3 reasons the Cowboys need to pay Dak Prescott this offseason
By John Buhler
2. The Cowboys won’t be bad enough to draft a blue-chipper in 2021
So let’s say the Cowboys somehow convince themselves they can replace Prescott with another quarterback in the 2021 NFL Draft. In truth, they’re more likely to end up with a Jamie Newman or a Kyle Trask than they are to land either a Trevor Lawrence or a Justin Fields. Simply put, Dallas won’t be bad enough to draft a player as promising as Troy Aikman was coming out back in 1989.
By choosing not to pay him anything more than the franchise tag, Prescott and his camp will be livid to not get a long-term extension. Paying him on back-to-back tags will only add growing resentment to how his representation feels about the Cowboys. Once tagging him for a third time proves to expensive, he’ll go make a boatload like Kirk Cousins did with the Minnesota Vikings.
Even if the Cowboys decide to let Prescott holdout and not honor his franchise tag, Dallas should still be able to win six or seven games with Andy Dalton as their starting quarterback. The Cowboys have more talent on both sides of the ball than Dalton did in his final years with the Cincinnati Bengals. Plus, he’s playing for a new contract too, as well as an opportunity to start.
A shameless tank job will be the only way the Cowboys could be bad enough to draft Lawrence or Fields. Though they are the stars worthy of playing in Dallas, it’s too risky of a proposition for even the most adventurous oil maverick Jerry Jones to pull off. While Newman or Trask could be better than Prescott, he’s more of a sure thing at this point of his career than Dallas will want to admit.