Dak Prescott’s contract guarantees he’ll be with Cowboys, for multiple more years

There was a question, apparently, as to whether the Cowboys would bring back coach Mike McCarthy. There’s no question that they’ll bring back quarterback Dak Prescott.

It has nothing to do with his performance, which was great during the regular season but not good enough in the playoff loss to the Packers. It has everything to do with his contract.

Prescott is entering the final year of the four-year contract signed in lieu of playing under the second franchise tag. He got to the second tag because the Cowboys refused to extend his rookie deal after three years, and then again after he completed his four-year rookie contract and he was franchise-tagged a first time.

The situation gave him considerable leverage in early 2021. He did with it exactly what team owner Jerry Jones has done throughout his entire life when he has had considerable leverage.

He took full advantage of it.

And so, on the first day of the 2024 league year, Prescott’s cap number will skyrocket from $26.832 million in 2023 to $59.455 million. The Cowboys have no real choice but to extend his contract before then, in order to chop down the massive cap charge.

The situation gives Prescott considerable leverage again. What will he do?

Well, what would Jerry do?

Prescott will undoubtedly emerge from the negotiations with another market-level deal. He can essentially name his price. The situation flows directly from the stubbornness and frugality Jones displayed after the 2018 season, and again after the 2019 season.

When the Cowboys opted in early 2021 to avoid Dak playing under the franchise tag for a second year and then Kirk Cousins-ing his way to unrestricted free agency in early 2022, the Cowboys signed Dak to a four-year contract, $160 million contract that necessarily would force them to eventually sign him to another deal, ideally after 2022 (it didn’t happen, even though the Cowboys wanted it to) and at the latest before the $59.4 million cap charge kicks in on March 13.

The Cowboys can’t trade him. While he’s due to make only (only?) $34 million in 2024, a trade would trigger a $61.9 million cap charge. Cutting him would result in the same dead money number for 2024. (Because he’s in the final year of his deal, there’s no difference between pre- and post-June 1 transactions.)

Beyond the leverage that comes from the $59.4 million cap number for 2024 is that, given the structure and terms of the deal, the Cowboys can’t tag him in 2025. (Even if they could, the cap number would be 144 percent of his 2024 cap number — $85.5 million — since the Cowboys applied a second franchise tag before he signed his extension.) Thus, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent next March, without an extension.

And even if they decide to deal with the $59.4 million cap number and let him become a free agent in March 2025, they’ll still have to deal with $36.46 million in dead money from the contract next year. That’s more than the $35 million Tom Brady left behind this year for the Buccaneers.

So, basically, the Cowboys are screwed. Dak knows it. He knew it three years ago, and he did what Jerry would have done. Why wouldn’t Dak do this year the same thing Jerry would do?

Fortunately for the Cowboys, Dak played well enough in 2023 to justify a major contract. It would have looked very odd if, for example, they gave him a $55 million per year deal if he had thrown 23 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions, as he did in 2022.

But it would have been understandable. The Cowboys screwed around after his third year and his fourth year. In lieu of letting Dak play under the $37 million tag in 2021 and become a free agent in March 2022, they painted themselves into a corner. As the final year of that deal approaches, they’re painted into it even more snugly.

How ‘bout them Cowboys, indeed.