FRISCO, Texas — Jerry Jones revealed on Wednesday the crux of the Dallas Cowboys’ contract negotiations with Dak Prescott doesn’t really have anything to do with their quarterback.
Essentially, Jones said of Prescott’s contract negotiations, “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“You could easily say, if you hadn’t seen it by now, you haven’t seen it,” Jones said Wednesday when addressing the question of what the 2023 NFL passing touchdowns leader has to do to get paid. “I’m such a fan of Dak’s and appreciate all of the great things that we all know that he’s there. I appreciate his work ethic probably more than anything out here. I can’t tell you how proud I am that we’ve got him this year to start this campaign. Needing to see, I just gave an explanation where when you look at a situation, you’ve also got to weigh, ‘OK, what are the consequences of the other side of the coin.’ Dak’s situation, right now, for me, from my mirror, has more to do with our [salary cap] situation than it does with the merits of Dak Prescott being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.”
On Thursday, Prescott was told of Jones’ remarks, and he point-blank dismissed what the Dallas owner and general manager had to say.
“Yeah, I understand that,” Prescott said. That’s the business and the nature of this game that we play. Yeah, I stopped, honestly, listening to things that he [Jerry Jones] says to the media a long time ago. Doesn’t really hold weight with me.”
Jones’ point about being concerned about the salary doesn’t have as much ground to stand on under two weeks away from Dallas’ 2024 season opener at the Cleveland Browns. He allowed the market value price for Prescott, which the 2023 NFL MVP runner-up said he would be pursuing in the negotiations, rise by waiting all offseason as other NFL quarterbacks like the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence (five years, $275 million), the Lions’ Jared Goff (four years, $212 million) and the Packers’ Jordan Love (four years, $220 million) all signed new deals. Lawrence and Love are now tied with Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow for the ownership of the highest average per year salary in the league: $55 million.
The Cowboys have $39.6 million in effective cap space to utilize in 2025, per OverTheCap.com, the 12th most in the league. Their financial picture is much more flexible in 2026 with Dallas having a projected $160.1 million in effective cap space to play with in 2026, according to OverTheCap.com. That figure stands as the seventh most in the NFL. Jones does have the ability to help figure things out if he structures Prescott’s new deal wisely.
What will hold weight with Prescott is whether or not Jerry Jones and his son Stephen Jones, the Cowboys’ COO, work to resolve the negotiations with a new contract for the quarterback, who is set to enter 2024 on the final year of his four-year, $160 million deal. That contract came with a no-franchise tag and no-trade clause, so if the Jones family opts to kick the can to the 2025 offseason, Prescott could freely become an unrestricted free agent and perhaps end up on another team. In training camp out in Oxnard, California, he alluded to other great quarterbacks who finished out their careers with different franchises.
“I don’t need it, no. I don’t,” Prescott said when asked if he needed his deal done before Week 1. “I think it says a lot if it is or if it isn’t. But however, doesn’t really matter to me, to be honest with you.”
What will it say if the deal isn’t done by Sunday, Sept. 8, when the Cowboys begin the 2024 season at the Browns?
“Just how people feel,” Prescott said.
Which people? The quarterback declined to say Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones, but it’s clear that’s who he is referring to.
“I don’t know,” Prescott said laughing. “You’ll write about that.”
A lot has been written about his top target, 2023 First-Team All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, and his contract negotiations saga with the Jones family. Prescott made sure to celebrate with Lamb, who was in South Florida training, over FaceTime when the 2023 NFL receptions leader (135) got paid with a four-year, $136 million deal with $100 million guaranteed and a $38 million signing bonus, the highest ever for a wide receiver.
“Yeah, excited,” Prescott said of Lamb’s contract getting done, which ended his holdout. “Obviously I’ve been in contact with him all of training camp. The moment it happened, FaceTimed him. Just to see his excitement, see I guess you could say the weight off his shoulders, how pumped he was to get back and then obviously him being in the building. Have a couple practices now with him, the guy’s the best receiver: super athletic, elite, so that makes that whole connection of us getting back on the same page that much easier. Not going to be too difficult when you got a guy like that that’s smart, knows how to get open. I just got to make the throws.”
Does Lamb getting his deal done open the door for Prescott’s to be concluded with a signing as well? Lamb himself thinks it could.
“You look at our numbers together, they’re at the top of the charts,” Lamb said on Tuesday after he led the NFL with 135 catches last season. “I have no doubt that they’re going to get a deal done. We all know that I want Dak here. Jerry [Jones] wants Dak here, too, so let’s just get this under control and kill the speculation and let’s go win.”
Prescott isn’t as certain.
“Not really sure,” Prescott said. “Not my focus anymore to be honest with you. Told you guys that. Really can’t say ever was really my focus. It’s about making myself and this team better, getting us in the best position and the most confident to go up to Cleveland and start the season off with a win.”
While the contract, at least outwardly, isn’t the Cowboys quarterback’s focus, that doesn’t necessarily mean talks between his agent Todd France and the Jones family will halt when the season begins.
“No, that’s up to Todd and those guys,” Prescott said when asked if negotiations could continue into the season. “Once again I’m not going to be a part of them here as the season starts. And they’ve been going. They’ve been going on heavily through Todd and Stephen [Jones] both. So yeah it’s just all a part of it. As I said, my job and my focus is control what I can and as I said well back in camp, it’s two parts to this. Both sides have to come to the agreement.”
Prescott knows if he doesn’t like Dallas’ offers that he possesses the complete freedom to dip his toe into unrestricted free agency, a place where a 36-year-old Kirk Cousins signed a four-year, $180 million with $100 million guaranteed coming off a 2023 in which he tore his Achilles. Prescott, at the age of 31, is five years younger and posted the best passer rating of his career (105.9, the second best in the NFL in 2023) in head coach Mike McCarthy’s first season calling the offensive plays for him and the Cowboys offense in a year that Dallas led the league in scoring with a 29.9 points per game average.
That makes it easier for Prescott to block out the distraction that is his looming contract talks with his football home of soon-to-be nine seasons (2016-2024).
“Yeah I mean I’m blessed, man,” Prescott said. “I’m super blessed to play this game, to be in Year 9, to feel as I do, healthy as I do, as confident as I am, the experience that I’ve had, I’m blessed to play this game. I’m getting paid a lot of money to do it. I’ve already got paid. To get paid again that’s just part of it. I’m due up for that whether it’s signing here or whether it’s somewhere else that I don’t care to think about at this moment. It’s all part of it. For me, it’s like I said, it’s about controlling what I can and being the best version of myself, best leader and make sure all these guys in here understand that we’re on a mission. It’s not about next year right now. It’s not about my contract. It’s not about anything but getting ready for Game 1 against the Browns. Simple as that.”
It’s not as simple for McCarthy and his coaching staff, who all also enter 2024 in the final year of their contract because Jerry Jones believes “angst, pressure and competing” will bring out the best in a head coach whose 42-25 record in four seasons in Dallas gives him the highest regular-season winning percentage (62.7%) of any coach in Cowboys history. The franchise has won at least 12 games three years in a row for the first time since the 1990’s Super Bowl dynasty years (1992-1995). He and Prescott have more than the average coach-quarterback relationship. McCarthy showed up at Prescott’s foundation’s (Faith, Fight Finish) fundraiser gala on May 17 with his wife Jessica.
“He’s first off, a hell of a coach, but a better man,” Prescott said. “I think as you said, showing up to my foundation gala, to showing up for people off the field, for being who he is and always having the conversations and understanding players for the people that they are, having those conversations with them one-on-one. It’s been a fast five years. Obviously it started off rough in 2020 [when Prescott fractured his ankle], but just to see the trend that we’re going in, for him taking over the offense now going into the second year of it, a lot to be excited about. A guy I owe so much to. I think of him much more than a coach. He’s a friend. He’s a special guy.”
Prescott cherishes the duo’s in-season Thursday meetings that start out about football, for 20 or 30 minutes before transitioning into talks about life itself regarding fatherhood, business and more.
“Those are very valuable conversations to me, and I’m thankful for them.”
Now, Prescott, McCarthy and a number of Cowboys vets are tasked with powering through a 2024 in which almost no one in the franchise, outside of the Jones’ family and Lamb, are guaranteed a Dallas future in 2025.
“Yeah, for sure. You’ve got to love it, honestly,” Prescott said. “You’ve got to love it. You’ve got to embrace it. That’s the challenge. We as the players or the coaches don’t have the full say in whether we’re here or not. So it’s about us controlling what we can. Right now it’s about sticking together, making this locker room, embracing this culture, embracing one another, not putting necessarily pressure on ourselves but understanding that this team won’t be the same after this, whether it be the coaches, whether it be the players, whether it be some of the key pieces, I just doubt it will be the same. And that’s just the business of it. Yeah, it’s now. Period.”
