For Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, 2024 has been something of a wild year. Personally, he got engaged to be married and also locked up a $240 million four-year contract with Dallas, making him the highest paid player in NFL history.
But on the field, 2024 has been a disaster, with Prescott coming off a 2023 in which he was the MVP runner-up and logged a passer rating of 105.9, leading the NFL with 36 touchdown passes and logging only nine interceptions. Prescott and the Cowboys went just 3-5 in his eight games, with 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions, posting a rating of just 86.0.
Now, he has a devastating hamstring injury that will keep him out for the season, and has forced the team to turn to backup Cooper Rush. The Cowboys are just 5-7 on the year, clinging to the slimmest of playoff hopes.
Cowboys Unable/Unwilling to Add Free Agents Last Offseason
One of the issues that the team had this offseason was an unwillingness to bring in free agents to man key positions, especially as the Cowboys lost several important pieces, including five starters. The team attempted to replace them with retreads and rookies, and the results have been disastrous.
Team owner/GM Jerry Jones has cried poverty over those situations, claiming he could not sign layers because the team needed to give Prescott his big contract, as well as pay star receiver CeeDee Lamb.
One player in particular was running back Derrick Henry. Jones has whined about the salary cap in general, but said of Henry: “We couldn’t afford Derrick Henry.”
Next year, the Cowboys will have to pay pass-rusher Micah Parsons, too, leading to further worry that the Cowboys’ stars will chew up so much salary cap that Dallas won’t be able to pay free agents in 2025, either.
Dak Prescott Would Restructure
But Prescott hit back at the notion that Jones has been pushing, that the Cowboys can’t do much because they need to pay their stars. While that is true, plenty of other very good teams are paying stars, too.
NFL teams routinely skirt salary-cap rules by restructuring contracts that allow the team to push salary into the future so they can sign players in the present. And Prescott says he is all for that, if Jones wants to pay another big-time free agent.
“Yeah I don’t think my contract is going to withhold us from making any moves or doing anything that we need to in free agency,” Prescott told CBS Sports on Tuesday. “However, if that big chess piece or big piece comes up, that will require that or does require that, yeah the way that my contract is structured and the way that I believe in this team, I don’t think that would be a problem at all to to move things around to make that happen.”
Of course, the Cowboys could have signed Prescott earlier this offseason–he did not get his new deal until the day of the season opener–which would have allowed them to tinker with his contract structure and free up space to sign more players. But that’s not how Jones chose to operate.
It’ll be up to him to determine how the Cowboys approach the topic next season.
