Somewhere, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is likely fist-pumping like Tiger Woods on the 18th green at Augusta in 2019.
After Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff signed a contract extension that will pay him $53 million annually, Prescott is one of the biggest winners across the league as he awaits a deal either with the Cowboys in the coming months or elsewhere next offseason.
“Each day that passes, Dak’s price goes up,” a prominent agent familiar with the quarterback market told Heavy, on the condition of anonymity to discuss a player he does not represent.
Ahead of the 2024 season, Prescott is set to play out the final year of his contract while counting $55.4 million against the cap, giving him significant leverage in any extension negotiations.
“Goff’s contract puts Dallas in a tough spot,” an NFL general manager told Heavy, on the condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak publicly on Prescott.
To get a sense of how Goff’s new contract will impact Prescott’s negotiations and a potential deal with the Cowboys, Heavy spoke to several current agents as well as current and former front-office executives around the league to understand a clear picture of how both sides might handle these talks and what an extension might end up looking like.
“Goff has a 5-4 record with a Super Bowl berth,” the GM pointed out. “Prescott is just 2-5 in the playoffs and hasn’t even gotten to the NFC Championship Game. The object of the game is to win the Super Bowl, so, Dallas must decide if Dak can win the Super Bowl and pay him accordingly.”
As things currently stand, Prescott’s contract takes up a colossal 21.7 percent of the Cowboys’ salary cap and likely served as a major hindrance to how Dallas approached free agency this offseason.
Meanwhile, Goff’s new deal comprises 12.6%of Detroit’s spending against the cap, according to Spotrac, for the 2024 season.
Prescott could potentially reset the quarterback market and surpass the five-year contract worth $275 million that averages $55 million AAV which Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals agreed to last summer.
“If I were representing Dak, we probably wouldn’t want to do something right now,” the agent told Heavy. “The smartest thing to do is to wait until all these other quarterbacks get deals done and then just go and top them all.”
Dak Prescott Has ‘Insane’ Leverage Over Cowboys
Prescott and his agent, super-agent Todd France, likely aren’t in any rush to get back to the bargaining table.
That’s especially true after reports surfaced earlier this offseason that Prescott and the Cowboys reached an understanding that he would play out the final year of his contract this fall.
“I think the Cowboys should probably work something out here,” the agent suggested. “And they probably will. Dak has insane leverage, though.”
Burrow’s deal is best in show, at the moment, and includes $219 million fully guaranteed, a second agent suggests Prescott could emerge with a significantly more lucrative pact.
According to the second agent, Prescott’s value could be between $65-70 million, annually.
“All Goff’s deal does is screw the Cowboys even more,” they said.
If that’s Prescott’s asking price, there is no incentive whatsoever to settle for anything less, at the moment, especially as the market price continues to rise.
“Jerry and Stephen Jones obviously want to see Dak led them to a playoff run before they pay him over $53 million per year, where Goff came in as far as new money goes,” former NFL Executive of the Year Jeff Diamond told Heavy, when asked how he would handle the negotiations. “The Packers wild-card loss was a fiasco for Dak and the organization.
“Even though Dak’s carrying that huge cap number, I don’t blame the Cowboys for waiting on his extension until he proves he can lead a run to at least the NFC championship Game. Perhaps they even like Trey Lance enough to believe in him as the backup plan if they move on from Dak in 2025.”
The Cowboys waiting this long will likely cost the team even more than it would have if they had signed Prescott earlier in his original deal.
However, this is nothing new for Dallas, as Prescott is just the first domino to fall, as dynamic wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons are both also eligible for extensions but their deals likely hinge on how Prescott’s negotiations play out.
Relationships Matter in True Market Value
Every Big-Time Throw from Dak Prescott in 2023 (46/6.29%)
For his part, Prescott steadfastly wants to finish his career in a Cowboys uniform, even as contract negotiations are ongoing.
“I’ve talked about how this is where I want to be,” Prescott told reporters at his annual home run derby charity event. “But at the end of the day, my focus is strictly on helping my team. As simple as that. I don’t get caught up in the talks. You guys know that it’s been years of it. So I’m just focused on helping this team right now, be the best I can and get better.”
A third agent Heavy spoke to suggests that goodwill between the franchise and Prescott will serve both sides well as they approach the last mile of these talks, and potentially play a more vital role in negotiations than the eventual dollar amount on the contract.
“This particular deal goes beyond just a numbers comparison with the rest of the market,” the agent told Heavy. “Relationships with the team and the player’s representatives will likely play a factor, and how the deal went down last time around.”
He says he believes the floor of Prescott’s asking price on his next contract will surpass the one Goff just signed.
Like Prescott, Jerry Jones has also expressed his desire that the only helmet Prescott ever wears has a star on each side.
“We want Dak Prescott. That’s that,” Jones said Prescott told reporters, via the team’s official website. “There’s no question that Mike’s [McCarthy] focus, not that he didn’t have focus, but how he [Prescott] improved last year. I give Mike a lot of credit for that. That improvement demonstrated to me there’s more as far as ultimately winning what we’re trying to do here.
“We think that there’s room for growth. He is absolutely unsurpassed as what he is as an individual with his work ethic, what he brings with his leadership and everything about what you would think about as a quarterback. So he’s got that. He’s had a few hits, but everybody has that, too … This wouldn’t even be my response if we were in a different place relative to the cap. … That’s our challenge and to make it work out. Dak as the quarterback Cowboys, I don’t even have a blink on that one.”
As the upcoming season looms, and Prescott is set to finish out a contract worth $160 million, the first agent suggests Jerry Jones won’t allow his starting quarterback to play out a lame-duck campaign.
“I’m sure at some point, the Cowboys will put a deadline on getting something done,” he explained. “And then once the season hits, table talks. That’s dangerous for Dallas because his contract has a reported no-franchise tag clause, hence, the Cowboys will probably get this done before the season kicks off.”
Multiple front office and agent sources suggest the only things possibly holding up a deal getting done are any lingering concerns Dallas might have about whether Prescott is capable of leading the Cowboys to a Super Bowl, or that Prescott’s representatives are driving a hard bargain and not coming off an asking price in the neighborhood of $60 million per season.
“The worst thing you can do in this league,” an NFL source told Heavy. “Is get tied to a middling quarterback — which I don’t think Prescott is, personally, but it’s easy to get stuck in big contracts to the point that you aren’t good enough to compete.”
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NFL Agent: Dak Prescott Has Gained ‘Insane Leverage’ Over Cowboys