Can the Cowboys still win if they pay Dak Prescott?

The Dak Prescott contract negotiations have stalled with the Dallas Cowboys for well over a year now and the two sides appear not to be able to agree on either one or more of the following issues: guaranteed money, fully guaranteed money upon signing, or number of years. As the July 15th deadline approaches and still no Dak Prescott contract negotiated, it is growing increasingly likely that the star quarterback will play out his franchise tag. Dak Prescott’s agent Todd France is playing hardball but so are the Dallas Cowboys. While most agree it is a mistake for the Cowboys to be so rigid here, others are of a different mindset. There is a contingent of fans and experts that are reluctant to see the Dallas Cowboys sign Dak Prescott to a long term contract for fear of the salary cap implications and the possibility of hamstringing the teams chances for success by allocating to much resources to one position. Is this a valid concern?

Most Cowboys supporters believe that the right thing to do is invest in the franchise quarterback. The salary cap does exist but it continues to grow every single year and the market demands that Dak should get paid as he is the next man up. The Dallas Cowboys have already cost themselves a lot of money by delaying the settlement of the Dak Prescott contract and are at risk of making matters worse with Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes ready to get their deals done. So why the hesitation to get this deal done?

It could be that the Cowboys are doing their usual thing and waiting until the 11th hour to get the deal done like they did with Dez Bryant, Ezekiel Elliott, DeMarcus Lawrence, and Amari Cooper. It could also be that they sincerely believe as some others do that they can’t break the bank on a quarterback. Recently, Stephen Jones pointed out that according to some analytics, the chances of winning a Super Bowl decrease dramatically if a quarterback eats up too much of the salary cap. I have heard the argument several times over, that no quarterback who has been paid top market value has gone on to win a Super Bowl. The implication here is that once a franchise pays a quarterback, they are unable to compete for a Super Bowl. Recent examples cited are Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, and Joe Flacco who all won Super Bowls but have not won since getting paid. It has also been pointed out that guys like Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan, and Kirk Cousins have never won and all three have been compensated handsomely for several years.

Those who argue this point will tell you that the winning formula is not to overpay for a franchise quarterback but instead to get a quarterback on a rookie deal and build a good team around them. This logic however is fundamentally flawed. The problem with this argument it that is making a loose correlation and making the assumption that there is a causal relationship. According to this logic, I can also argue that if your quarterback were to win league MVP then your team would have a lesser chance of winning a Super Bowl. I can argue this by stating that no quarterback who was won the league MVP has gone on to win the Super Bowl in the same season in over 20 years using that very same logic. The problem with both of these claims is that they disregard all the other extraneous factors involved in winning a Super Bowl and that the chances of winning one at all are very slim. Only 1 out of 32 teams can win a championship and clearly as the Patriots have shown, some organizations are better at it than others.

Technically the very highest paid quarterback has not won a Super Bowl in a very long time, let’s not ignore the fact that some teams have managed to win the Super Bowl after making a strong financial investment at the quarterback position. Both Eli Manning and Peyton Manning were well compensated the years that they won their championships. Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger also won Super Bowls while being paid in the upper range and even Tom Brady was not always taking team friendly deals. Even several of the the guys that haven’t won but who have gotten paid came close. Cam Newton, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Matt Ryan all played in the Super Bowl in recent years.

The idea that you can budget by magically inserting a young quarterback on a rookie deal and win a Super Bowl is a complete fallacy. The most cited examples are of course Patrick Mahomes with the Chiefs, Russell Wilson with the Seahawks, and the Eagles with Carson Wentz but in reality, there was a fair bit of luck involved when it came to those situations. Mahomes being drafted by the Chiefs was a bold move and an unpopular one at the time because they had a great roster and money invested in Alex Smith. Two other quarterbacks were drafted ahead of Mahomes and he ended up being put in the perfect situation with a brilliant coach, a veteran to learn under, and a talented roster. With Seattle, they drafted Russell Wilson in the a 3rd round and he beat out Matt Flynn (who they paid a premium for in free agency) for the starting job. Then in the case of Carson Wentz, the Eagles at that time invested heavily at the backup quarterback position the year they drafted Wentz by signing Sam Bradford and Chase Daniel before bringing in Foles in 2017. Of course who can forget that it was actually Nick Foles and not Carson Wentz who won the Super Bowl for the Eagles. Those blueprints simply cannot be emulated because there is a mixture of long term vision, other circumstances such as great coaching, and pure dumb luck involved. None of those teams actually made a conscious decision to budget at the quarterback position.

Personally, the biggest problem I have with those opposing investing in a long term Dak Prescott contract, is that they are not considering the realistic alternatives. Instead of looking at examples of teams who have paid their quarterbacks and not gone on to win a Super Bowl, they should consider the examples of teams that have NOT paid their quarterbacks and see how successful that strategy has been. The prime example and most relevant to Dak Prescott is the Washington Redskins with Kirk Cousins. The Redskins forced Cousins to play on the franchise tag for two years before opting to move on from him. The Redskins were a playoff team with Cousins at quarterback but what have they accomplished since then? Meanwhile, all those who criticized the Vikings for paying Cousins two years ago saw his team upset the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs thanks to some late game heroics from non other than Kirk Cousins. Then consider all of those teams who have been searching for a franchise quarterback for decades without success like the Browns, Jets, and Bills. Finally look no further than the history of our own Dallas Cowboys. The years between Troy Aikman and Tony Romo and the revolving door of rookies, veterans, and journeymen who came and went amidst a string of 5 win seasons. The Cowboys lucked into drafting Dak Prescott in the 4th round after unsuccessfully targeting Paxton Lynch and Connor Cook. The guy they settled for turned out to be a franchise quarterback in his very first season and now some fans want to throw that away? And for what? In order to trust that the same front office who couldn’t build a winner with Tony Romo; Who couldn’t build a winner with Dak on his rookie contract; A front office who couldn’t build a winner in 25 long years, will now all of sudden be able to win a Super Bowl if Dak Prescott takes a few million less than his market value demands? I don’t think so.

So should the Dallas Cowboys invest in a long term Dak Prescott contract or have him play out the franchise tag and let him walk? There are no guarantees for a Super Bowl either way but the answer to this problem is simple. The Dallas Cowboys have a better chance of winning a Super Bowl with Dak Presott than they did with Cooper Rush, that they will with Andy Dalton, or that they would have had with some unproven rookie like Jordan Love. That means the only logical choice is to pay Dak Prescott.

*Photo by Joe Glorioso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode