Dak Prescott is going to be the Cowboys quarterback for the next few years, and it is amazing how many people don’t understand this.
Dak Prescott is the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. If that feels like something you just read yesterday, it’s because it was. Yesterday, we entertained a hypothetical situation where Prescott would play himself out of the heralded position that is the starting quarterback of America’s Team.
It’s hard to know what the team is going to get out of Prescott this upcoming season. His play has been red hot and a little chilly over the last few seasons, and he’s had problems staying on the field. There are a handful of reasons that have contributed to some lackluster play including the offensive line, the running back situation, and the playcalling. Whatever the root cause, Prescott has encountered some figurative and literal bumps and bruises recently, and for the first time in a while, he is a little bit of a wild card entering the new season.
While how well Prescott performs this upcoming season is an uncertainty, what’s not murky is the team’s financial commitment to him. Less than a year ago, Prescott signed a new four-year, $240 million contract, making him the highest-paid player in NFL history.
On the surface, we know the team is committed to Prescott, but maybe in the back of your mind, you’re thinking, if things don’t go well, the team can get out of it. It might not be real soon, and it certainly will be expensive, but there has to be an escape hatch somewhere if things get really bad, right?
In the words of a piece of twine who’s at the end of its rope, “I’m a frayed knot.”
Prescott’s agent, Todd France, and the CAA Football agency made sure that their client had a room full of money where he could roll around in it like Scrooge McDuck. Not only is Prescott the highest-paid player in the NFL with an annual salary of $60 million, but they also worked some contract language that should help preserve some job security over the next few years. Here is what Prescott’s contract looks like (courtesy of spotrac.com)
But there is even more to the story because of the contract language. With each new year that goes by, more guarantees are triggered, increasing the team’s overall investment. For example…
- $40 million of his 2026 base salary became fully guaranteed on March 16 of 2025
- $45 million of his 2027 base salary becomes fully guaranteed in March of 2026
- $17 million of his 2028 base salary becomes fully guaranteed in March of 2027
This means the front office must declare their commitment in the spring of every year without the knowledge of what the draft or training camp activity might bring them. Breaking it down by these time intervals, here is the financial commitment the Cowboys have with Prescott over the length of his contract.
The values in blue represent how much of his base salary is guaranteed, whether it’s from the current year or the following year. The values in red are his signing and restructuring bonus money that has already been paid to him, but still must be accounted for on the books. Adding those numbers together produces the purple values on the far right. That’s the figure that matters the most in terms of describing their financial commitment to him. Using a timeline, it looks like this…
This makes it really easy to identify a potential out for the Cowboys, which is not until 2028. That means three more years of Dak, whether people like it or not. That is not to say that if some of those extenuating circumstances we mentioned yesterday started happening, the team couldn’t replace him on the field, but it wouldn’t alter their financial commitment to him. This means Prescott has a very long leash.
Now, because we are not Siths, we don’t believe in absolutes. There is a non-zero chance that the Cowboys could pass the torch to someone else and that Prescott might agree to waive his no-trade clause, opening the door for a trade. This would alleviate some of the dead money the Cowboys would be hit with because the base salary guarantees could go on the books of his new team.
If you’re holding your breath for the Dak experiment to end, you might want to reconsider because you’ll be blue in the face before there are any signs that a change might occur. The reality is, Prescott is this team’s ride or die for the foreseeable future, and there’s really no way around it. He looks to be in great shape, and hopefully, some of the elements that have limited him in the past won’t be present this upcoming season. With any luck, fans will stop looking at their watch and instead savor the moment that this team still has a quarterback who gives them a fighting chance to win a Super Bowl.
