It is amazing how much people still talk about Dak Prescott’s contract.
Dak Prescott is the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. There is going to be a lot of words used between now and the end of this article, but no amount of wordsmith sorcery will change the legitimacy of that first statement. Last offseason, owner Jerry Jones sent the sports world into a frenzy, stating the Cowboys were “all-in” with key contracts coming up. While he took things down to the wire, he delivered on his promise, extending both Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb before the season started.
The organization is indeed all-in with Prescott. He’s their guy. Prescott signed a new four-year, $240 million contract last season, placing him under team control through the 2028 season. While the Cowboys are all-in with Dak, the same is not true for some fans. With a couple of underwhelming seasons recently coupled with uninspiring playoff performances, many have planted their flag in the camp that believes he’s not the guy to get it done.
There are many pages in the book of Prescott that have not been written yet. We know he has unfinished business, but there are no guarantees that things are going to get better. There’s hope. But no guarantees. What if those Dak doubters are right?
In the spirit of keeping an open mind to all possibilities, we’re going to hypothesize a situation where things don’t work out so well, and the world we know, no longer has Prescott playing quarterback for the Cowboys. For such a thing to happen, we profess that at least one of the following three circumstances must happen.
1. Starts to struggle
Before he got hurt last year, Prescott was having his worst season as a pro. His completion percentage, yards per completion, and QB rating were the lowest of his career. He’s just a year removed from leading the NFL in interceptions. His recent playoff performances have featured far too many instances of bad decisions with the football, resulting in costly mistakes. Now, he did have an MVP-runner-up season mixed in between, so that’s why we’re not reading too much into this, but there is a range of outcomes where Prescott isn’t able to get back on that horse and right this ship. If it’s more of the same, or worse, this will be a problem for the Cowboys.
2. Can’t stay healthy
Prescott turns 32 years old next month. He’s entering his 10th season as the team’s starting quarterback. You might remember that it was Tony Romo’s 10th season as the team’s starter when he got hurt twice and only played in four games that year. That was the dreaded 2015 season, which ended up being the last year Romo started a game for the Cowboys. After never missing a game his first four years in the league, Prescott has now missed games in four of his last five seasons. In three of those seasons, he missed at least five games. It’s not unreasonable to say he’s reached a point in his career where every time he goes to the ground, we cringe.
3. A better option emerges
Even if things aren’t going well and it feels like the team is hobbling along with Prescott, the Cowboys are not likely to make a big change at the quarterback position unless they have a more enticing option at their disposal. That means somewhere down the line, a new quarterback shows up and dazzles. Some might point to the shiny new toy that is Joe Milton III as a potential candidate, but he’s a late-round draft pick that the New England Patriots traded away for a ham sandwich. That’s not to say he can’t be, but a lot of good things have to happen before that happens. Sometimes these new guys show up out of nowhere, but someone would have to before the team gave serious consideration to moving on from Prescott.
When you look at the origin story of the Cowboys’ two franchise quarterbacks who have held down the gig over the better part of two decades, it’s been some combination of these three options that caused them to make the switch. For Drew Bledsoe’s departure in Dallas, it was options 1 and 3 that ended his tenure. He became a liability at quarterback, to where Bill Parcells opted to go with the undrafted and inexperienced Romo.
When Prescott replaced Romo, it was because the Cowboys came to the dark realization that their star quarterback just couldn’t stay healthy. Romo was still playing well, but Prescott’s play was good too, but the tie went to the young kid with a bright future.
If ten years is the shelf life of a Cowboys quarterback, then Prescott’s days could be numbered, but passing the torch will be a little harder this time around. The team’s investment in him last year was a big one. Since we’ve been flexible enough to examine what it would take for the Prescott rayne to fall, it’s only fair to explain why he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Tomorrow, we’ll go into details about the team’s true financial commitment to Dak.