Over the previous few weeks, the buzz about a new long-term deal between Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys has been the main topic of discussion. Both sides nearly had a deal done at the beginning of the 2019 season, but no agreement was reached and Prescott bet on himself, and it paid off mightily.
He would have his best season to date finishing with 4,902 yards (2nd in the NFL) and 30 touchdowns (4th in the NFL). After letting fellow 2016 draftees Carson Wentz and Jared Goff reset the quarterback market with their new deals prior to last season, Prescott has now set himself up for a lucrative extension, and Executive Vice President Stephen Jones knows just how important it is to finally get the Cowboys franchise signal-caller inked for the foreseeable future:
“We want to get this done,” Jones said, via Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Things are fixing to heat up. We want to put every foot forward and try to grind this out and get a deal done.”
This has been his stance for quite a while now. Just last month, Jones made it clear that it was time to get Prescott’s new deal out of the way:
We’ve got to land the plane and get his deal done,” Jones said, via Jon Machota of The Athletic. “That’s on Jerry and me. He’s our future. I think he stepped up and improved in all ways last year. … We went over this in-depth with Coach McCarthy and he thinks Dak is a top-end, top-caliber quarterback. We can do everything we want to do and more with Dak. McCarthy can’t wait to spend time with him. We’ve got to land the plane on his contract and get him signed up sooner than later. He deserves everything he has coming. We got real, real close there to start the season and just didn’t finish up. He’s so laser-focused on wanting to win football games and compete that he really didn’t want the distraction once we didn’t get it done in that first week of going back and forth with the contract. We just got to move forward. He’s our quarterback of the future. I’ll take him any time when you go to war against these guys. We’re fortunate to have him.”
The Cowboys and Prescott still have time to get a new deal reached. The deadline to franchise him is March 10th, and if that option is used, they would have until July 15th to reach a new deal or Prescott would have to play under the tag which would pay him around 27 million for 2020.
During Super Bowl Week last Thursday in Miami, Prescott’s comments about his long-term future showed there’s obviously some frustration on his part:
“You would hope and you would think something is going to get done, right?’’ Prescott said, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Both sides of this equation want to get this deal finalized. In the coming weeks, the urgency to make that a reality will ramp up before the franchise tag comes into play.
