DALLAS — One of the biggest offseason events for the NFL kicked off on Monday in Indianapolis, where the league’s annual scouting combine is held. The combine is where the future of the league is fighting for draft position, but the meeting of scouts and front office personnel also serves another purpose, it’s a time for the rumor mill for veterans to heat up.
The combine is a place where many seeds of the offseason are planted. With coaches, scouts, and general managers all milling about in the same location, it’s known just as much for draft prospect scouting as it is for teams to play let’s make a deal.
For the Dallas Cowboys, the early offseason is a time to start working on a new deal for quarterback Dak Prescott. Currently, reports are that no significant talks between the team and Prescott have taken place, but that needs to change, quickly. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler spoke on air this past weekend that there have yet to be any “significant talks” between the team and Prescott.
It only takes one party to reach out to the other to escalate those discussions, and that could come at the combine. Jerry and Stephen Jones will be in attendance, and so will Prescott’s agent, Todd France. The time is now to work out an extension, before the opening of free agency, to allow the team a better understanding of the money they will have to spend when the legal tampering period opens on March 11.
The Cowboys are still over the cap and need to be under by March 13, so working out an extension with Prescott over the next few weeks is vital. If that doesn’t happen, the team will be hamstrung at the start of free agency and hampers their ability to make improvements.
It’s not going to be cheap to keep Prescott in the fold for future years, but it’s necessary to bite that bullet unless Jones is prepared to reboot everything with a new QB. That’s an unlikely path for Jones. Prescott’s new deal is expected to reset the QB market and could come in at around $60 million per year.
That number could be surprising to some – especially for those who aren’t a believer in Prescott – but it shouldn’t. Prescott’s cap hit in 2024 under his current deal will be close to the $60 million annually that he’s predicted to earn in a new deal, and he has the upper hand in negotiations with the organization as they negotiated away from the possibility of applying the franchise tag on him again. It only makes sense that an MVP-caliber QBs projected dollars start where he’s scheduled to count against the cap.
The benefit for the team is they can assign a lesser amount to the cap in the initial years of Prescott’s potential extension to help build the team around him.
Prescott’s going to be able to cash in because he’s the next man up at the position to get paid. That’s always how it works with quarterbacks. If you’re a good QB, and you’re next in line to get a new deal, you become one of the highest paid players in the league.
After the season that Prescott had in 2023, when he led the NFL in several statistical categories, including touchdown passes with 36, and finished second in MVP voting, it’s hard to argue against him being one of the top QBs in the game, and one of the highest paid players.
Detractors might point to his playoff failure, but if Prescott’s not the QB in Dallas, they likely don’t sniff the playoffs. Some fans may not like it, some might not believe he’s worth it, but that matters little in these negotiations. When it’s your QB’s turn, he gets paid.
Also remember that Prescott got one of the richest deals in football history in 2021 when he was coming off a major ankle injury, so it makes sense that he’ll get top of the line money after arguably the best season of his career. Prescott negotiated a shorter-term deal back then specifically to get another shot at a big deal now and he’s lived up to his end of the bargain by playing his best football.
There’s too much at stake for the Cowboys and Jones to not get a deal done. The organization doesn’t have much ammunition to stop a massive Prescott deal, unless they are planning on moving on from Prescott and starting over with a new QB. That’s the type of unknown that Jones hasn’t been willing to undertake, and he’s not likely to start at 81-years old.
If the Cowboys are serious about working on an extension and going all-in this season, the framework for a deal could begin this week in Indianapolis. No one should be surprised if there are rumblings about a new contract between the two parties during the combine.
Indianapolis is known as the ‘Crossroads of America’ and there’s no greater metaphor for where the Cowboys are with Prescott. Things are sure to start getting very interesting as the NFL offseason begins at the combine, and it has nothing to do with draft prospects getting their official measurements.
Do you think the Cowboys will come to terms on a new deal for Dak this offseason? Share your thoughts with Ben on Twitter @BenGrimaldi.
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