The Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott have finally pushed their negotiations past the finish line. As ESPN’s Adam Schefter was first to report, Dallas and Prescott have agreed to a stunning four-year, $240MM extension that will make Prescott the highest-paid player in NFL history. 
Schefter notes that all but $9MM of Prescott’s deal is guaranteed, which speaks to the inordinate amount of leverage that the three-time Pro Bowler wielded in this process. His $231MM in guaranteed money is $1MM more than Deshaun Watson received in his highly controversial deal with the Browns several years ago. And, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com observes, Prescott’s guarantees — which include a record $80MM signing bonus — are $60MM higher than the next highest sum of guaranteed money ever handed out on a four-year contract.
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Throughout the offseason, questions lingered about whether or not the Cowboys would be able to work out deals with Prescott, wideout CeeDee Lamb and edge rusher Micah Parsons while saving the cap flexibility to make other moves. An otherwise quiet offseason revolved around negotiations on the Prescott and Lamb fronts in particular. The latter wound up cashing in on a $34MM-per-year extension which (like the former) will keep him in Dallas through 2028. Lamb did not reach the top of the receiver market, but Prescott has taken his position to new financial heights.
A $60MM AAV has long been a possibility, especially given the nature of the quarterback mega-deals worked out over the past two years and the position Prescott found himself in. No-tag and no-trade clauses were included in his previous pact, and Dallas was set to deal with a $55MM cap charge in 2024 in the absence of an extension coming into play. That was also the case for the dead money charge (roughly $40MM) in 2025 which would have been on the team’s cap sheet had Prescott departed in free agency next spring.
Both the 31-year-old himself and owner Jerry Jones made a number of public remarks in the build-up to today’s news. Continuing this relationship well past 2024 was a mutual goal, although Prescott hinted at testing the market on more than one occasion. Jones indicated in the spring he preferred to let the QB and WR markets take further shape before serious negotiations with Prescott and Lamb’s camps took place. That approach has yielded agreements for both, albeit along a less-than-ideal timeline given the missed time from training camp in one case and the run up to an artificial Week 1 deadline in the other.
Jones stated he would be on board with Prescott negotiations continuing into the regular season, but a late push by all parties involved yielded progress. That left the door open to an eleventh-hour agreement, although with Saturday night coming and going it appeared one would no longer be possible. In the end, however, Prescott is now on the books for the foreseeable future as he tries once again to guide the Cowboys to deep playoff run.
Dallas has posted a 12-5 record in each of the past three years, failing to convert that into postseason success in every instance. Head coach Mike McCarthy is entering a lame-duck year in no small part due to the Cowboys’ underwhelming defeat to the Packers during the wild-card round last season. Jones has routinely praised the former Green Bay Super Bowl winner, hinting he could be retained past the coming campaign depending on how things go. Prescott – who led the league in touchdown passes during McCarthy’s first year as offensive play-caller – will be expected to duplicate his success from 2023 for several more seasons.
Parsons (whose resume includes two first-team All-Pro honors, one second-team nod and three Pro Bowl invites) no doubt would have been a higher organizational priority if not for Prescott and Lamb entering the offseason as pending free agents. With both of their pacts now taken care of, attention will turn to Parsons’ level of play in his fourth campaign. The 25-year-old will set himself up for a major payday with another productive campaign in 2024, but Dallas’ cap outlook has of course been considerably altered in recent weeks.
Today’s deal (and, more specifically, the massive guarantee commitment) confirms Prescott will remain a Cowboy for most, if not all, of his career. His legacy remains linked to the franchise’s ongoing Super Bowl drought, but the next several years will offer an opportunity to break through in the postseason. It will be interesting to see, meanwhile, how the quarterback market shakes out in the near future with the top of the pecking order changing once again.
Rory Parks contributed to this post.