Dak Prescott went to bed last Saturday thinking his ninth season as the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback would begin without a contract extension.
A little more than an hour before the team bus left for Huntington Bank Field on Sunday at 12:45 p.m., Prescott had become the highest-paid player in the history of the National Football League.
On Monday, some 20 hours after the Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns, Prescott signed a four-year contract extension worth $240 million on a leather couch in Jerry Jones’ office at the Star with the owner and general manager, and executive vice presidents Charlotte Jones and Stephen Jones sitting next to him.
By the time the 2024 regular season ends, Prescott will take home $81.25 million with $75.458 million of it coming in the form of a signing bonus. Of the $240 million, $231 million will be fully guaranteed by March 2027.
“If you would have asked me this [Saturday], I would have said I was going in the game without one,” Prescott said in a small interview room after the Cowboys’ 33-17 win against the Browns in which he threw one touchdown pass. “That didn’t mean the contract talks was going to end, but I was just going to focus on what I could control.”
Without the extension, however, Prescott would have been one game closer to free agency next March, potentially leaving the Cowboys without a franchise quarterback and with a $40 million salary cap charge in 2025.
“Dak had a good argument: If he went to free agency, there’s no telling what that number would have ended up,” Stephen Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, adding, “He could’ve gotten more if he were to be a free agent.”
Prescott played the negotiation game to make the threat at least believable. While always professing his desire to play for the Cowboys, Prescott opened the door for him to leave the first time he spoke to reporters at training camp on July 25 in Oxnard, California.
When asked about the freedom he could feel by knowing he would be paid millions upon millions by the Cowboys or another team next March, Prescott peeked quickly at Tad Carper, the Cowboys’ senior vice president of communications, and smiled.
“At the end of the day, it’s a business,” Prescott said, turning to Carper. “I’m going to say it: I want to be here, but when you look up, all the great quarterbacks I’ve watched played for other teams. So my point in saying that is that’s not something to fear. That may be a reality for me one day. That may not be my decision.”
Peyton Manning played for the Denver Broncos, but he was coming off a serious neck injury that led to his release after the 2011 season by the Indianapolis Colts, his team for 13 years. Aaron Rodgers was traded to the New York Jets in 2023 after 18 years with the Green Bay Packers when the team felt it was time to play Jordan Love. Tom Brady left the New England Patriots after 20 years and six Super Bowls for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency in 2021.
Manning was 36 years old. Rodgers was 39. Brady was 42.
Prescott turned 31 in July.
Negotiations with Prescott’s agent, Todd France, were intermittent during training camp. The Cowboys’ first goal was to sign CeeDee Lamb to an extension, and that took longer than expected, with the All-Pro wide receiver not agreeing to a deal until Aug. 26.
With Lamb signed to a four-year, $136 million extension that made him the second-highest paid wide receiver, the focus turned to Prescott.
In 2019, Jerry Jones said a deal was “imminent” with Prescott after the Cowboys beat the New York Giants in the season opener. Negotiations took two more years.
This time, they had two weeks to get a deal worked out.
The highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL, Joe Burrow, Love and Trevor Lawrence, were paid $55 million per season. The Cowboys were willing to make Prescott the highest-paid quarterback, and quarterback pay had made incremental increases, with the top eight paid quarterbacks making between $51 million and $55 million.
France started looking for more than $60 million per year, then slowly the price came down, according to multiple sources.
When Prescott signed his four-year, $160 million deal in 2021, France was able to get everything on the player’s terms. A $66 million signing bonus. A $40 million average. A no-trade clause. A no-franchise tag clause.
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