From PJMedia.com
This isn’t how it was supposed to be. In fact, it’s the furthest thing from it.
After all, it’s Football 101: When you’re building an NFL team, it always, always, ALWAYS begins and ends with the quarterback. If you have a good one, you can contend for a championship almost every year. And if you don’t… well, wait ‘til next year.
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And good luck in the draft.
Dak Prescott is a good quarterback. In fact, he’s a very good quarterback. So his team — a.k.a. America’s team, the Dallas Cowboys — should be enjoying a long run of NFC championships, Super Bowl appearances, and tickertape parades.
Instead, they haven’t even sniffed an NFC championship game in nearly 30 years.
It’s not all Dak’s fault, of course. The last time the Cowboys contended for a Lombardi Trophy, Dak was a two-year-old in diapers. Since then, the one constant for the Cowboys is postseason collapses — often capped with humiliating, lopsided exclamation points. Every Cowboys fan can recount the cavalcade of painful playoff memories: Tony Romo’s bumbled hold against the Seahawks in Bill Parcells’ last-ever game as head coach; Patrick Crayton dropping an easy pass against the Giants; or the “Dez caught the ball!” travesty against the Packers. Clearly, we can’t blame Dak for the failures that preceded his tenure with the team. (Tony Romo, on the other hand…)
But since Dak arrived in Dallas, no other team in NFL history has won 12 (or more) regular season games this many times without making — at a minimum — at least one NFC title game.
Something strange is going on.
And now, Dak Prescott is in the final year of his contract. The Cowboys are prohibited from franchise tagging him or trading him (without his consent). All Prescott must do is stay healthy in 2024, and next offseason he can hawk his wares to the entire league.
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He’s about to sign the biggest, most lucrative contract in NFL history…
…in a league with a fixed salary cap.
NFL fans have learned to love laundry and logos more than players: The contracts players sign are publicly reported. In 2024, each team has $255.4 million to build their 53-men rosters. The more money one player makes, the less there is to pay everyone else.
Today’s NFL fans don’t just cheer for their teams to sign a good player — they cheer for them to sign a good player as cheaply as possible, because that means their team will be more competitive: There’s more money left over to add new talent.
The entire free agency formula has changed. It’s no longer “good” to sign a good player; you need to sign a “good” player to a “good” contact. Paying a “good” player “great” money is the fastest way to end up in salary cap hell.
An NFL season is long and brutal: In less than 50 years, it’s gone from 14 regular season games to 17. That’s tough on the human body. Like it or not, injuries are part of the game, so the smart teams anticipate them. Talk to any scout: They’ll tell you straight-up that a player’s best ability is his availability.
An injured, inactive player can’t help you, and a lack of depth will kneecap any chances of a deep playoff run.
In the modern NFL, you can make a legitimate argument that teams would be more successful building a roster comprised of B- players paid C+ money than a team of B+ players paid A+ money, because there won’t be nearly enough A+ money for an entire roster. Then, as the season progresses and depth becomes a factor, there are just too many holes to plug.
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And later on, even if you’ve won enough regular season games to make the playoffs, your roster is riddled with too many weak links. After all, what good is a superstar quarterback making $55 million a year, an All Pro wide receiver making $32 million a year, and a stud tight end making $17 million a year, if your offensive line is a bunch of injury-replacements that you signed off the streets?
Your quarterback will get killed before he can throw the ball.
Prescott signed a four-year, $160 million contract with the Cowboys in 2021. It was the richest, most lucrative contract in NFL history — more money than what the league’s best player, Patrick Mahomes, received from the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2024 alone, Dak Prescott accounts for a whopping 21.1 percent of the Cowboys’ entire salary cap!
And his next contract will dwarf this one: Dak Prescott is expected to ask Dallas for somewhere between $60 million annually to $70 million annually, or he’ll leave for a team who will.
At this point, the Cowboys’ best option would be to let him walk.
Modern pro football is as much about money management as it is about talent acquisition. Paying a very good player like he’s the league’s best player depletes your funds and wrecks your depth. It leaves you with a team that — when healthy — is certainly capable of a 12-win regular season, but once it gets to the playoffs, its holes and weak links are just too easy to exploit.
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Especially against a clever, tactical head coach, like a Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco.
Dak Prescott is a very good player. The Dallas Cowboys have been a very good team. But if the goal is winning a Lombardi Trophy, the pieces no longer fit.
It’s time for this Cowboy to ride into the sunset. And it’s time for this team to wave goodbye.
All articles possibly rephrased by InfoArmed.com