There aren’t any indications that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wants to move on from Dak Prescott. But if he changes his mind in the not-so-distant future, there will be a manageable way out of that contract.
After playing the 2020 season under the franchise tag, Prescott and the Cowboys agreed to a four-year contract extension worth $160 million in 2021. The current deal keeps him under team control through the 2024 campaign.
In his latest column, ESPN’s Dan Graziano looked at the contract statuses for multiple big-named NFL quarterbacks. In the piece, Graziano detailed how the Cowboys could theoretically get out of Prescott’s current deal without taking a huge dead money hit:
“Dak is sure to be the Cowboys’ starter for at least one more year after this one and probably much longer, as they’ll likely look to extend him this offseason or next. But if things were to go wrong, the 2024 season is when the Cowboys would have a relatively easy out.
Moving on from Dak in the 2024 offseason would cost them no cash, and about $40 million in dead-money cap charges for 2024. But Dak’s only 29, and they love him there, so things would have to go very wrong for any of this to matter. Just pointing out that this extension, which feels so recent, was a short-term deal designed to get him to the market again sooner, or prompt a decision by Dallas on an extension in the next year or two.
Whether Cowboys fans like it or not, one could make an argument that the team could survive without him. After all, backup Cooper Rush won four of five starts this season while No. 4 was sidelined with a hand injury. Not to mention that Rush also won his lone start against the Minnesota Vikings last season with Prescott out of action.
But Prescott is having another productive year in Dallas, and America’s Team is sitting comfortably in a playoff spot with an 8-3 record. As long as the Cowboys continue to win in the regular season, Jones probably won’t seek a change at quarterback.
The Cowboys have never had a losing season in which Prescott was the main starting quarterback. They finished 6-10 in the 2020 campaign after losing him for the year in Week 5 with a gruesome ankle injury. Otherwise, it’s been 8-8 or better every season since his 2016 rookie year.
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If the Cowboys don’t go on a deep playoff run this season or next, maybe Jones will explore the idea of changing quarterbacks. But that will all be a moot point if Prescott can lead Dallas to their first NFC Championship appearance since the 1995 season.
