The Dak Prescott contract earned a “C” grade for the Dallas Cowboys by one evaluator

The Dallas Cowboys spent the last week before free agency begins taking care of a very important thing within their own organization. They finally paid Dak Prescott. Ultimately the most important thing is that Prescott will be in a Cowboys uniform for the foreseeable future, but there is no question that the Cowboys cost themselves money by dragging this whole thing out over two years.

Bygones are bygones and as noted, Prescott has signed and that’s that. The dust is starting to settle on the contract and people around the football landscape have generally declared that Team Prescott was the winner as far as negotiations went.

OverTheCap.com graded the Dak Prescott contract as a “C” for the Dallas Cowboys

When it comes to knowing and understanding the salary cap within the NFL there is no better resource than OverTheCap.com.

The folks at OTC make it a habit of grading contracts that happen throughout the league and their thoughts on Dak Prescott’s deal are now in. They praised Prescott for all that he was able to get and are a bit down on the Cowboys side of it all.

The is the second time in less than two years where we have the Cowboys owner basically gushing about overpaying someone (Ezekiel Elliott being the first one) and I don’t think either contract or ways they seemed to come together will help Dallas in the future. That said they have their core guys locked up and rarely go into free agency so maybe for them that is not a big deal to have that out there. I’m not sure why Dallas did not hold off on signing this contract until March 17, but I may not be understanding the rules properly as they pertain to NFL cash spending requirements.

Prescott gets a no tag provision which on paper is a huge thing but after signing this contract I think its clear that Dallas will never let him walk barring a Wentz like meltdown so I think that was an easier give up for Dallas than some may be letting on. Still it does give Prescott tremendous leverage as does the fact that the Cowboys have two voidable contract years in this one.

Dallas added the second void year, which at the moment has a $0 cap charge to help out in the l likely event that they have to convert a good chunk of Prescott’s $20 million 2022 salary and/or $31 million 2023 salary into a signing bonus. If Dallas does it in 2022 it will leave the Cowboys with nearly $25 million in dead money when the contract voids if no extension is reached. Basically the structure sets Prescott up to earn another massive extension by the start of the 2024 season.

Because this is a four year contract versus and extension Prescott is pretty much poised to become the biggest earning quarterback of this generation. The model here is one that should be followed by every QB even though almost no QBs put any pressure on their team’s when it comes to contracts. I’m not sure how anyone can look at this as anything but a homerun for Prescott and so-so job by Dallas.

Grade: C

It truly is wild to consider that when it is all said and done that Dak could be among the higher earners of this generation given that he was playing for so much less than most of his peers for the first four years of his career. Some of this speaks to the growth that the NFL is in the process of experiencing with television contracts and gambling money seemingly on the way, but again that plays to what Prescott’s representation was after.

Jerry Jones made it a point during the press conference in which the team announced and celebrated the deal to say that everybody won. While the Cowboys surely win in that they landed the void years and ultimately landed Prescott which is what matters most, the officials in this boxing match have all agreed on who gets to keep the belt.