Dallas Cowboys should get Dak Prescott deal done sooner than later

The Dallas Cowboys are in tricky terrain with their fifth-year QB. With the franchise tag on the horizon, they should lock him in more sooner than later.

The Dallas Cowboys are coming off a very disappointing season by all accounts. So much so, that Jerry Jones and the Cowboys brass finally saw fit to get rid of Jason Garrett at the end of this past season.

While keeping Garrett on for as long as he did may have been a mistake by Jerry, he could go a long way in another imperative scenario to make sure he doesn’t make another gargantuan mistake. To shed light and give background on the topic, it is well known that quarterback Dak Prescott has been one of the absolute best values in the sport over the last several years.

Relative to other players that play the same position as he does and relative to the team he plays for, Prescott’s 2019 salary of just over $2 million (nearly four times the amount he made in the previous season) was mere peanuts. It is time for Jerry Jones and Co. to pay the piper, or at least the quarterback in this case.

While it’s inevitable that he will be paid at some point soon, reports seem to indicate that the plan for this upcoming season is to place the franchise tag on Prescott. The fact of the matter is this though, it would behoove the Cowboys as a wise decision to pay Prescott and get him locked in more sooner than later. Here is why.

We all are aware by now of who the 2020 Super Bowl champions were. Their signal-caller, one Patrick Mahomes, was already said to have been looking at $40 million dollars at the end of the season before this one that just concluded. With his Super Bowl title and subsequent Super Bowl MVP in tow, he is definitely bound to get that or greater now.

This matters in Prescott’s situation because in professional sports, salaries aren’t random numbers pulled out of the sky, but numbers based on, compared to, and relative to the market or other players and/or free-agents of a similar ilk. While the word being most publicized is that Prescott wants to be paid higher than both Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, that still isn’t Patrick Mahomes money.

To put it all in perspective, Goff makes $33.5 million annually while Wentz makes $32 million. To even exceed Goff’s deal at $34 or even dare I say, $35 million annually, wouldn’t be the same as meeting in the middle of those deals and the one Patty Mahomes is sure to sign. The average number on a request of that nature would be closer to $37 million dollars.

While two million bucks or so doesn’t seem like a lot to some of the most wealthy men and entities on the planet, it could stand to go a long way under the NFL salary cap on a roster. That amount of money could pay as many as four extra full-season players, depending on the nature of their deals.

It is for this reason that the Dallas Cowboys would be wise to get Dak Prescott’s long term deal done more sooner than later. The price may seem high at the moment, but it only stands a chance to get higher. With The Boys hoping to win a Super Bowl sometime in the near future, every dollar counts, and that is a way to save some of those by doing what you will eventually have to do anyway.