Dak Prescott’s rise as an MVP contender will be a double-edged sword for a Cowboys extension

With Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles getting hammered 42-19 at home against the San Francisco 49ers, a high-level NFL agent with a few lucrative quarterback contracts on his resumé saw a winner that wasn’t even on the field Sunday.

“Good day for Dak Prescott,” he texted.

As much as it could have been a reference to the Dallas Cowboys pulling a little closer to their NFC East rivals in the standings, it was really a text about future contract negotiations. The Cowboys and Eagles will play each other next week in Dallas, just as Hurts and Prescott creep a little closer to each other in an MVP race that the Eagles quarterback has led much of this season. But coming into the home stretch, it’s Prescott who is trending upward, playing arguably the best football of his career and emerging as a fast-closing No. 2 to Hurts in the betting odds for NFL MVP.

If that momentum continues, it’s going to weigh significantly for the Cowboys at the negotiating table. In a scenario that has given Prescott all the leverage in the world — with a contract that expires after the 2024 season and includes no-trade and no-tag clauses — he’s now touching his ceiling on the field, if not raising it. And the result is the definition of perfect timing for an NFL player.

Prescott is playing at an MVP level. In order to get extensions done with other core players, the Cowboys need to ink him to a contract extension in the offseason to lower his $59.45 million cap charge. And by staying patient and not pursuing an extension last offseason, Prescott allowed four other massively significant quarterback contract extensions to get nailed down: Hurts; Lamar Jackson with the Baltimore Ravens; Justin Herbert with the Los Angeles Chargers; and Joe Burrow with the Cincinnati Bengals.

That means when the offseason begins in a few months, the two biggest quarterback negotiations on deck will be Prescott and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence. If Prescott is coming off an MVP…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2023-12-04 04:15:25

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