It is the middle of May, a mostly quiet time for the NFL, and still, the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys remains in the final year of his contract, sitting on a $55 million payout before he’s scheduled to be a free agent in 2025. It’s a no-lose situation for Dak Prescott: He gets a huge payout from the Cowboys in an extension now, or he gets a huge contract in free agency next March.
Either way, Prescott is, after finishing as the runner-up in the MVP vote last year, in line for a massive payout.
The Cowboys, perhaps understandably, do not appear to be in a hurry to give him that payout. After all, Prescott has shown himself to be adept at winning games in the regular season, but not so good at winning games in January. Prescott is 73-41 for his career as a regular-season starter, and 31-14 in his last three seasons.
Playoffs? Well, there he is 2-5 in his career. So, perhaps the Cowboys, rather than paying a heap of cash to a guy who hasn’t won when the chips are down, would prefer a smaller chunk of cash for a guy who has. At Cowboys Wire, one of their potential replacements for Prescott should he bolt in free agency is none other than former Super Bowl champ Russell Wilson.
Russell Wilson Is Well Into the Back 9
Wilson is a 12-year veteran who is 35, and his best days are behind him. He wore out his welcome in both Seattle and Denver, in both places leaving a bad taste for having been more interested in being a celebrity than in being a quarterback.
But he is also an accomplished player who performed well last season despite strange circumstances and friction with coach Sean Payton. He threw for 3,070 yards with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions, but Payton never seemed on board with the fact that Wilson had a five-year, $245 million contract in hand. So the Broncos waived him, and he was signed by the Steelers.
In an article titled, “8 potential Prescott replacements,” Cowboys Wire’s KD Drummond wrote:
“Russell Wilson’s time in Denver mercifully came to an end. He improved over his first season, getting his TD:INT ratio back into the quality category (5.8:1.8), but the Denver team was abysmal and he certainly didn’t elevate those around him.
“He’s on a one-year deal in Pittsburgh while collecting checks with the Broncos logo, so he’ll have to prove he’s still capable in this league. But if he does, he’d make the perfect off-season signing if Dallas loses Prescott.”
Cowboys Show No Progress on Dak Prescott Deal
As for Prescott, there appears to be no progress, or even discussion that might lead to progress, as time whittles away. It would not be surprising, really, if the Cowboys simply let the Prescott deal sit on the backburner until training camp, as the team—as well as others around the NFL—has often done in past negotiations.
It has been no secret that quarterback contracts were going to be one of the big stories of the 2024 offseason, and already, those deals have been uncorked. That’s thanks to the franchise-record $212 million the Lions gave to Jarrett Goff, a deal that likely set the floor for the next wave of quarterbacks who will get new contracts this offseason.
Prescott, who is slated to make $55 million in the final year of his current contract, is first among those. But the Packers’ Jordan Love, the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence, and Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa will also be in the mix. And it is likely that those players all want to see what their cohorts get before making a move.
In other words, nothing doing on Prescott, yet. So the fantasy world where Wilson could be the next Cowboys quarterback remains.
As Adam Schefter of ESPN said this week, “No progress there, still a lot of work to be done. Still a lot of questions to be answered moving forward. We don’t know how this will play out but we’re looking at the distinct possibility that being that he can’t be tagged, that Dak Prescott could become a free agent in March, free to go wherever he wants. …
“Dallas and Dak haven’t made any noticeable progress towards a new deal.”
