Russell Wilson chose to announce his record-breaking contract extension from the bed he was sharing with wife Ciara, which seemed sensible since it was after midnight across the country. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott may not have been up late enough to see the news, but he certainly had to be celebrating Tuesday morning.
Prescott now has something to shoot for in his contract negotiation with the Cowboys. I know he hasn’t come close to Wilson in terms of playoff wins (6-1) or Super Bowl appearances (2-0), but that hasn’t kept other Cowboys quarterbacks from signing lucrative extensions. When Joe Flacco cashed in on his Super Bowl MVP status with $52 million in guaranteed money, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo had a target. Despite his lack of playoff success, Romo received $55 million in guaranteed money. I had made this prediction in the aftermath of Flacco’s deal in sort of a snarky way, prompting Tony to admonish me via text.
Romo had put up huge numbers during the regular season to that point, and Jerry Jones truly believed he was the quarterback to lead the Cowboys to a Super Bowl. Now, he has those same feelings about Prescott, who’s won two-thirds of his regular season games and has led the team to two division titles in his three seasons.
The Cowboys can try to hold his one playoff win against him, but the Romo precedent suggests that strategy may prove futile. To be sure, Prescott doesn’t have the type of leverage to impose his own deadline for a contract extension, like Wilson did with the Seahawks. He’ll likely play it cool and see what happens. The Cowboys decided to wait and watch Romo play into the final year of his contract in 2007, and he made them pay dearly.
On Tuesday, Stephen Jones did some posturing on 105.3 The Fan.
“I think at the end of the day, if there’s any position that has to keep an eye out not only for themselves, but they also have to keep an eye out on their team in terms of how much [salary] cap space they take up, these quarterbacks are those guys,” Jones said. “At the end of the day, they’re going to make a lot of money. The bigger thing for them in terms of their career and what they’re all about is how much did they win, how many Super Bowl rings do they have on their fingers? Those are all huge deals. They know at some point if they take out too much cap space at the end of the day it could hurt their chances in terms of winning.”
Well played, Stephen. I’m sure Prescott’s agent will stay up at night worrying about how his client’s contract extension could hamper the team.
Prescott understands that he’s been one of the most underpaid players in the league for three seasons, so it’s unlikely he’s considering a team-friendly contract. The part of Wilson’s contract extension Prescott will like (other than the money) is that it’s only four years. If Prescott goes on to have the sort of success the Cowboys expect, he’d be back at the table at age 30 for another huge payday. When you have a quarterback like Kirk Cousins making $28 million per year, Prescott knows he can do better. Wilson is set to make $35 million per year, which surpasses Aaron Rodgers at $33.5 million. I would expect Prescott to come in around $30 million per season.
Stephen Jones has experienced salary cap hell in the past. The Cowboys normally deal with this by having highly paid players such as Romo restructure their deals. It wouldn’t be long before the Cowboys would approach Prescott about a restructure, and he’d likely accommodate them. It’s not as if players are being benevolent when they agree to those adjustments. That’s why saying Prescott needs to keep the team in mind during this negotiation will fall on deaf ears. He’s spent the past three years trying to land every endorsement deal in sight in order to capitalize on his status. And like Romo, he’s far exceeded his draft status.
I used to think it was ridiculous to see players with little or no playoff pedigree receive huge deals. Now, I see it as the price of doing business.
The Cowboys may have used the franchise tag as a negotiating tactic with Dez Bryant and DeMarcus Lawrence. That won’t happen here.
Sometime soon, Prescott can hold his own bedtime announcement.