Dak Prescott is about to get paid. How he and Cowboys handle the next few weeks will determine a lot
By Bob Sturm 28m ago
I’m sorry, but I am just not going to entertain all of the silliness circulating around the Cowboys’ QB1 today.
I also will not entertain the silliness of courting a 43-year old QB who most likely will never leave New England and makes no sense in Dallas with only two or three percent of his career left (and far from the best two or three percent).
I am not going to suggest a trade of a franchise-tagged Dak Prescott to Detroit for a beaten-up Matthew Stafford because he is from Highland Park and his back may not be severely compromised even though he missed the last two months with a severely compromised back.
I don’t think it is necessarily a good use of time to explain how trading a QB who is out of contract is either impossible or fruitless, depending on how you contort the situation.
And, no, I am not in on all of the red-tag sales out there on wonderboys past: Winston, Mariota, Tannehill, Bridgewater or even Newton. I’m sorry, but if you would prefer that to this, it might be time to get into Political Twitter (LEFT! RIGHT!), where nobody ever considers the truth when arguing at full volume.
I’m not here for any of that.
Instead, as a longtime pro-Dak enthusiast, I have a thought or two for the QB himself. Prescott has won me over in his four years here in Dallas. I understand that he is not the best quarterback in the NFL and is not probably in the top 10 in a free-for-all draft of all league QBs. There are plenty of metrics that suggest that he deserves a ranking up there, but I concede the league likely doesn’t value him that way — and I am a Dak fan!
There are signs that he will continue to improve and has a very high floor. His game involves the same variance shared by many other highly compensated starters in the NFL, including one who started in the Super Bowl. There are days when Dak looks like he is on the cusp of elite status, and there are days when it looks like he is completely dependent on those around him. That makes him pretty valuable but also not the rarest of birds. I think the middle of the 32 starting quarterbacks is full of players like him. Yes, if you can get one of those no-brainer elite QBs up top, you should. But beware, the ranks are surely switching if Brees, Brady and Rodgers are no longer the cheat-code answers to every question. In total, my feelings are that Prescott is a very fine QB who has real value beyond stats in his durability, mentality and general personality. He does almost nothing on or off the field that hurts his team.
More important than my views on this matter would certainly be those of Mike McCarthy, who took this Cowboys coaching job specifically after saying he was seeking a job with a young QB who he could work with and groom. It seemed pretty clear then that a flirtation with a retread or a passer on the brink of retirement would not appeal to him. McCarthy was very much their guy, so that told me all I needed to know about Prescott.
All of that has nothing to do with some of the factors inherent to this fanbase, such as their love for Tony Romo clouding judgment of the new QB1, the expert ability to understand the cap better than the Cowboys (apparently) and an infatuation with the next shiny object that comes along. (I definitely can tell you which Twitter accounts told me they would rather have Cooper Rush out there in 2018. I take careful notes.) I know some of you are significantly less convinced than McCarthy, the Jones family and yours truly about Dak. Social media has revealed yet again that we cannot achieve a consensus on anything. Alas.
But that is not the point of today’s column.
Rather, this is a message to the Cowboys QB from someone who thought 14 months ago the Cowboys should have considered a fully guaranteed contract offer to get this done quickly and painlessly. It would have been cap-friendly in total dollars but Dak-friendly in a fully guaranteed deal, albeit for less money per year than other QBs to sign recently. I saw the deal coming down somewhere between Derek Carr money ($25 million per year) and Jimmy Garoppolo money ($27.5 million per year). It never happened. Whatever did happen from the end of 2018 until now behind the scenes is rather difficult to fully identify, but both sides don’t seem much closer to finding that right number.
If you have followed this story, you know it is not quite as simple as the Jared Goff or Carson Wentz extensions. Those gents both had fifth years to deal with, huge amounts of rookie contract guarantees and, of course, teams that had won NFC Championship Games and played in Super Bowls (Wentz did not, but still). Those are three different game-changing components, as is the ability to use the franchise tag on Dak in 2020, which is where we are today.
Goff and Wentz both would have not been subject to that until 2021, which, believe it or not, is a significant amount of time in a QB’s career. In other words, Goff and Wentz were already insanely rich before they took an NFL snap (Goff’s rookie signing bonus was $25 million and Wentz was just under $18 million), something Prescott did not benefit from. (Dak’s bonus was $383,000.)
But I have written all of that before, so either you already know all of these elements or you don’t care. That is fine. The rest of this is not intended to sway the public about his value because, again, you already made up your mind. This is no longer a question of a deal, but what deal. And for that, the Prescott side has to understand a few things, I would think. Here is a Pro-Dak voice to deliver them:
At this point, Prescott has to decide who is working for whom.
This one is important. Everyone shuddered with fright when Prescott hired Todd France and CAA in the summer of 2018 because they are great at getting their clients the best deals possible. And when they do that, they get hired by more people to get them the best deals. Word spreads and the agency (like Scott Boras and so many others who are great at what they do) makes their money on the overall premise that they won’t get pushed around. They get great deals, or their clients don’t sign. And when Dak hired them, it was clear that he did so with the knowledge that this news would serve a purpose.
But here is the issue, of course: They work for you, but you do not work for them. If you ever have worked with an agent in any walk of life, this can often feel like a truth that is not often enforced because it is “out of your hands” and “you are just going to just stay out of it and let them do their job.” I have been there, and I get it. But, as I was once told, “they don’t have to live here when this is all done. You do.” That simply means the agency doesn’t mind napalm, and the agency will still get the same commission on the deal if you play in Dallas or on Mars. But if you wish to enjoy your work environment, then there is some value in doing your part in being a reasonable negotiator. If you sit it out, could you be richer? Sure. But, there is more to life than another zero. Let me explain…
There is almost nothing on the planet available for $160 million and not $150 million.
That’s easy for me to say. Actually, no, it is difficult for me to say. But one of the reasons that my Twitter feed is filled with people who spend all day getting tired of the Dak talk is that they cannot wrap their mind around the projected dollar amount. Now, let’s be fair: At their core, any human working their tail off for $30,000 a year is never going to be OK with athletes making even 10 times that amount, let alone a thousand times (or five thousand times). It isn’t comprehensible on any level. But it’s important to keep in mind that price is relative. And if you can find a way to be content and overjoyed with a dollar figure in the proper range that you believe rewards you for your hard work, then maybe consider leaving that last 10 percent as a payment in the jar of goodwill and perception.
I realize I will get hammered for this by many, and I realize I sound like an ownership shill today. I hope this isn’t the first time you have read a single word I have written,because then you at least know my reputation for taking the opposite approach. My track record is very clear: I want athletes to get all they can get because the owners try to take advantage of every situation whenever possible and careers go by in a blink. But there are rare exceptions, and I believe this is one of them.
If Prescott understands that the franchise tag is $27 million for 2020, and if he understands that Russell Wilson currently owns the highest annual average QB contract at $35 million per year, then he has two choices:
A) Make more than Russell Wilson because he can.
B) Wind up somewhere within the current top-five numbers — let’s call it the $33.5 million per year of Aaron Rodgers and Jared Goff — and go play football.
Again, I realize how this looks. And, it certainly isn’t popular to suggest someone should take less than they can get. But he has to live here. He has to deal with the noise. Is $2 million per game an insult or unfair? Of course not. In that case, it becomes a question of whether Prescott feels like he is being respected. And being paid as one of the top five players in the NFL conveys a great deal of respect.
That leads me to this final, important point:
You are a QB. That means bigger paychecks but also bigger noise, headaches, standards and expectations.
When I start hearing about things “turning ugly” and perhaps spilling into no-showing for offseason programs, mini-camp and, who knows, maybe even training camp if an extension doesn’t happen, I first assume Prescott is bluffing. But what if he is not? What if the next step to lock in $200 million is to literally not show up and talk about not playing under the franchise tag?
Prescott would be within his rights to withhold services and demand action from the franchise. He is within his rights to grab it all and buy anything he wants (and still have enough left to buy it all again). You can put the cash on pallets in storage like Huell and just make all-cash snow angels.
But, man, you have to live here. And you are the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. You already know that means the biggest microscope in sports is on your every move and every throw. You already know that you get blamed for everything and are the lightning rod they want. Why make the target bigger?
I know this sounds crazy, but if you slide in the QB market around Goff or Wentz’ salary, even though you probably deserve a little more given your different circumstances and how little you have already been paid for four seasons of starting QB performances (including two postseasons), nobody would bat an eye. They would say, “That sounds about right” and move to the next story.
If you go big or go home, you might even be able to get right under Pat Mahomes’ next deal, right around $40 million a year. Mahomes was an NFL MVP as well as a Super Bowl winner and MVP within two seasons of starts. If Dak Prescott is paid similarly, the pressure, the noise and the unfair treatment will triple.
It isn’t worth it.
Now, allow me to qualify a few quick things. I don’t know Dak’s actual demands nor what the Cowboys have offered. There may be some circumstances that have been kept secret or snuck out amidst the lies that both sides float in the battle for perception. But let’s say the Cowboys are offering $32 million per year while the Prescott camp wants $38 million.
In that case, and if Prescott decides he is so serious about this that he will press the button and even start holding out, I think the QB could help make his own bed.
The point here is hopefully clear. Get your money, young man. You earned it.
But how you get your money will either allow you to sow goodwill or animosity. And regardless of whether you make every last dime or not, reaping time comes in September.
My advice would be to make sure your agency doesn’t make your hill any steeper. It is tough enough to win a Super Bowl. Make sure you don’t run any loyalists away.
As a quarterback, you run things on the field. Don’t think for a second you can’t run things off the field, too.
