Cowboys run ‘serious risk’ of losing Dak Prescott in 2025,
Emmanuel Acho and Dave Helman discuss the latest news in sports including the a report indicating the Dallas Cowboys run a serious risk of losing Dak Prescott to free agency in 2025.
In the real world, patience is a virtue. In Jerry World, patience is expensive. For the second straight contract cycle, team owner Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys find themselves in an inexplicable game of contract chicken with quarterback Dak Prescott
To understand what happens next, though, you have to understand how the Cowboys got here in the first place. They handed Prescott more leverage than any other player in football when they stalled on his last deal. They’re in an even more perilous position this time around.
How Prescott and the Cowboys got here
Let’s go all the way back to spring 2019. Coming off a 10-6 season and the team’s first playoff victory in four years, the Cowboys were riding high. After they started the 2018 season 3-5, their trade for Amari Cooper seemed to kick-start the offense. They won seven of their final eight games to claim the NFC East. Their official Twitter account bragged about trading their first-round pick for Cooper when it came up on draft day. To the extent the vibes are ever good in Dallas, things felt like they were heading in the right direction.
Prescott, who had struggled early in his third season, was eligible for an extension. One of the league’s biggest bargains during a rookie deal in which he made less than $700,000 per season, he had played the best football of his career after the Cooper trade. Across eight starts in the second half of 2018, he completed nearly 72% of his passes, averaged 7.7 yards per attempt and threw 12 touchdown passes against three picks.
. The mistakes made leading up to his four-year, $160 million deal in 2021 have left the franchise in an intensely vulnerable position as the season approaches. With Prescott’s price only rising, the Cowboys run a serious risk of losing him for nothing in 2025.
Would that be a bad thing? What are Dallas’ options if it does move on from Prescott? Are the Cowboys doomed to fail if they re-sign him? I’ll answer those questions and a bunch more in a deep dive into the signal-caller’s future.
With one year left to go on his rookie deal and no fifth-year option available, the Cowboys found themselves in the window in which virtually every team will sign their quarterback. When they’ve landed on a passer they like, most organizations will ink him to a long-term extension before he enters his fourth season, allowing them to spread a significant signing bonus over the longest window possible. For quarterbacks who don’t have a fifth-year option, such as Prescott with the Cowboys and Russell Wilson with the Seahawks, there’s really no choice but to do the extension between Years 3 and 4. Teams are almost always loathe to have their starting quarterback enter the final year of their deal in a lame-duck situation without an extension.
The Cowboys didn’t seem to feel the same way. With Prescott reportedly asking for more than $30 million per season, the two sides didn’t come to an agreement over the summer. They locked up offensive lineman La’el Collins and linebacker Jaylon Smith, but there was no deal for Prescott, arguably the team’s most important player.
The 2019 season didn’t go as well. The Cowboys fell to 8-8, but it wasn’t because of Prescott, who threw 30 touchdown passes and averaged a career-high 8.2 yards per attempt. With his rookie contract now complete, they had no choice but to franchise-tag him, guaranteeing him a minimum of $31.4 million for 2020. This allowed Dallas to retain Prescott’s rights while negotiating a long-term extension.
That deal didn’t get done. The Cowboys reportedly offered Prescott a contract averaging just under $35 million per season with more than $110 million in “guarantees,” some of which would have been for injury. (Injury guarantees aren’t guarantees. That’s an article for another day.) Along the way, team executive vice president Stephen Jones started talking about how teams are less likely to win a Super Bowl when their quarterback takes up a significant percentage of their salary cap.
The 2020 season was a disaster. Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan couldn’t get his unit to stop the run. The Cowboys ranked 28th in scoring defense. New coach Mike McCarthy promised he could get the most out of Prescott, but after five games, Prescott’s season was over, as he suffered a gruesome ankle injury in a game against the Giants. Prescott had averaged more than 370 passing yards per game before the injury, taking over as the focal point of the offense from a diminishing Ezekiel Elliott. The Cowboys went 4-7 and averaged just over 21 points per game after Prescott went down, cycling through Andy Dalton, Garrett Gilbert and Ben DiNucci at quarterback.
After failing to come to terms with Prescott on a deal before the 2019 and 2020 seasons and seeing him suffer a serious ankle injury, on one level it makes no sense that Dallas would come to terms with him on an even bigger contract than the deals they had offered in previous years. And yet, that’s exactly what happened. The team gave Prescott a second franchise tag for $37.7 million to retain his rights for 2021, then signed him to a four-year, $160 million deal.
The Cowboys didn’t suddenly find an extra $20 million stuffed in the Jones’ couch cushions or learn something new about Prescott in 2020. What changed had nothing to do with him on the field and everything to do with the leverage he held off the field. Once they offered him a second franchise tag, they were one signature away from running the risk of losing him for nothing in free agency the following year. While teams can give a player three franchise tags, a third tag would have cost them a whopping $54.3 million, a figure which wouldn’t have been sustainable on a stagnant salary cap at the time.
Instead of signing Prescott to a friendlier deal when they had the chance, the Cowboys weren’t able to come to terms with him and paid the price. With him holding all of the leverage in their negotiations by virtue of being one season from unrestricted free agency, they were forced to both pay Prescott more than they had been willing in prior years while coming off a serious injury and make serious concessions in the process. The biggest of those concessions has left Dallas in a bind this offseason.
The no-trade, no-tag clause
In addition to paying Prescott $40 million per season and guaranteeing him $126 million over his new deal, the Cowboys were forced to give up the safety card that had kept him around: the franchise tag. Prescott’s representation negotiated both no-trade and no-tag clauses as part of his extension, ensuring he would be in a favorable position to negotiate new terms at the end of his deal. The only quarterback in the league who ended up with a more player-friendly contract is Deshaun Watson, who in 2022 got the entirety of his $230 million deal guaranteed with language to avoid missing out on that money as a product of the suspension he would receive shortly thereafter.
As a result, the Cowboys now find themselves in the same position they were in after the 2020 season: one year away from losing Prescott to unrestricted free agency. They can’t trade him without his permission and wouldn’t be able to prevent him from hitting the open market next offseason. Prescott, again, enjoys the most leverage of any player in the league.
The time to sign Prescott to an extension without being as vulnerable to his leverage would have been last offseason, when he was coming off a 15-interception season and was still two years away from unrestricted free agency. Dallas instead spent money elsewhere on its roster, attempting to build the best possible team while wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and edge rusher Micah Parsons were still on their rookie deals. It traded for cornerback Stephon Gilmore and wideout Brandin Cooks, adding two veterans on significant contracts to the roster. The franchise decided against extending Lamb or Prescott during the summer of 2023, leaving it open to the risk of paying more in the summer of 2024.
The top of the market at quarterback in mid-April was at $55 million per year, which was what Joe Burrow landed in his deal with the Bengals in September. Since Jones’ comments, guess where the market has gone? Jared Goff inked a four-year, $212 million deal with the Lions that averaged $53.5 million per year with favorable, player-friendly cash flows. Trevor Lawrence then signed a five-year, $275 million deal with the Jaguars, matching Burrow’s contract despite possessing a much less impressive résumé.
You can argue Prescott was always going to be in position to top the market either way, but the deals signed since Jones’ comments have only strengthened Prescott’s position. The price for star players is always going up and has been for the entirety of Jones’ time as an owner. He and the Cowboys are smart enough to know that, regardless of what they say publicly. Failing to get their QB’s deal done before the final offseason in advance of free agency cost them in 2021.
It’s hurting Dallas again in 2024. The uncertainty and massive amount of money due to Prescott, Lamb and Parsons on their new deals have caused the Cowboys to essentially sit out free agency this offseason. They let offensive linemen Tyron Smith and Tyler Biadasz, edge rusher Dorance Armstrong and running back Tony Pollard sign elsewhere. They didn’t re-sign Gilmore, and they cut Michael Gallup without adding a veteran replacement. Their only two additions in free agency — in a year in which Jones says the team is “all-in” — have been Elliott and linebacker Eric Kendricks, veterans on the backside of their careers. Dallas’ roster is worse in 2024 than it was in 2023, and it will likely be worse in 2025 than it was in 2024, with or without Prescott on the roster.
Can the Cowboys even afford to keep their big three?
It’s a fair question. Prescott, Lamb and Parsons were making just over $47 million per year combined on their most recent deals, with most of that coming from Prescott, who was taking home $40 million. Lamb has already picked up a significant raise by virtue of reaching his fifth-year option, which will pay him nearly $18 million this season, but there’s a lot more to come.
There are round numbers each of these players should aim for on their new deals. Prescott could become the NFL’s first $60 million player. Lamb should try and match Jefferson’s $35 million average. And Parsons, arguably the most dynamic pass-rusher in football, should top Nick Bosa’s $34 million average and challenge to become the league’s most expensive non-quarterback.
If we plug in $35 million per season for both Lamb and Parsons, the Cowboys would need to pay the three of them a combined $130 million per season on their next deals to keep them around. A decade ago, the salary cap or an entire team was $133 million. We’re talking about a staggering sum of money.
Can the Cowboys build a Super Bowl-caliber team around those three cornerstones? I’m not sure. Even if we assume the salary cap rises another 10% to $281 million in 2025, they would be looking at three players whose individual average salaries amount to more than 12% of the cap apiece. While Dallas will structure deals to keep the cap hits respectable, the average salaries of the three combined would be than 46% of the 2025 cap.
Is that even a feasible roster construction? Spotrac has salary data versus the cap running back through 2013, and since then, there are only two teams that had three players making more than 10% of the cap. Neither had a successful season. The 2022 Raiders had Derek Carr, Davante Adams and Maxx Crosby combining to make 44.2% of their cap, while that same season, the Rams had Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp at 47.2% of their cap. Neither team posted a winning record.
While this might be an extreme example, the idea of having a top-heavy roster isn’t new for the Cowboys. Over the past 25 years, they have been the most extreme example of a team willing to pay top dollar for a few (often homegrown) stars to serve as the core of their roster, even if it means having less depth than most other teams. They typically executed that philosophy by handing out long contracts and repeatedly restructuring bonuses to create short-term cap space at the expense of eventual dead cap when that player leaves. It ended up costing them edge rusher DeMarcus Ware for cap purposes — the future Hall of Famer was released in 2014 — and limited their ability to build around Prescott when he was on a bargain-basement deal, given that they were stuck paying out millions in dead money for Tony Romo’s deal after the long-time quarterback starter was released in 2017.
With quarterback contracts rising faster than the cap, we’re about to enter an era in which teams are comfortable committing more than 40% of their cap to their signal-caller and the two other best players on their roster. Paying their big three $130 million per year won’t be easy for the Cowboys; it will force them to be excellent drafters without much leeway for failure, though finding talent in the draft has been Dallas’ biggest strength over the past two decades. I don’t believe the Cowboys should abandon signing their big three because it’ll take up too much cap space.
What’s the case for the Cowboys to part ways with Prescott?
This could be a whole other article. It was in 2020, in fact, when I compared Prescott to contemporaries Carson Wentz and Jared Goff, who were building blocks for the teams that had drafted and extended them. (A lot can change in four years.)
Prescott had consistently ranked as a quarterback in the bottom half of the top 10 at that point, and not much has changed since. While his 2022 season was struck by interception variance, he has been among the league’s best quarterbacks. From 2021 to 2023, he ranked fifth in QBR, trailing Brock Purdy, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Justin Herbert. He ranks eighth in yards per dropback and fourth in expected points added (EPA) per dropback over that stretch. And while Elliott and the running game was the core of the offense early in Prescott’s career, the Cowboys have moved toward a more pass-happy attack over the past three seasons. There’s more weight on Prescott’s shoulders than ever before.
On the other hand, there’s the lack of playoff success. Prescott is 2-5 as a starter in the postseason, a figure that likely undersells his actual performance. Two of his best starts were in losses, including a game in which he went 24-of-38 for 302 yards and three touchdowns against the Packers in 2016. He led a pair of fourth-quarter drives to tie the game up twice, only for the defense to allow Aaron Rodgers to march back down the field and score both times. Prescott’s 305-yard, four-touchdown game in a win over the Bucs in the 2022 postseason was one of the best playoff performances in recent history per QBR, although it was followed by a disappointing loss to the 49ers the following week.
Leaving aside the most fervently playoff-pilled observers, Prescott has clearly established himself over more than 4,000 NFL pass attempts. He’s a very good quarterback who will occasionally have stretches in which he produces either elite or mediocre football. He finished second in the MVP voting last season, although he didn’t earn a single first-place vote from the 50 electors. If your bar for success is the Super Bowl, Prescott is a failure. If your bar is more realistic, he’s a well-above-average quarterback, and at age 30, he should still be in his prime throughout this next deal.
How often do quarterbacks at that level in their prime make it to the open market? Almost never. The quarterbacks who have hit unrestricted free agency over the past 15 years and earned significant multiyear deals mostly have different circumstances to what we could witness with Prescott. There were future Hall of Famers on the tail ends of their careers in Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. On the other end, there were backups who were earmarked for larger roles in Teddy Bridgewater, Nick Foles, Mike Glennon and Brock Osweiler. (You could go further into the past for stars coming off serious injuries, including Drew Brees and Daunte Culpepper.)
The only exceptions in the middle are Jimmy Garoppolo, whose ill-fated foray with the Raiders lasted one year, Derek Carr and Kirk Cousins, who might be the closest comp for Prescott in a number of ways. Cousins’ numbers have exceeded his reputation, but he hasn’t made the sort of playoff run Commanders and Vikings fans would have hoped to see. Like Prescott, Cousins failed to convince his team he was worthy of a significant extension as his rookie deal expired. Unlike the Cowboys, though, Washington never recognized it lacked leverage and seemed content to insult Cousins through the media. After two franchise tags, Cousins left and signed a fully guaranteed three-year deal with the Vikings in free agency in 2018. The Commanders have been wandering through the quarterback wilderness ever since. Cousins then made it back to free agency at the tail end of a series of deals with the Vikings before inking his most recent deal with the Falcons.
Regardless of what you think of Prescott or the idea of building a roster around an expensive quarterback who isn’t the caliber of Mahomes or Allen, teams typically do not allow players like Prescott to hit unrestricted free agency. Failing to re-sign Prescott would also trigger $40.6 million in dead money to hit Dallas’ cap in 2025, a figure that won’t help its ability to replace him.
There will be no shortage of suitors for Prescott if he becomes a free agent next offseason. Just considering teams that have clear question marks about their quarterback situation after this season, the Giants, Seahawks, Dolphins, Jets, Steelers, Titans and Raiders could all be in Prescott discussions without anything wild happening. Would the Panthers be interested if Bryce Young doesn’t develop in Year 2? Could the Saints try to replace Carr with Prescott?
The league moves fast; consider how many people thought the Eagles were about to move on from Wentz before the 2020 season or expected Russell Wilson to make it through just two seasons of his five-year, $245 million extension.
Could Prescott’s market be disappointing in the way Lamar Jackson’s was last offseason?
Anything’s possible, but I’d be surprised if that were the case. There are a couple of key differences between the two. Jackson had shown a higher ceiling than Prescott and was younger than his Cowboys counterpart will be next offseason, but he’s also a more unique player. A significant portion of Jackson’s value has been what he offers as a runner, especially before throwing a career-high 457 passes last season in a more balanced attack under Todd Monken.
There were always going to be teams that don’t trust paying that much money to a quarterback who runs the ball as often as Jackson does or that didn’t want to adapt their schemes to Jackson’s set of skills. To be clear, I don’t agree with those arguments; he’s a wizard when it comes to avoiding big hits, and a team should mold its offense to its quarterback as opposed to the other way around. I’m confident, though, that more teams would see Prescott as a plug-and-play pocket quarterback than Jackson, which would expand his market.
The other factor is cost. Jackson would have cost opposing teams two first-round picks if they had signed him via an offer sheet. Prescott wouldn’t come with any draft compensation attached; the team that signs him would incur an opportunity cost and miss out on a potential compensatory pick if it lost a player during the 2025 free agent window, but that’s nowhere near as significant of a potential loss as it would be to not sign him. Jackson also reportedly sought a fully guaranteed deal before settling for something less with the Ravens, while Prescott doesn’t appear to have the same sort of demand.
I also wonder if what happened with Jackson might cause teams to get more aggressive in free agency. Many of the teams that immediately announced they were out on Jackson last year disappointed and ended up making coaching changes. The Falcons fired Arthur Smith. The Commanders moved on from Ron Rivera. The Raiders sacked Josh McDaniels, and the Panthers let go of Frank Reich before the season even ended. Three of those teams made quarterback changes after the season was over, while Carolina instead chose to trade two first-round picks to acquire Young instead of going after Jackson. Would a team with a vulnerable coach see those results, consider that Jackson ended up winning league MVP after those teams passed and be more inclined to make a big-money move for Prescott?
Scenario No. 1: The Cowboys sign Prescott over the summer
OK. I’ve laid out how we got here. Now, we can look toward what happens next. Let’s lay out three scenarios for the Cowboys and Prescott.
We’ll start with the easy one. The most logical thing for Dallas to do is repeat what happened last time around. After all the debate and maneuvering, the team ended up signing Prescott to a deal that was almost exactly what I projected before that season: four years and $160 million, for an average of $40 million per year.
This time around, the magic number would be even higher. Prescott should push to become the first player in league history to earn $60 million per season. A four-year, $240 million contract would give him one more potential chance at free agency (or another lucrative extension) after the 2028 season, when he would be 35. He should push for getting $150 million fully guaranteed at signing, which would be the second most in NFL history behind Watson’s deal. And he should land the same no-trade and no-tag clauses he picked up in his prior deal.
Anything short of $60 million would amount to a gift from Prescott to the Jones family. The passer said last month he doesn’t “play for money,” but that hasn’t been supported by what has happened in his negotiations. He could have signed up for life-changing money in an extension before the 2019 and 2020 seasons and chose to bet on himself instead. He could have gotten a deal done last offseason if the goal was to minimize friction and noise and didn’t sign an extension. No contract was signed.
There’s nothing wrong with what Prescott’s doing, to be clear. He shouldn’t take anything less than his market value for the sole benefit of lining the pockets of the Jones family. There was pressure from former players on him to take less money during his last set of negotiations because of the commercial benefits he enjoys as the quarterback of the league’s most prominent team, but that wasn’t founded with any sense of history or reality. In 1993, Troy Aikman signed the largest contract in league history when he re-upped with the Cowboys. Emmitt Smith famously held out to become the highest-paid back in football into the start of the 1993 season before Jones caved. No Dallas player had taken less for the good of the team before Prescott, and none has since. Why should Prescott be the first?
Scenario No. 2: The Cowboys sign Prescott after the start of the season
This doesn’t make much sense to me, but it’s entirely possible the Cowboys could get a deal done with Prescott during the season or once the season is completed, before the start of the 2025 league year. In 2020, he wasn’t eligible to sign an extension after July because of the franchise tag rules, and he eventually inked his new deal in mid-March.
The price would only go up in this scenario. Extensions for Jordan Love or Tua Tagovailoa could push the top of the quarterback market north of $55 million per season. The Chiefs could choose to re-do Patrick Mahomes’s deal and make their future Hall of Famer the league’s first $60 million man. As we saw in 2020, when Prescott was out for the season by mid-October and still got everything he wanted in a new contract, nothing is going to happen to make his cost go down. As the cap rises next year, he will only have more of an impetus to ask for a larger contract.
Re-signing Prescott after the new league year begins in March wouldn’t make sense. Dallas would be on the hook for both the $40 million-plus in dead money from his old deal and whatever it owes as part of his new contract. While I would say there’s no such thing as an impossibility when it comes to signing a quarterback, this wouldn’t make much sense from the Cowboys’ perspective — if they want to bring him back for 2025 and beyond.
Scenario No. 3: The Cowboys let Prescott leave in free agency
In addition to that significant dead money hit, Dallas would need to find a replacement for its longtime starter under center. The identity (and salary) of that quarterback may determine how it would approach the rest of its roster in the years to come.
Let’s run through some of the options the Cowboys might consider and what it would mean for their chances of winning a Super Bowl post-Prescott, starting with the man behind Dak on the roster:
Trey Lance. He is the ultimate mystery, and another player who could justify an entire article of dispelling myths and answering questions. The Cowboys traded a fourth-round pick to the 49ers to acquire him before last season, suggesting they at least saw him as a reasonably valuable proposition to add to their roster. After he sat behind Prescott during, they unsurprisingly declined Lance’s $22.4 million fifth-year option for 2025; they could still sign him to a smaller extension to keep him around, but at the moment, he is set to follow Prescott out the door.
Despite having just finished his third season in the league, Lance is still a remarkably young prospect. He just turned 24 years old, an age where plenty of quarterbacks are just entering the league. He’s three months younger than Bo Nix and one day younger than Michael Penix Jr., two rookies from the 2024 draft class. He’s nearly a full year younger than Will Levis, who was in the 2023 class. That in itself gives him some breathing room: He still has more time to develop, even though he has been in the league for nearly an entire rookie contract.
The problem is that development, of course. Lance simply hasn’t played much football. After throwing 287 passes in 2019 at North Dakota State, Lance was limited to one start in 2020 by the impact of COVID on the college season. After being drafted by the 49ers at No. 3 overall, he made two starts as a rookie and two more in his sophomore season before suffering a season-ending ankle injury, after which Brock Purdy emerged as the franchise’s quarterback of the future. He has a total of 102 pass attempts as a pro, giving him 420 passes over six years since graduating from high school.
Did the 49ers give up on Lance because he was a failed prospect? Maybe, although that wasn’t borne out by how he played on the field. In his rookie season, he posted a 97.3 passer rating, averaged 8.5 passing yards per attempt and ran for 168 yards on 38 attempts. He did that with a broken finger that impacted his throwing. San Francisco didn’t seem concerned about his performance after that rookie season, as it prepared to trade Jimmy Garoppolo and installed Lance as its starter for Week 1 of the 2022 campaign.
That week, Lance struggled in a game played amid monsoon conditions in Chicago, with the 49ers losing 19-10. The following week, he was 2-of-3 for 30 yards before suffering an ankle injury on a busted run play, ending his season. He hasn’t taken a regular-season snap since. I don’t think you can make a case that he doesn’t at least have the potential to become an NFL starting quarterback.
Does Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers moving on from Lance prove he was a wasted pick? Maybe, but again, consider the context. The 49ers were transforming their offense to account for Lance. In 2021, Garoppolo averaged 7.3 air yards per throw, which ranked 29th among passers with at least 50 attempts. Lance’s 10.2 air yards per throw ranked No. 1 in the league. He was going to be a more explosive downfield attacker, creating the sort of explosive plays Shanahan thrives off creating in the passing game.
In addition, Lance quickly became part of the rushing attack via the quarterback run game, something Shanahan hadn’t been able to implement in his offenses since his time with Robert Griffin in Washington. In his brief time with the 49ers, the Lance-led offense looked more like what the Eagles run with Jalen Hurts in terms of his impact on the ground. That might have faded over a full season or as he grew more comfortable as a passer, but the offense was going to have different elements with him under center in 2022.
Instead, Purdy was simply a better fit as a replacement for Garoppolo and as the latest in a series of pocket quarterbacks for Shanahan, following in the vein of Kirk Cousins, Matt Ryan and Garoppolo. That has worked out fantastically for San Francisco over the past couple of years, and there was no reason to go back to Lance once the team found Purdy to be a star. But it isn’t as if Lance failed in his role. He was promising, then very wet, then very injured. And in the meantime, the 49ers traded for running back Christian McCaffrey, unlocked their offense and found a successful solution under center in Purdy.
Shanahan got to see Lance in practice, too, and it’s entirely possible the star coach felt like his signal-caller wasn’t going to develop into an elite player. Shanahan certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt, but he’s also not infallible. That same season, he gave $2 million guaranteed to Nate Sudfeld, last seen tanking for the Eagles in the NFC East, to serve as the backup quarterback to Lance. When Garoppolo couldn’t be dealt and ended up staying on the roster, the 49ers cut Sudfeld before he ever took a snap.
If Lance could be a quarterback of the future, why did the 49ers only land a fourth-round pick for him when he was available for trade? Leverage and timing. After Purdy emerged as a star, the entire league knew they were going to shop Lance, having little need for him on their roster. With San Francisco trading the inexperienced Lance just before the start of the 2023 season, any team acquiring him was going to be stuck turning down his fifth-year option, meaning it was getting a raw backup and paying about $6.3 million over two years to do so.
Is Lance going to be a superstar in the way the 49ers hoped when they traded three first-round picks to grab him in the 2020 draft? Probably not. Is he a hopeless prospect because of what happened in San Francisco? Given his age and his level of play during his brief opportunities as a college and pro quarterback, I would argue that’s unfair. Geno Smith spent seven years in the wilderness as a backup before eventually emerging as a useful starter for the Seahawks.
Pigskin Pick ‘Em
FREE to play. Create up to 5 entries and compete for 57 prizes worth $100K. Make Your Picks
If Lance ends up taking over as the starter, the Cowboys’ offense might end up looking something like what Hurts runs in Philadelphia or what the Titans did with Ryan Tannehill in Tennessee. An offense that gets him on the move, relies on the run and uses his physical talent and arm strength to create windows and hit big plays off play-action would make sense. Dallas would probably bring in a veteran to compete with Lance, but if it signs him to a modest extension for 2025, it would make sense to see what it has.
Kirk Cousins. It would typically not be plausible to project a big-ticket free agent to leave after one season with his new team, but this isn’t a typical situation. The Falcons drafted Penix just weeks after signing Cousins, signaling that the organization is thinking about its long-term answer at quarterback before its short-term solution even takes a snap in a Falcons uniform. While Cousins signed a four-year, $180 million deal, it would be a surprise if he was still on the Atlanta roster in 2026.
Trading Cousins after one year would make sense if the Falcons want to begin the Penix era in 2025. They would have paid a whopping $62.5 million to Cousins for one season, but that’s a sunk cost by now. Trading Cousins would leave the Falcons with $37.5 million in dead money on their cap next year, but it would save $2.5 million in cap space and free up $37.5 million in cash spend over the ensuing two years.
The Cowboys could commit to paying Cousins at least that $37.5 million for one year of work, with $27.5 million guaranteed in 2025 and another $10 million guaranteed for 2026, regardless of whether he is on the roster. If he sticks around, the Cowboys would pay him $72.5 million for two years, or an average of $36.3 million per season. That’s just over half of what Prescott is projected to make per year on his new deal.
Cousins might be a lesser version of Prescott, especially considering he’ll turn 37 before the 2025 season begins. At about 60% of the price, though, they might be able to justify downgrading at quarterback if it allows them to keep more pieces around their quarterback. They also wouldn’t need to dramatically change their offense with Cousins.
Derek Carr. If the Saints disappoint this season, they likely would end up moving on from Carr, who only has $10 million in guarantees left on his deal after this season. They would struggle to eat the $40 million in dead money from his contract if they trade him after the season, but they could designate him as a post-June 1 release to free up more than $30 million in short-term space. That could come in handy if they decide to try to sign Prescott.
Carr is in the same bucket with Cousins as a lesser, older version of Prescott, albeit with more late-game heroics given his propensity for fourth-quarter comeback victories. His ability to protect the football and avoid turnovers could appeal to the Cowboys if they plan on winning games with their defense, and they should be able to land Carr at about half the price of what they would pay Prescott on a new deal.
Daniel Jones. I would expect Jones to be benched by the end of the season, given that the Giants would be on the hook for $23 million next year if he suffers an injury that prevents him from passing a physical. The Giants aren’t in great cap shape, but they could take a run at Prescott if they move money around and make Jones a post-June 1 cut.
Cowboys fans probably wouldn’t be enthusiastic about going after a quarterback who has gone 1-7 with a 72.8 passer rating in his eight career starts against Dallas, but we saw him play solid football when he was confident and healthy at the end of 2022. He did that with replacement-level receivers and middling offensive line play; signing Jones would probably cost no more than $10 million and allow Dallas to devote more resources to talent around him. In that scenario, I would expect Jones to be a bridge quarterback ahead of another option with a higher ceiling, but he could be part of the post-Prescott puzzle at the right price.
Sam Darnold. The 2018 No. 2 overall pick might not seem like an appealing option given his struggles with the Jets and Panthers, but he keeps getting opportunities with guaranteed money around the league. Last offseason, Darnold signed a one-year deal for $4.5 million with the 49ers and then won the No. 2 job ahead of Lance. (Part of that might owe to the fact he is much more similar stylistically to Purdy than Lance.)
After averaging 6.3 yards per attempt across 46 regular-season passes, Darnold inked a one-year, $10 million deal to join the Vikings in advance of Minnesota subsequently drafting J.J. McCarthy in Round 1. Darnold will compete with McCarthy for the starting job in camp, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he made a few starts before giving way to McCarthy. If Darnold looks good in those starts, he could land another starting opportunity in 2025, likely at a fraction of what Prescott would be earning from another team.
There’s always the possibility of some veteran shockingly coming available. The Dolphins could fail to come to terms with Tagovailoa on a deal and go for Prescott instead. The Browns could decide they’re ready to move on from Deshaun Watson at any cost. The Jets could grow sick of Aaron Rodgers after another injury-hit season and convince him to waive his no-trade clause to reunite with Mike McCarthy. (The universe in which this happens is built solely for TV ratings.) About one quarterback per year unexpectedly comes free way earlier than expected, such as Wentz after 2020, Carr in 2022 and Wilson last season.
A quarterback in the draft. Going with the least expensive option would allow the Cowboys to retain the most talent around their quarterback possible. Adding a veteran backup to take over for Lance and using a top-60 draft pick on a passer to take over would set them up with cap space, especially after Prescott’s dead money falls off in 2026. It would hardly be any trouble to pay Lamb, Cooks, tight end Jake Ferguson and several offensive linemen significant money, let alone key players on the defensive side of the ball. They would have about $55 million to toss around as opposed to what they would spend annually on Prescott.
Could we trust the Cowboys to draft the right quarterback? I’m not so sure. While they are typically a team that drafts well and made a great move to land Prescott in 2017, remember that he was no better than their third choice at quarterback that year. They wanted to take Paxton Lynch in the first round, only for the Broncos to beat them to the punch. They were about to trade up and draft Connor Cook on Day 2, but the Raiders jumped ahead of them. Neither player made an impact in the NFL. Dallas settled for Prescott, who took over for an injured Romo and never looked back.
From the start of the century onward, the Cowboys didn’t seem to do a great job of choosing quarterbacks. Their best draft pick at quarterback after Aikman and before Prescott was Quincy Carter, who started two seasons worth of games with middling results. They cycled through tall, underwhelming passers such as Chad Hutchinson and Drew Henson, signed Drew Bledsoe, and eventually stumbled on a quarterback of the future when Sean Payton convinced Dallas to add Romo as an unrestricted free agent.
It’s too early to even project whom the Cowboys might consider looking for in next year’s draft or even where their picks might land. They have each of their own picks through the first six rounds and project to land four comp picks across Round 5 and 6, but they don’t have significant extra draft capital laying around if they want to move up for a particular quarterback. Dallas would likely need to dip into its 2026 capital if it wants to jump forward in 2025.
Should the Cowboys actually move on from Prescott?
Let’s finish with this simple answer: No. There are reasons to be worried about Dallas’ chances of competing with such an expensive core. Prescott’s lack of playoff success has to be disappointing. There’s an argument to be made that teams should be more aggressive moving on from anyone who isn’t an MVP-caliber quarterback given how much of a savings they can realize by going with an option on a rookie deal, although Prescott did just finish second in that balloting.
If you want to know why the Cowboys shouldn’t abandon their quarterback and start over, look at the Commanders. They had their own skepticism about Cousins after he emerged as their starter in 2015, instead choosing to franchise-tag the 2012 fourth-round pick twice. After failing to come to terms on a new deal before the 2018 league year, Washington lost him for nothing more than a compensatory pick in free agency. (Washington traded down and eventually turned the Cousins pick into running back Bryce Love and guard Wes Martin, both of whom are out of football.)
The Commanders have subsequently gone for solution after solution with no luck. They traded for Alex Smith, who promptly suffered a career-altering leg injury. They used a first-round pick on Dwayne Haskins, who struggled before being released in his second season. They signed Ryan Fitzpatrick, who suffered a career-ending injury after six pass attempts with the team, then added Carson Wentz, who was one-and-done after a dismal half-season. Last year, the job fell by default to 2022 fifth-round pick Sam Howell, who will now be replaced by rookie No. 2 pick Jayden Daniels.
The Commanders couldn’t have seen all of these injuries coming — and there’s no guarantees of how things would have went if Cousins had stayed in town — but they’ve made serious investments in four different post-Cousins starters who haven’t worked out. The Cowboys would be more optimistic about landing their post-Prescott starter if he leaves for greener pastures next year, but landing on the right quarterback is easier said than done. Re-signing Prescott will be expensive, but living through years of football irrelevance would be even more painful for Jones and the Cowboys. They can’t afford to make that mistake.
