FRISCO – Is somebody from here inside The Star feeding misinformation to ESPN? Or is Bristol just goofing up the “news” on Dak Prescott all by itself?
The world knows that Prescott is out of contract after this season, and that it’s a potential mess right now and maybe for the long-term, too.
And how is ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler advancing the ball? He’s not.
He’s fumbling the ball.
Fowler’s weekend report includes three assertions that accomplish nothing outside of muddying the factual waters.
Four examples …
1 – “With Dak,” Fowler reports, “I was told from a source of the team that the notion that the Cowboys don’t want to keep Dak Prescott beyond 2024 when he’ll be a free agent the next year is false.”
This is a red herring.
Nobody inside The Star has ever said they don’t want Dak long-term. Fowler is shooting down a “falsehood” that isn’t at all part of the conversation.
2 – “They still believe in him firmly,” Fowler claims.
This might be, we suppose, a matter of semantics. We’d argue, though, that they clearly are not “firm” on paying Prescott what most would see as “market value” – which as CowboysSI.com has reported we believe Dak’s side to see as $60 million APY.
If Dallas “believed firmly” in Dak in that way, this deal would already be done.
Additionally, if the conviction and the desire and the plan was “firm,” the Cowboys wouldn’t be (allegedly) leaking the rumor that they might take a QB “high” in this months NFL Draft.
One more thing about “firm conviction and desire”: How did that “news story” comparing Dak unfavorably with the likes of Blake Bortles and Case Keenum ever end up in the local paper? How did the Jones family read that and not issue a retaliatory denial/argument?
The obvious theory, of course, is that the Jones family was well-aware that story was about to be published … if you catch our drift.
The fact is this: Just as Cowboys observers are of two minds on “what Dak is,” the powers that be inside The Star find themselves straddling the fence.
Prescott, 30, is coming off his best season ever, leading the league with 36 touchdown passes and finishing second in the NFL MVP Award voting.
But he’s also failed to lift Dallas to postseason heights – Jerry Jones’ “Dak to Super Bowl” guarantee notwithstanding.
Both of those things are true. Both of those things are part of the Cowboys front office’s debate.
Yes, “debate.” … a much more accurate word that “firm.”
3 – “I would describe their pursuits at a contract extension so far as pretty passive,” Fowler states.
Geez. You think?
“Passive” is the right word only if ESPN thinks “passive” is a synonym for “nothing.”
The Cowboys’ approach to a Dak extension (and to CeeDee Lamb’s, and as far as we know, to Micah Parsons’) has not been “passive.”
It’s been non-existent. And slapping a smiley-face sticker on it reeks of deceptive water-carrying.
ESPN is, in short, sweetly and affectionately kissing somebody’s butt here.
4 – “The money is gonna be crazy,” Fowler says. “He’s got a $61 million cap hit this year. …”
We’ve generally figured Prescott’s deal will eventually be agreed upon in Dallas because that follows the Cowboys’ original plan. Part of that plan recognized the massive 2024 cap hit that all along was designed to be massaged down with time.
But it hasn’t happened. That signals a problem in Frisco.
And the cap hit is $55 million. It isn’t $61 million as Fowler says. Nor in 2025 is it “$95 million,” as ESPN colleague Adam Schefter errantly reported – and has yet to correct, leaving millions of NFL fans misinformed.
This is one of the most important stories in Cowboys history, one with far-reaching ramifications. It is imperative that owner Jerry Jones and company get it right.
It’s also important that the rest of us do the same.
