Cut, Duck, Brees or what? 6 ways Cowboys-Prescott negotiations could go
The Dallas Cowboys are now two weeks into their offseason process. While they still don’t know what their defense is going to look like, the return of head coach Mike McCarthy means the attack is going to get a second year of Texas Coast. But McCarthy wasn’t given a new deal, he was retained to complete the final season of his five-year contract.
And that lame duck approach leads to huge questions to the other figure atop the leadership totem for the team, quarterback Dak Prescott. Prescott, 31, himself enters the offseason with just one year remaining on his deal. The ninth-year vet will be entering the final season of a four-year $160 million agreement that at the time signed made him the second-highest paid QB in terms of annual value.
Prescott, as was always going to be the case, now sits tied for 10th with Matt Stafford and Daniel Jones. He is set to earn a $5 million roster bonus in March and then cost Dallas $29 million in base salary for 2024. His total cap hit for this year is $59.46 million and due to bonus money allocated beyond the four-year agreement, already has $36 million on the Cowboys’ 2025 books.
On top of this, Prescott negotiated additional provisions in the current deal that limit Dallas’ flexibility in this round of negotiations. All in all, it leaves six viable paths for things to go, as laid out below. Don’t feel like reading anymore? Check out the Youtube video and follow along that way.
TL;DR -- Here's the video version of the conversation
June 1st cut him
Chances: 1%
This is an unlikely scenario, but one that must be discussed.
What if the Cowboys simply hit the reset button before the season hit? Dallas could use the June 1 option to cut their ties with Prescott completely. Ideally, this goes hand in hand with drafting a quarterback in April, but the Cowboys could create cap space for their rookie class and to rollover into 2025 by splitting the cap hit across two seasons.
Cuts that take place after June 1st save the team from paying the base salary, which for Prescott is $29 million.
An early offseason cut, or trade, accelerates all of the allocated money from the void years to the current year. That’s why while Prescott’s cap hit is $59.5 million now, his hit would jump another $2 million if he were jettisoned before June.
But after June, the $36.5 million that’s meant to hit in 2025 stays there as dead money. Cutting Prescott in this way creates $29 million of space for Dallas.
Each NFL team can designate two players every year as June 1 cuts and release them earlier.
The cap space still isn’t available to the team until June 2, but it’s a show of good will to the player so they can seek a new team while there’s money being thrown around early in free agency.
Waiving the no trade clause
Chances: 5%
Prescott has most of the leverage in this standoff with the organization, and it’s Dallas’ fault. Because they didn’t pay him the going rate in 2019, they had to tag him in 2020. Then when they were working out the long-term deal, Prescott forced them to tag him a second time, guaranteeing that anytime he was tagged for the rest of his career, it’d be for 140% of his salary. He also negotiated both a no-tag and a no-trade clause.
Any time the idea of trading Prescott comes up, it’s greeted by this fact that Prescott has total control here. Yes, he does.
But with the way so many vocal Cowboys fans have let it be known throughout his career they don’t like the man, if the organization approached him and told him they were shopping him, would Prescott really turn down a trade to a location he’d be interested in?
It’s anyone’s guess which destinations would be allowable to Prescott, and whatever a personal fan’s opinion about a city or organization’s worthiness are irrelevant. Prescott may have an affinity for a city that doesn’t pass a fan’s criteria.
The point is, if half the fanbase wants him gone, and the organization is looking to unload him, there might not be a long list of destinations Prescott would say no to.
No new deal this offseason (Keep a lame duck)
Chances: 9%
Conventional thinking is that the Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott are going to reach some kind of agreement. Why? Well, because they’ve told us as much. Several times over the course of the last couple of seasons they’ve mentioned how Prescott is the QB of the future and there have been a handful of reports that Dallas will look to extend Prescott once the season is over.
Well, the season is over and now the sides will lock in to try and work out an agreement.
But trying to work out an agreement doesn’t always mean they will. Remember it was just five seasons ago when the club decided instead of paying Prescott the going rate for QBs of his caliber at the time with one year remaining on his rookie deal. That led to a franchise tag four years ago, a second tag three years ago and finally an extension that paid him $40 million a year.
The point is, even with a no-tag clause keeping Dallas from having leverage, they don’t have to cave in to Prescott’s demands. It’s not very likely, but they could decide to bite the bullet and go into 2024 carrying all of his sizable $56 million cap hit.
The Cowboys did not extend Mike McCarthy, and that’s the reason this isn’t below 5%. Perhaps they are going to ride with both and see how the lame-duck approach inspires each man.
But remember, this isn’t a tag year. There’s no reason that just because an agreement isn’t made before the draft, that an extension can’t be worked out later on. The sides will have an entire year, even into next offseason, to negotiate if they want to.
No new deal this spring likely leads to drafting a QB in late April and a 2026 compensatory pick of the third-round variety.
Drew Brees extension
Chances: 15%
This is the one no one is really talking about.
Back in 2016, Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints were at an impasse with his negotiations. Brees had imposed a deadline that he wasn’t going to negotiate once the season began and two days before the Thursday Night kickoff game happened, the sides agreed to a one-year, guaranteed money extension to avoid the lame-duck scenario.
This could be something the Cowboys and Prescott employ. The reason being, this gives the player some security that there is some level of financial stability in the money for two seasons being guaranteed. It also gives Dallas a solution if they didn’t draft a QB in April and Trey Lance isn’t impressive enough in training camp that would make them consider handing over the reigns in 2025.
Restructure to bring base down using void years
Chances: 20%
This is actually multiple options in one. Prescott has two void years already on his deal. This is an accounting tool that allows teams to pay a player during his contract, but not have all of the money hit their cap until later years. Prescott already has $36.5 million of cap hit in those void years that will become dead money if he leaves the team.
The club can restructure Prescott, without his permission, to create room for them to make other moves in free agency. A restructure turns base salary into bonus money that is spread out over the remaining years. So if they convert $27 million of his $29 million base salary, that $27 million is paid this year, but spread across three seasons worth of cap hit. That adds $18 million of cap space without changing anything about how Prescott is paid or under contract.
The club doesn’t have to do this restructure all at once. They could do it each time they need to create space under the cap to make a transaction; which would be wise because if they aren’t going to extend him, it would be better not to push off more money into future year’s cap than they have to.
A third option would be to rewrite the final year of the deal, somewhat similar to what they did with Zack Martin, and guarantee Prescott’s salary while also adding additional void years. This would incrementally increase how much cap hit they could move from this year into next year.
Multiyear contract negotiation (Pay that man his money)
Chances: 50%
This is the most likely outcome. It behooves both sides to make a deal that puts Prescott back atop the totem pole of NFL quarterbacks. A four or five-year extension gives Prescott the type of financial security one can only dream of. It puts the Cowboys in a position where they are hopefully locked in with a quarterback who is a finalist for MVP for 25% of his professional seasons. And it provides them stability which is clearly their top priority over the years.
The Joneses don’t like change, we have to admit that. They don’t like paying players big deals as an incentive to play well for them ad they crave familiarity.
A new deal for Prescott likely lands in the range of $57 million a year. Quite a lot to pay as a third contract for a QB who hasn’t yet achieved playoff success.
