Agree To Extension

September 8th, 2024 at 10:25pm CST by Adam La Rose

The Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott have finally pushed their negotiations past the finish line. As ESPN’s Adam Schefter was first to report, Dallas and Prescott have agreed to a stunning four-year, $240MM extension that will make Prescott the highest-paid player in NFL history.

Schefter notes that all but $9MM of Prescott’s deal is guaranteed, which speaks to the inordinate amount of leverage that the three-time Pro Bowler wielded in this process. His $231MM in guaranteed money is $1MM more than Deshaun Watson received in his highly controversial deal with the Browns several years ago. And, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com observes, Prescott’s guarantees — which include a record $80MM signing bonus — are $60MM higher than the next highest sum of guaranteed money ever handed out on a four-year contract.

Throughout the offseason, questions lingered about whether or not the Cowboys would be able to work out deals with Prescott, wideout CeeDee Lamb and edge rusher Micah Parsons while saving the cap flexibility to make other moves. An otherwise quiet offseason revolved around negotiations on the Prescott and Lamb fronts in particular. The latter wound up cashing in on a $34MM-per-year extension which (like the former) will keep him in Dallas through 2028. Lamb did not reach the top of the receiver market, but Prescott has taken his position to new financial heights.

A $60MM AAV has long been a possibility, especially given the nature of the quarterback mega-deals worked out over the past two years and the position Prescott found himself in. No-tag and no-trade clauses were included in his previous pact, and Dallas was set to deal with a $55MM cap charge in 2024 in the absence of an extension coming into play. That was also the case for the dead money charge (roughly $40MM) in 2025 which would have been on the team’s cap sheet had Prescott departed in free agency next spring.

Both the 31-year-old himself and owner Jerry Jones made a number of public remarks in the build-up to today’s news. Continuing this relationship well past 2024 was a mutual goal, although Prescott hinted at testing the market on more than one occasion. Jones indicated in the spring he preferred to let the QB and WR markets take further shape before serious negotiations with Prescott and Lamb’s camps took place. That approach has yielded agreements for both, albeit along a less-than-ideal timeline given the missed time from training camp in one case and the run up to an artificial Week 1 deadline in the other.

Jones stated he would be on board with Prescott negotiations continuing into the regular season, but a late push by all parties involved yielded progress. That left the door open to an eleventh-hour agreement, although with Saturday night coming and going it appeared one would no longer be possible. In the end, however, Prescott is now on the books for the foreseeable future as he tries once again to guide the Cowboys to deep playoff run.

Dallas has posted a 12-5 record in each of the past three years, failing to convert that into postseason success in every instance. Head coach Mike McCarthy is entering a lame-duck year in no small part due to the Cowboys’ underwhelming defeat to the Packers during the wild-card round last season. Jones has routinely praised the former Green Bay Super Bowl winner, hinting he could be retained past the coming campaign depending on how things go. Prescott – who led the league in touchdown passes during McCarthy’s first year as offensive play-caller – will be expected to duplicate his success from 2023 for several more seasons.

Parsons (whose resume includes two first-team All-Pro honors, one second-team nod and three Pro Bowl invites) no doubt would have been a higher organizational priority if not for Prescott and Lamb entering the offseason as pending free agents. With both of their pacts now taken care of, attention will turn to Parsons’ level of play in his fourth campaign. The 25-year-old will set himself up for a major payday with another productive campaign in 2024, but Dallas’ cap outlook has of course been considerably altered in recent weeks.

Today’s deal (and, more specifically, the massive guarantee commitment) confirms Prescott will remain a Cowboy for most, if not all, of his career. His legacy remains linked to the franchise’s ongoing Super Bowl drought, but the next several years will offer an opportunity to break through in the postseason. It will be interesting to see, meanwhile, how the quarterback market shakes out in the near future with the top of the pecking order changing once again.

Rory Parks contributed to this post.

Jerry Jones Addresses Dak Prescott’s Deal

September 8th, 2024 at 10:03pm CST by Ely Allen

The Cowboys were one of few teams to experience two big wins today: their win over the Browns in Cleveland and the signing of their star quarterback to the highest salary in NFL history. Both were a long time in the works, but Dak Prescott‘s new contract is perhaps the more gratifying of today’s victories because of the wait.

Prescott’s extension, which includes $231MM in guaranteed money, an $80MM signing bonus, and a $60MM annual average, was the result of several months of negotiations. In that time, Cowboys fans frustratingly watched quarterbacks with arguably lesser accomplishments, like Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love, become the highest-paid players in the NFL. The frustration wasn’t that players they deemed lesser were getting big contracts, it was that with every big quarterback contract that got signed, the price tag for Prescott kept going up.

There’s an argument to be made that if Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had worked faster to secure extensions for stars like Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, the team could’ve have vastly saved on relatively cheaper deals. Instead of working to set the market, the Cowboys ended up being forced to react to it, leading to them being the only team in the NFL with two of the 20 highest-paid players in the NFL (by annual average) with Prescott at No. 1 and Lamb tied at No. 20.

The unofficial deadline that the team set for getting the deal done was the season opener, and Dallas snuck this one in before watching Prescott potentially test free agency at the end of the year. When asked if he was relieved to have got it done in time, Jones told reporters, “Relief? No, I’m happy that it’s done. This was the time when it was right there for us to do. We were all set to go. That’s so critical.”

Jones claimed that the issue with getting a deal done was never about Prescott being the answer for them at the quarterback position. The concentration was just finding a way to make everything work, and the stars didn’t align until just in time to get the deal done.

“I think we all felt a little energy to come on in and, so to speak, get to a point where we could say ‘yes,'” Jones continued, per Clarence Hill of All City DLLS. “I’ve really known all along what a great player Dak is…I’ve seen too many very important deals not work out just because of miscalculating the right time when everybody’s ready to go. It was apparent to me over the last few days that we were ready to go and could put this in place.”

There was one other sticking point that kept holding Jones up throughout the process: the sheer magnitude of the money involved. “I’m talking about making him the highest paid player in the history of the NFL…$231 million guaranteed, I know, these numbers are beyond anything I could have ever imagined.”

In the end, the team got it done, and now, Prescott has the highest annual salary any player in the NFL has ever had. We don’t know all the specifics of the deal just yet, but ESPN’s Todd Archer tells us that his 2025 cap impact will include $26.13MM in bonus proration, in addition to the new proration of the signing bonus and new base salary. Jones claims he was working to put the Cowboys in the best position to win a Super Bowl in the future, and in his words, “(Prescott) was (their) best chance of getting one.”

Dak Prescott Cowboys Extension Still Possible Before Week 1

September 7th, 2024 at 10:53pm CST by Adam La Rose

On the eve of their season opener, it remains to be seen if the Cowboys will reach agreement on a Dak Prescott extension. Team and player are negotiating a deal to continue their relationship beyond the 2024 campaign.

Recent updates on the situation have noted progress at the bargaining table, with an agreement reportedly being reached with respect to the length of a new contract. Value and guarantee structure will be key points of contention as in any high-profile negotiation, and Sunday represents an artificial deadline for an extension to be in place. In the latest development on this story, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports there is a “small chance” the Cowboys and Prescott will get a deal over the finish line in time.

While a final agreement is not in place, DLLS’s Clarence Hill Jr. confirms the sides are still negotiating at this point with a very small window of time remaining. Owner Jerry Jones said last week a deal does not need to be signed by the start of the regular season, although teams generally prefer to get contract work done in time for Week 1. Prescott is currently slated to carry a cap hit of over $55MM in 2024, a figure which could be lowered on a long-term pact. The 31-year-old will leave Dallas with a dead money charge of more than $40MM if he departs as a free agent next spring.

Both Prescott and Jones have made clear their desire to avoid that, although the three-time Pro Bowler has also noted the multitude of longtime starting quarterbacks who have played for multiple teams during their careers. Prescott appeared to be open to negotiations continuing into the season, but he has since clarified he is not the one primarily responsible for whether or not that happens. Given the efforts made to reach an eleventh-hour agreement, it is clear all parties involved are interested in achieving clarity in advance of the season starting.

CeeDee Lamb inked a four-year extension averaging $34MM per season this summer, and edge rusher Micah Parsons will be in line for a deal putting him at or near the top of his position’s market during the 2025 offseason. Prescott could very well move to the top of the quarterback pecking order on his next deal, either on another Dallas extension or a contract sending him to a new team in March. The latter scenario being eliminated is still possible with mere hours remaining until the Cowboys’ season starts.

Cowboys, Dak Prescott Making Progress In Extension Talks

September 6th, 2024 at 4:34pm CST by Adam La Rose

SEPTEMBER 6: Stephen Jones confirmed on Friday (via team reporter Nick Harris) talks continue on the Prescott front. The team remains hopeful an agreement can be reached prior to Sunday, and attention will no doubt be focused on any movement in negotiations in the immediate future.

SEPTEMBER 5: CeeDee Lamb‘s extension is in place, and Micah Parsons may well need to wait until next offseason to finalize one of his own. The Cowboys still have the matter of a Dak Prescott deal to attend to in the days leading up to their season opener, however.

Negotiations on an extension have taken place throughout the summer, and efforts to reach an agreement continue before Week 1. During a recent Scoop City episode, Dianna Russini of The Athletic reported contract length is an issue between the parties (audio link). The financial element of a new Prescott accord is still expected to top the quarterback market, but Dallas could be hesitant about making another long-term commitment (at least, in terms of guaranteed money) in the 31-year-old. One year remains on the four-year, $160MM pact he signed in 2021.

However, DLLS’s Clarence Hill Jr. writes team and player are in fact in agreement on contract length at this point. He adds that progress has been made recently and as a result a deal is “closer than it has been” at previous times in the offseason. Owner Jerry Jones said last week an extension does not need to be in place in time for Week 1, but Hill describes Sunday as Prescott’s “arbitrary line of demarcation,” suggesting talks could be paused after that time if no deal is reached. ESPN’s Dan Graziano adds it would not come as a surprise for this situation to be resolved in the coming days, even if it resulted in Prescott falling short of the $60MM AAV mark he has been connected to.

Prescott has joined Jones in making numerous public comments on this situation, one which will see him carry a cap hit of over $55MM in 2024 as things stand (along with a charge of more than $40MM next year if he were to depart). Last year’s MVP runner-up has repeatedly hinted at a willingness to keep his options open, citing the volume of high-profile quarterbacks who have played for multiple teams in their careers. He and Jones have, on the other hand, made clear their preference to continue their long-running relationship in 2025 and beyond.

Lamb’s deal carries an AAV of $34MM, the second-highest figure for receivers. Whenever Parsons’ deal is in place, it will no doubt make him at least one of the league’s highest-paid edge rushers. Those commitments will make a new Prescott investment difficult to manage from a cap standpoint, but no clear successor is in place under center if he is allowed to leave on the open market next spring. Playoff success has been elusive in the Prescott era, something Jones remains acutely aware of in advance of head coach Mike McCarthy‘s lame-duck season.

“I don’t know that there’s any more urgency but I have tried to look at places that we are complacent or ways not to be complacent,” Jones said (via a separate Hill piece). “I’m looking for ways to make sure they can’t say that I’ve got some kind of structure that breeds complacency. It can be contracts. It can be conversations. It can be player decisions… I didn’t make many changes. But within the realm of not making changes, totally changing people out, I tried to turn up the heat on myself and everybody involved. And I think that’s what’s being discussed.”

A short window of time still remains for Prescott and the Cowboys to finalize an agreement. It will be interesting to see if talks continue into the regular season if needed, but if the parties are settled on many elements of an extension the immediate future could breed further traction and an end to the uncertainty surrounding Dallas’ quarterback direction.

Cowboys, Dak Prescott Not Close On Extension

August 30th, 2024 at 10:41pm CST by Sam Robinson

Dak Prescott had previously said he would not set a deadline on a Cowboys extension. While Jerry Jones subsequently offered that the team expected to have Prescott on the 2025 roster, the owner’s timeline may have rankled his longtime quarterback.

Jones said the team was unlikely to have a Dak deal done by Week 1, going so far as to say the team does not need to complete one by that point. It is rather bold for Jones, given the leverage Prescott possesses, to remain confident Prescott will be the team’s 2025 starter when the Cowboys can only keep him off the market via an extension. The franchise tag, based on Prescott effectively winning the sides’ first negotiation, has long been off the table.

When asked about Jones’ comments, Prescott said (via The Athletic’s Jon Machota) he “stopped listening to things [Jones] says to the media a long time ago. It doesn’t really hold weight with me.” Though, Prescott did seem to take issue with part of Jones’ assessment. When asked if he would like a deal by Week 1, Prescott replied (via the Dallas Morning News’ Calvin Watkins), “I think it says a lot if it is or if it isn’t.”

To be clear, Prescott continued his refrain of staying out of negotiations and insisting he is indifferent on whether a deal comes to pass before next Sunday’s opener in Cleveland. But talks appear unlikely to produce any resolution at this point. Negotiations have continued throughout the summer, ESPN’s Todd Archer confirms. Those efforts do not have the parties on the verge of an agreement, he adds.

Interestingly, Prescott noted (via Archer) that the matter of whether or not talks continue into the regular season is up to Jones and agent Todd France to decide, not him. Earlier this month, the 2023 MVP runner-up noted he is on board with extension negotiations taking place during the fall, although his role in any talks which occur at that point will no doubt be limited with the season taking place. Waiting until the spring would add further pressure with a free agent departure becoming a distinct possibility.

“When you look at a situation, you’ve also got to weigh, ‘OK, what are the consequences of the other side of the coin?'” Jones said when addressing the Prescott case. “And so Dak’s situation right now for me, from my mirror, has more to do with our situation than it does with the merits of Dak Prescott being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.”

Even with wideout CeeDee Lamb‘s deal now on the books, two key questions remain for Dallas from a financial standpoint. Prescott and edge rusher Micah Parsons are in contention to top their respective markets on their next contracts, and affording both (in addition to Lamb’s $34MM AAV) will be challenging. Since Parsons has two years left on his rookie deal, his situation is on track to remain unsettled until next offseason. For Prescott, meanwhile, plenty of progress will still need to be made — before or after Week 1 — for an agreement to emerge.

Adam La Rose contributed to this post.

Jerry Jones: Cowboys “Don’t Need” To Extend Dak Prescott Before Start Of Season

August 28th, 2024 at 10:48pm CST by Ben Levine

CeeDee Lamb got his wish for a new contract, but Cowboys QB Dak Prescott is still set to play the 2024 campaign on the final year of his deal. Neither side has showed much urgency in completing an extension, and owner Jerry Jones seemed to acknowledge that a new contract was unlikely to be completed before Prescott and the Cowboys take the field for Week 1.

“We don’t need to get this done before the season,” Jones told Clarence Hill Jr. of DLLS last week. “We just don’t need to get it done before the season. Because it’s in all of our interest, Dak and everybody, to have a great season. And as a matter of fact, that’s probably not realistic to think before the season. But my thought sitting right here is we’ll have Dak [as Cowboys quarterback in 2025 and beyond]. But all I’m gonna say is this: it’s not done yet.”

Logically, the Cowboys wouldn’t have invested so much money in a wideout without a plan to retain their franchise quarterback. While the two extensions may be mutually exclusive for the front office, Lamb’s new deal will probably have little impact on Prescott’s stance, and it’s seeming increasingly likely that the QB will play out the 2024 season on his current pact. While there’s a bit of risk from the Cowboys’ perspective to let this play out, but Jones still expressed optimism that Prescott will remain under center for 2025 and beyond.

“I think I am. I am,” Jones said of his confidence about an eventual Prescott extension. “But I understand completely. I understand our challenge. But confident is not a word for me here. I feel that I think that we can do it. We have not figured it out yet.”

With Prescott likely pushing for an average annual value of at least $55MM (and potentially north of $60MM), the organization will likely have to tighten the belt elsewhere on the roster. Jones is already preparing for the fallout from a Prescott extension, and the owner seemed to warn fans that a lucrative QB deal would mean concessions elsewhere on the roster.

“I’m looking at having less supporting cast around him than he’s had any time in his career,” Jones said. “He’s going to have to make up for that and some because we haven’t gotten to the games we want to be playing in. … And he’s going to have to do it in the future with less of a supporting cast. That’s what I’m fighting for. … What kind of supporting cast can we have around Dak? I know you understand that. Do our fans? Do our fans know that Dak is going to have less of a supporting cast than his career has allowed him to have up until now.”

Prescott is currently set to earn $34MM in cash this upcoming season. The organization could look to reduce his $55.13MM with an impending extension, although that would likely kick even more money down the road. The Cowboys front office clearly has to juggle multiple considerations as they navigate negotiations, and it sounds like they may just be willing to play out the 2024 campaign before biting the bullet.

Latest On Cowboys’ Contract Holdups

August 21st, 2024 at 10:17pm CST by Ely Allen

Cowboys owner/president/general manager Jerry Jones is starting to tip his hand. All offseason, we have watched the market for quarterbacks and wide receivers be reset as other teams across the NFL pay their players, some of whom were not free agents and still had time left on their contracts. All the while, Dallas has been negotiating, leaving quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, and outside linebacker Micah Parsons as some of the few players with unresolved contract issues.

In an interview today, Jones clued us in as to why the Cowboys seem to be resting on their laurels while the rest of the league signs their players. DallasCowboys.com writer Nick Harris provided the full quote.

“Well, again, we’re just continuing to talk,” Jones started before getting to the point at hand. “The thing is there, since we’re really (nearing) in-season, practicing, doing all those things, we’re operating under the existing contract really good.

“One of the things that the fans should really understand is that, nine times out of ten, these are existing contracts that you have in place. You should be able to operate under those, but we’ve gotten it now in the NFL — other teams are dealing with it — with some time on the contract, you still might have a contract discussion. And that’s what we’re doing. None of us — player or team — want to hurt the preparation or likelihood of playing at your best.”

There it is. It’s seemed as if the Cowboys are sitting on their hands in terms of extending their three stars because Jones seemingly wants the players to honor the remainder of their contracts before taking extension conversations seriously. On its surface, this seems like a reasonable expectation, until the flipside shows teams cutting veterans with multiple years left on their contracts because they don’t want to be beholden to the cap figures they agreed to.

It’s strange to see Jones play ignorant to the concept that there is value in keeping your star players happy by offering them security and a raise above what they are already owed. One of the league’s most-talented defenders, Parsons is set to be paid as the 76th highest-paid edge rusher (in terms of annual average contract value) in the NFL in 2024. He’ll receive $2.99MM in cash this year. Lamb is set up a little better with his fifth-year option paying him $17.99MM this year, though that amount would qualify as the 25th-highest annual average for receivers in the league.

Prescott is rightfully content to play out the 2024 season on his current deal, as he’ll receive $34MM in cash this year, but one might think that his $55.13MM cap hit in 2024 might encourage Jones to work out a new deal to reduce his cap impact. The team has already shoveled $54.14MM of Prescott’s cap numbers into future void seasons, so perhaps Jones is hesitant to dig the future hole even deeper.

Jones already voiced a lack of urgency in extending Lamb. The holdout receiver could do nothing but laugh on social media as a response. Jones’ comments today concerning Prescott’s situation indicate more of the same. While other teams are attempting to stay ahead of the ever-inflating contract numbers around the NFL, Jones is keeping his wallet closed for now. Jones even blamed some of his tight-purse tendencies on the NFL’s DirecTV case that could involve a large payout from the league.

Regardless, it seems evident that, at the very least, an extension for Prescott will not likely occur before the start of the regular season. Parsons seemed to be on a lower priority level than Prescott, so he will likely have to wait, as well. As for Lamb? He continues to hold out as offers are proffered and rejected. While media pundits seem to think that Lamb will be out there for Week 1, Jones’ continued nonchalance in negotiating could end up forcing Lamb to continue his holdout into the regular season.

Dak Prescott Not Setting Deadline For Cowboys Extension

August 16th, 2024 at 10:52am CST by Sam Robinson

A number of NFL execs are questioning Jerry Jones‘ strategy with Dak Prescott, and the quarterback coming off his first All-Pro season resides in an excellent position ahead of a contract year. But the Cowboys still hold exclusive negotiating rights with their ninth-year starter, giving them some time — even as criticism has come the team’s way for waiting this long.

Prescott also appears open to holding extension talks in-season. The longtime Dallas QB1 will not set an artificial deadline here, seemingly open to going up to free agency next year in negotiations with his team.

“I’m not putting that much thought into hoping it gets done now, hoping it gets done in a couple of weeks, during the season or whenever it happens,” Prescott said, via ESPN.com’s Todd Archer. “I just know conversations are on the right way.

“I enjoy being a Cowboy 1,000 percent, enjoy living in Dallas, enjoy everything about it. But this is a business. Conversations are going well, but I’m thankful to be where I am right now and that’s here.”

This is not the first time Prescott has publicly alluded to the business component here. As the Cowboys are unable to trade their starter or apply the franchise tag — with a $55.13MM 2024 cap number and a looming $40.13MM dead money hit factoring into this equation as well — Dak is believed to have asked for a deal that would break the current NFL AAV record of $55MM. A $60MM-per-year deal has been floated during this lengthy process as well, as the Cowboys would face the prospect of losing their starter for merely a 2026 compensatory pick next year.

Prescott, 31, has continued to insist he wants to stay in Dallas. Though, he did reference other standout passers leaving their initial teams. COO Stephen Jones also recently said the ball was in Dak’s court, suggesting the Cowboys have made an offer. Players have set negotiating deadlines in the past, and it is interesting Prescott is open to talking with the team during the season. He could further boost his leverage by refusing to do so, creating two deadlines — Week 1 and the start of free agency — during a process that would stand to see other teams enter the mix if this drags on long enough.

The Cowboys finally hammered out their initial Prescott extension early in a third offseason of negotiations. Though, the sides were unable to talk during his 2020 franchise tag season. After being unable to extend their QB in 2019 and tagging him in 2020, the team agreed to a player-friendly accord just before a second Prescott tag would have hit the cap sheet in March 2021. Prescott’s past of shrewd negotiating is certainly relevant again, even as he continues to say the right things about his latest round of Dallas talks.

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