Did the Eagles provide the Dallas Cowboys with a blueprint?

Wouldn’t it be great to hear from Dak himself? What does he really want? For a 25-year-old, his answer requires him to have wisdom far beyond his years.

The easy answer is to be paid a fair market and compete and hope to win Super Bowls during his career. Most Americans make this decision well after turning 40 after nearly two decades or worldly experience.

The reality, as plainly told by Tom Brady who happens to have won more Super Bowls than anyone in the history of the world, is that it takes really good football players to win a championship and the more money a quarterback consumes the less money that is left to pay other really good football players.

The NFL of today can easily be described as a passing league with a premium placed on the quarterback position. In fact, since the new CBA was signed in 2011, only three positions have seen a rise in salary cap percentage for the top 10 players at the position: center, right tackle and quarterback.

In 2011, the top 10 quarterbacks were paid an average of 12.5 percent of the salary cap. In 2018, this number increased to 15.5 percent. Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz recent deals look to stretch this number higher in the future.

When you look more closely at those deals, Wilson signed a four-year extension which now averages just over $33 million per year for the next five years. Similarly, Wentz signed a four-year extension but he had two existing years that averaged only $15.6M per year leaving him with a six-year contract averaging $26.5 million per year.

Colin Cowherd, host of Fox Sports The Herd, gave the Eagles high marks for a Belichickian move signing Wentz before the Cowboys signed Prescott. But I think the Wentz deal actually paves the way for the Cowboys to sign Prescott.

A six-year contract that averages $27 million per year would be a very nice ceiling for Prescott if you are a Cowboys fan. The contract could be structured so that Prescott receives more guarantees than Wentz so that it looks like he won by waiting to sign.

For Dak, he still needs to answer the question of what he wants in life. If he craves a Super Bowl, he would have a better chance signing for less than his Eagles counterpart’s six-year average.

The Cowboys compete twice a year on the field against the Eagles. Of late, the Cowboys have the edge winning the last three times. Dak Prescott, this time it’s a pen in your hand with another opportunity to beat the Eagles but only if you sign a deal for less than Carson Wentz.