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By Bob Sturm 6m ago
Thanks to the ongoing contract stalemate between Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys, no discussion topic is lobbed in my direction more often than the future of the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback position.
My response rarely varies: Unless one side or the other moves, this only benefits one side — and it isn’t the side with the billions. This might be tough for the ownership of these teams to fully comprehend because they are used to dictating control in literally every category in their empire. But in this particular situation, there is an upset in the order of things. There are not enough quarterbacks to go around the NFL. Legendary QBs are playing their last downs, so everyone moves up in the pecking order if they have a proven track record. The owners’ efforts to suppress salary inflation at the QB position is as worthwhile as trying to hold back the tides.
And, as we learned from our friend Marlo back in Baltimore, “You want it to be one way, but it’s the other way.”
You want to sign your QB, but you don’t want to pay the market value? Cool. It doesn’t matter.
There are 32 teams, and roughly 15 of them know what their plan is at QB. Fewer than 15 love that plan. In a situation with limited supply and high demand, what
happens to the market?
Let’s examine the last four years and find out.
2017
This was the year the Detroit Lions gave Matthew Stafford his new contract. They decided the right thing to do was to commit to his future at a level nobody had ever seen before. They gave him a deal that “reset the market” (get to know this phrase) and saw his annual value balloon past $25 million per year for the first time in league history. Add the numbers of his deal to the higher guarantee young Andrew Luck secured from the Colts and the headscratcher in Oakland for Derek Carr, the three biggest deals went to QBs whose respective teams were thrilled to have around for years to come. The number to beat was just over $25 million a season, which staggered the good folks of planet Earth.
2017 Veteran QB Contracts
| PLAYER | TEAM | TERM/AMOUNT | AAV | GUARANTEE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Matt Stafford | Detroit | 5/135 | $27m | $74m |
 Derek Carr | Oakland | 5/125 | $25m | $70m |
 Andrew Luck | Indianapolis | 5/122 | $24.5m | $87m |
The average annual value of the three biggest veteran QB deals signed in 2017 was right at $25.5 million a year.
2018
Here came the first few times we exceeded $30 million per year. This was also the year when the 2015 draft class was supposed to get their new deals, but since Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota never really earned it, their teams decided to pass. It’s amazing to contemplate what might have happened differently had Tampa Bay just closed their eyes and decided to extend Winston. Clearly, Tom Brady wouldn’t have happened. But here comes Aaron Rodgers to “reset the market” at over $33 million a year, or $2 million for every game he plays! How is that possible? Matt Ryan was guaranteed $100 million! Insanity. And some guy named Jimmy Garoppolo played the role of Derek Carr — the quarterback who is probably not good enough but rides the market to the third-biggest deal of the new cycle.
2018 Veteran QB Contracts
| PLAYER | TEAM | TERM/AMOUNT | AAV | GUARANTEE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Aaron Rodgers | Green Bay | 4/134 | $33.5m | $98.7m |
 Matt Ryan | Atlanta | 5/150 | $30m | $100m |
 Jimmy Garoppolo | San Francisco | 5/137.5 | $27.5m | $74m |
 Alex Smith | Washington | 4/94 | $23.5m | $71m |
The average annual value of the three biggest veteran QB deals signed in 2018 was now over the $30 million mark.
2019
The cap keeps going up, and so does the cut given to the most important player on everyone’s roster. This isn’t complicated at all. And since rookies convert to veteran contracts after their third season, this was the first time (Jan of 2019) the Cowboys could have extended young Dak Prescott. This was also when I first asked them to do so and to make sure they got the numbers out there BEFORE the deals were signed by that year’s first-rounders — Jared Goff and Carson Wentz — because those were the contracts that would absolutely dictate where his deal might end up.
The Cowboys, of course, were determined to say a few things in the media, commenting on Prescott’s ability to capitalize on his role as Cowboys QB in the form of endorsements and perhaps even the offer to sell a line of Prescott sunglasses at the Cowboys Pro Shop.
Meanwhile, the contracts kept getting written as Russell Wilson of the Seahawks “reset the market” (drink) and even the older models were still using that average annual value (AAV) of Wilson’s deal to get a few new years. Ben Roethlisberger bagged $34 million per year to get in front of Rodgers for no real reason other than inflation from 2018 to 2019. Meanwhile, the new kid contracts of Goff and Wentz put the money for even those players at around $2 million per game. The entire group was now firmly in the 30s.
2019 Veteran QB Contracts
| PLAYER | TEAM | TERM/AMOUNT | AAV | GUARANTEE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Russell Wilson | Seattle | 4/140 | $35m | $107m |
 Jared Goff | Los Angeles | 4/134 | $33.5m | $110m |
 Ben Roethlisberger | Pittsburgh | 2/68 | $34m | $37.5m |
 Carson Wentz | Philadelphia | 4/128 | $32m | $108m |
The average annual value of the three biggest veteran QB deals signed in 2019 was now $34.1 million.
2020
We wondered what a pandemic might do to suppress the QB market, and whether it would perhaps bring things back to normalcy with the possibility that the stadiums would sit empty and the cap would have to go down. Well, fears did not seem to dictate much, as Patrick Mahomes signed a new deal that looked both absurd and still somewhat team-friendly. DeShaun Watson joined him as a class of 2017 player now eligible for a new deal. (A few things have happened since then.) Even Kirk Cousins was able to get a new extension that was 100 percent fully guaranteed, as the Vikings front office is a real marvel. After about 10 good games, Ryan Tannehill was able to hit the jackpot for just under $30 million per season. The wheels kept turning.
The Cowboys delayed doing anything long-term with Prescott because they reportedly were insisting on a fifth year when the rest of the NFL quarterback family stopped signing five-year deals over 24 months earlier. Every single one was four years or shorter besides Mahomes, who got $45 million per year on his 10-year extension.
Instead, Dallas started down the franchise tag path at $31 million in 2020, which would not count at all towards the guarantee of Prescott’s new deal.
2020 Veteran QB Contracts (Top 5)
| PLAYER | TEAM | TERM/AMOUNT | AAV | GUARANTEE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Pat Mahomes | Kansas City | 10/450 | $45m | $141m |
 DeShaun Watson | Houston | 4/156 | $39m | $110m |
 Kirk Cousins | Minnesota | 2/66 | $33m | $66m |
 Ryan Tannehill | Tennessee | 4/118 | $29.5m | $91m |
 Teddy Bridgewater | Carolina | 3/63 | $21m | $33m |
The average annual value of the three biggest veteran QB deals signed in 2020 was now over the staggering $39 million mark.
So, as you can now see in graphic form, waiting has only allowed the Cowboys to go from the second column here to wondering where the fifth column will be with Prescott.
That should catch you up on how we got here. But in January of 2021, we see that they now stand in the proverbial corner of the room with wet paint all around them. There is nowhere left to stand.
I believe there was a deal to be done 24 months ago with Prescott that would have been very easy, but Dallas resisted both the years and the outlay because they wanted him to prove his merits for one more season.
Fine.
He did prove it, playing excellent football. But the team did not have a great year relative to the year before, so they doubled down. And because he didn’t want to be the only QB in 2020 to take a fifth year – everyone figured new TV contracts and gambling revenues would make the cap jump by $100 million in a COVID-free world – talks again broke down at the 11th hour. The Cowboys and Prescott wandered down the franchise-tag road that actually cracked divorce’s door for the first time.
As we sit here today, the Cowboys have three choices, none of which appear to be great. And the clock is ticking.
1. Finally find a number that all parties agree upon.
This is probably the best option, but it will also be the most frustrating because they should have been in the class of 2019. If they had agreed on a deal at the first chance, there is every reason to believe that the number in January ’19 was around four years at $108 million — and if higher than that, not by much. Even if they went to the very high end, the deal would have been done at four years, $120 million. Because they were willing to bet against their own guy at the most vital position, the natural growth of the NFL QB market probably puts the January ’21 number somewhere between Watson’s current deal of four years, $156 million and up to five years, $200 million. And we arrive there because that is what he can reasonably expect as a UFA in March if he were on the open market and a team like Detroit, Chicago or Washington could bid on him without any compensation beyond the money. There is every reason to believe that he would easily be the top unrestricted free agent on the market and someone would have to go all-in on him, at which point Dallas would lose him for nothing and have to find a new QB.
2. Franchise him again for the second and final year at $37.7 million
This is probably the worst option. The Cowboys would hold on to Prescott but know they cannot franchise him a third time for anything less than $54 million in 2022, and of course, that would destroy their salary cap sheet — especially now that the cap has stopped growing because of the pandemic’s effect on attendance. We could argue it is bad luck, and that would be a fair argument, but again, that doesn’t matter. Dallas attempted to slowplay this thing and assume Prescott would eventually cave, leaving Jerry Jones to claim victory while sailing around the Mediterranean in a $300 million yacht. But this one might go the other way. I would say a second franchise tag is almost not an option at all.
3. Cut him loose and try your hands at Door No. 2.
Dallas botching the Prescott situation is amazing to me. They paid their edge rusher the going rate, their running back more than the going rate, their linebacker the going rate and their wide receiver the going rate. But somehow, they thought it was smart to push the QB — the single most important piece of the puzzle and the one they paid next to nothing for four years — to the edge, preparing to watch him play elsewhere for the next decade? Especially when they know the league sees him as a legitimate top 10 to 12 quarterback whom many teams would scramble to add to their roster?
So, what is the plan? Trade a first-rounder as well as a second for Matthew Stafford and prepare him a new contract, too? Draft a new guy and hope he can play, even though at No. 10 you might get the fifth-best QB in this draft? Keep Andy Dalton? Call Houston?
Which is why we can call this a botching. When you could have paid $100 million to secure a quarterback’s future and instead you now have the choice of paying him $50 million more or watching him play for a rival, well, the smartest businessmen in North Texas have royally screwed this up.
Even the solutions look bad. Paying him more than every QB short of Mahomes is not terribly wise because it would be very difficult to say that he is that good. Paying him more will not make him a better QB; just a more expensive one. And if the cap goes down, so does Dallas’ ability to add to a roster that has many holes.
Franchising him again is a horrible idea.
So is thinking Dalton or Cam Newton or Jacoby Brissett or Ryan Fitzpatrick or Mitchell Trubisky could anchor a good plan.
Same goes for using draft capital that you wanted to use to remodel your defense in some bold strike to either move up in this draft or to send it all away for one of those veteran QBs.
You can tell me that it takes two sides to make a deal and that Dak must share some blame, but I would counter with “for what?”
Is he to blame for knowing he could do something that maybe only a dozen other humans can do at this level? For knowing that, at worst, he moves to Chicago or San Francisco and gets NBA star money to be their new QB1?
Only one side gets blamed for prioritizing the entire rest of the roster over their own, young, talented and pretty proven QB. And now they are faced with three bad options.
Deserve may often have nothing to do with it, but I kind of think they deserved this one. Anyone with Google knew this doomsday was coming, and I fear we are now here.
The Cowboys are in a corner and have about 45 days to sort out their mess. Every option might now be on the table behind closed doors, and I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised if they actually let Dak get to free agency. Maybe their QB will do them a favor and take Russell Wilson’s deal from two years ago to get this done, but odds are he is annoyed enough that he wants to show them that this time, it is going to go the other way.
This all could have been avoided, and every fan of this franchise has every right to be upset. They should just hope the team avoids the worst-case scenario.
