According to reports the hold up between Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys is the year involved with Dak wanting a longer-term deal.
Today is Tuesday of Week 1 which means that the Dallas Cowboys play a football game of significance in five days, which also means the opportunity to reach a deal with Dak Prescott before the season begins is running out.
There is nothing concrete that orders the Cowboys to extend Prescott before the season begins, but general NFL history suggests that not doing so means that he will ultimately play the season out and reach the open market in the spring if that is the case. But again, there are always exceptions.
Presuming you believe there to be some truth to this overall idea then you can at least rationalize how the next few days have the potential to be seismic for the future of the franchise. Getting Prescott taken care of is a choice on one side of the fork in the road, not doing so is the other.
One NFL insider said on Monday that the clock is ticking. Another recently offered what the hold up seems to be here.
Latest reports are that the hold up between Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys is about years involved and that the quarterback prefers a longer-term deal
Back in the early days of the summer it was thrown out by NFL Network that Dak Prescott could ultimately sign a deal of the shorter variety if and when it ultimately came to pass. The thought (generally) behind this is that doing so would allow him to hit a position of negotiation sooner and closer to the prime of his career as opposed to past it.
That may or may not have been what Dak wanted then, but if it was then that status quo has changed. On Tuesday’s “Scoop City” podcast, The Athletic’s Dianna Russini noted that the hold up at this moment in time is the years involved, but that Dak is the one who wants the longer deal.
“The hold up at this point from what I understand is about the years the Dallas Cowboys are willing to commit to. While, it’s assumed, that Dak is going to be paid at the top of the market, the Dallas Cowboys are aware of that. It’s… do they want to put themselves in a position, contractually, that will keep Dak in Dallas longer than two, three, four years. And that’s what Dak is looking for. He’s looking for a long-term commitment from Dallas. So the hold up here is really the belief from the Dallas Cowboys. This is a guy who’s won a lot of games. But is that enough? Winning’s not enough for Jerry Jones. We know this. They want to do more… they don’t want to just be the team that wins a lot of games. They want to be the team that can play in the Super Bowl.”
There are definitely benefits to a longer-term deal for the Cowboys as it would allow them to play around with the money and salary cap space involved to a different degree. Recently our own OCC explored that world relative to the recent CeeDee Lamb extension that Dallas did.
But a commitment is a commitment and locking yourself into a long-term one is always something that must be weighed carefully and with proper consideration. Maybe that is what the Cowboys are doing and have been doing for this entire time, but this presentation makes it seem like they have legitimate doubts about how long Dak will be the proper quarterback for them to get where they want to go.
The week begins in earnest on Wednesday for the Cowboys. Whether or not this happens before then remains to be seen.
