Are The Dallas Cowboys Terrified To Give Dak Prescott A New Contract?

Based on the Dallas Cowboys' lack of significant action this offseason, you could conclude that they are storing their nuts away for a new Dak Prescott contract.

However, you could also conclude that Jerry and the boys really don’t want to be on the hook for a contract that could take up 25% of their cap space. Whatever the reason, the fact that Jared Goff just got paid should shed some light on what the Cowboys will do with Prescott in the next couple of weeks.

In the WNBA, they have the Caitlin Effect. Well, in the NFL, at least for this offseason, we now have the Jared Goff effect. Goff, who signed a new deal that will pay him $53 million a year, has helped Dak Prescott hit the tennis ball back over to the Cowboy's side of the court.

Prescott told reporters in April that he doesn't "necessarily" want to be the league's highest-paid quarterback. At the time, that was probably a bit of relief for the Dallas Cowboys, who are set to pay
a $55.5 million cap hit for the final year of Prescotts' current contract.

Fast-forward to the day after Goff’s deal was announced, and Prescott and the Cowboys find themselves on the clock regarding a new deal. The good news for everyone involved in the NFL salary camp is that it jumped 13.6 percent this offseason, going from $225 million last year to $255 million in 2024.

Here are all the top 10 major quarterback contracts signed since Patrick Mahomes reset the market in 2020 by signing a 10-year, $450 million deal:

From Spotrac

Feel free to debate whether Prescott is a top-tier quarterback all you want, but he was the NFL’s MVP runner-up last season, throwing for over 4,500 yards with 36 touchdowns and 9 interceptions for a QB rating of 105.9. Goff finished the season with a QB rating of 97.9.

The big knock on Prescott has very little to do with his regular-season performance and tends to be about what he hasn’t done in the playoffs. He has only won two playoff games throughout his career, and his poor performance in the first half of last season's playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers definitely left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

So what is most likely going to happen? The Cowboys essentially have two options: give Prescott a contract extension or risk losing him to free agency in 2025. While the Cowboys may not want to pay Prescott and may be terrified of the cap hit, I suspect they will eventually cave in and get a deal done.

The Goff effect sets a $53 million basement number for Prescott, who may be able to push the Cowboys all the way up to $60 million per year. I’m willing to bet that doesn’t happen, but I bet Prescott walks away with $56 or $57 million per year, with the last year hitting their cap at $60 million. 

Ultimately, despite Prescott's playoff issues, the Cowboys are not ready to live in a world without Prescott as the starting quarterback primarily because they have no other options unless they know something about Trey Lance that the rest of us don’t.