Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott finished second in the NFL MVP vote last season. A Cowboys insider recently suggested the team’s front office doesn’t view Prescott close to how the Baltimore Ravens prize the 2023 NFL MVP winner, Lamar Jackson.
Last year, the Ravens made Jackson the highest-paid player in the NFL. However, as the market for quarterbacks skyrockets, a few players have since passed him. On Thursday, the Jacksonville Jaguars handed Trevor Lawrence a contract worth $55 million annually.
Dak Prescott could be asking for $60 million
As previously discussed on GH by Alec Musa, Rapoport said Prescott could make $60 million:
According to NFL insider Ian Rapoport, Dallas Cowboys gunslinger Dak Prescott is in line to become the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. On NFL Network’s The Insiders on Thursday night, he spoke on the possibility of Prescott making $60 million annually after signing his new contract.
“Is it possible Dak Prescott gets $60 million if Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow are getting $55 [million] and Dak has all the leverage and a huge number next year if they franchise him, which they can’t? $60 million now becomes legitimately possible.
Whether the Cowboys end up trying somehow some way to do something for Dak, whether he just simply plays it out, crushes it, goes to the free agent market – the number 60, as in $60 million, is no longer crazy. It’s now pretty real,” said Rapoport
The prices to extend players are going up
The decision by Jerry Jones to wait to extend the contracts of Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons is confusing, given how contracts continue to go up as more players are signed this offseason. Of course, it’s only confusing if one assumes the Cowboys intend to extend Prescott.
They might not, and not for $60 million.
Do the Dallas Cowboys view Prescott as an elite QB?
In his mailbag this week on The Athletic, Cowboys beat reporter Saad Yousuf answered a question by a reader who wondered why Dallas’ front office views Prescott as elite. The Cowboys would have already extended Prescott if they thought he was elite, Yousuf wrote:
I don’t believe Cowboys management thinks that Prescott is elite, as much as they’ve indicated with their words. If they did already think he was an elite quarterback, Prescott wouldn’t be entering the final year of his contract.
Actions always speak louder than words. I think management believes that Prescott is an elite leader, and even an elite person. But if they thought he was an elite quarterback, he’d have a new contract extension completed a long time ago.
The Cowboys may view Prescott as just good and want to avoid paying him elite money. But it’s hard to think the Cowboys don’t view Parsons or Lamb as elite, even though management is procrastinating on their contract extensions.
Value is in the eye of the owner who has witnessed too many heartbreaking playoff losses. If the Cowboys decide they don’t want to pay Prescott elite quarterback money, another team will be happy to write a check next year.
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