DALLAS – Everyday life in the United States and in the NFL in particular had to change radically with the new reality that characterized the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago.
Almost everything has changed, from the way teams prepare in the previous low season, the cancellation of preseason games, to the playoff format before they hit the Super Bowl.
Everything changed except for one thing: the conversation about the situation between the Dallas Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott.
This week marks three years since Prescott and the Cowboys began talking about the possibility of granting the quarterback a multi-season contract extension.
“There is no way forward without one of the family members on this team. Dak is part of the Cowboys family, so we have to fix it, ”said team owner Jerry Jones on Feb. 24, 2020 at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, an event that was canceled in 2021 due to the pandemic.
The deadline for the Cowboys to agree to a contract extension or appoint Prescott as a franchise player began last Tuesday and ends March 9. Most likely, the label is with “exclusive rights,” because if Dallas uses whoever gives up that exclusivity, it runs the risk of losing the passer-by or even paying more than the minimum claims the team is asking for.
The vast majority of analysts in the NFL and former high-profile Cowboys players, as well as other teams, agree that when Prescott reaches free agency on March 15, he will be the most coveted quarterback to be unavailable days later. .
If the Cowboys decided to designate him as a franchise player with no exclusive rights, they would have the chance to match any offer they make to Prescott to stay on the team. Should they decide to let him go where they offer him the most, the team hiring the passer-by would compensate the Cowboys with two first-round collegiate picks.
However, the option of leaving his quarterback unprotected is unthinkable in the Cowboys or so Jones said a year ago.
“I’m not going to give up your rights in any way,” Jones said during Scouting Combine 2020, according to the team’s website.
Jones is confident that Prescott will return perfectly recovered from the injury to his ankle and right leg that ended early in his season in the fifth game of 2020, when he played at his best professional level, despite all the shortcomings they suffered. The Cowboys on both sides of the ball.
Prescott, 27, already played for the exclusive rights franchise player tag in 2020, translating into a guaranteed profit of $ 31.4 million.
If he plays with the same designation in 2021, his salary will be about $ 37.7 million, also guaranteed and 100 percent reflected in the $ 180 million salary cap already announced by the NFL.
If the Cowboys provide Prescott with exclusive rights, they have until July to negotiate the now legendary multi-year contract with him. That contract would help the Cowboys breathe into the salary cap, as the money, including the signing bonus, is split over the life of the deal.
Whatever needs to be done, the Cowboys will have to rearrange or restructure different players’ contracts to find a way to tag or reach a multi-year deal with Prescott as they didn’t have enough space until Wednesday, February 24, 2021 . for the Prescott settlement.
“(The quarterbacks) own the franchise,” Troy Aikman, a former Cowboys and Hall of Famer quarterback, said in January. “They have to be the ones who actually establish the culture and responsibility within the team and if you don’t have the right man in that position, then as an organization you will actually have problems.
“In my opinion, Dak meets all requirements. That is why I have said in recent years that I would not hesitate to pay him, ”said Aikman.