Congrats, Dallas.
Dak Prescott is now the highest-paid player in NFL history after signing a four-year, $240 million contract with $231 million guaranteed, according to multiple reports that emerged on Sunday morning.
It’s surprising to see that this deal finally got done after much delay. If the plan was to re-sign Prescott all along, the Cowboys would’ve stood to benefit from getting it done much earlier. Case in point: Jalen Hurts signed an extension that made him the highest-paid player in NFL history last April. Now he’s the ninth-highest paid player at his position, making $9 million less annually than Prescott’s market-setting deal.
A new leader: Highest paid QBs in the NFL on a per-year basis:
Dak Prescott: $60M
Joe Burrow: $55M
Jordan Love: $55M
Trevor Lawrence: $55M
Tua Tagovailoa: $53.1M
Jared Goff: $53M
Justin Herbert: $52.5M
Lamar Jackson: $52M
Jalen Hurts: $51M— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 8, 2024
As we know, though, the Cowboys haven’t been great about extending their players early to get (relative) bargains like the Eagles have often done.
On one hand, Prescott’s extension is bad news for the Eagles. It would’ve been preferable for him to get to the free agent market in March. At that point, he would’ve had unprecedented leverage. Either the Cowboys would’ve had to pay him even more … or he would’ve left Dallas, leaving the Cowboys with no clear alternative plan at quarterback.
On the other hand, the Cowboys deciding to hitch their wagon to a quarterback who has one of the weakest playoff resumes EVER is certainly a choice!
Dak Prescott is now 2-5 in 7 career playoff games.
Out of 169 playoff QBs with at least one win, only 7 have a worse winning percentage.
Dak’s 2 wins? 18-15 combined opponent record, lowest win percentage in playoff wins among 109 QBs to win multiple games.
Yikes.
— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) January 15, 2024
Some Dallas fans like to purport that “Dak owns the Eagles.” I mean, yeah, he’s been such a huge road block to Philly’s success that they’ve won one Super Bowl and been to another since he became the Cowboys’ starting quarterback in 2016.
The Cowboys are paying a lot more money just to have their season inevitably end in disappointment once again.
