Much was made late last week when Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was asked about the possibility of giving Dallas a hometown discount rather than taking traditional QB1 money.
Prescott, answering comparisons to how Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has consistently taken less money than the market would dictate he makes, commented that no other QB’s wife makes as much as Brady’s does either. According to USA Today, Prescott went on to say that Brady can accept lesser contracts because he doesn’t have to be the “breadwinner in the home.”
As you’d expect, an avalanche of takes erupted throughout Cowboys Twitter, with fans clinging to one extreme or the other in the never-ending “does Dak Prescott deserve a new contract” debate.
Arguing whether Prescott deserves QB1 money or not is really a waste of breath at this point, as the Cowboys have made it abundantly clear they intend to extend Prescott and label him their franchise quarterback. But the question surrounding exactly how much money he will make per year, and what his cap hit will be moving forward, runs rampant for good reason.
There’s no doubt that once teams pay their quarterbacks, they tend to have difficulty building the rest of the roster to a championship-winning-level. But with the market already set where it is, expecting your young quarterback to take a discount, when seemingly-lesser players around the league get paid every offseason, would be foolish.
Prescott earned the contract which awaits him. He earned it his rookie season when he quarterbacked the Cowboys to their best regular season record in nearly a decade and was named Rookie of the Year. He earned it during his third season, battling back from a 3-5 start and playing some of the best football of his young career down the stretch, and winning a home playoff game. He has consistently outperformed the fourth round contract he currently plays under, and I have no issue with him wanting to be compensated fairly relative to the quarterbacks around the league.
The NFL chews players up and spits them out like no other league in sports. You are highly valuable to them for a very short period of time, when you are then cut with barely any guaranteed money on your contract, or shipped away due to injury.
Rare is the opportunity for a player to have the power Prescott will have in negotiations with a franchise. And as a supporter of player empowerment, I hope Prescott goes and gets his well deserved money when he has the chance.
