Dak Prescott and Cowboys agree on extensive contract extension

FRISCO, TX — Dak Prescott has previously made it clear that he wants to play his entire NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys, and now, just hours before the 2024 regular-season opener against the Cleveland Browns, he’s taken another big step to make sure that promise isn’t an empty one.

Prescott has agreed to a new four-year contract extension worth over $240 million, with $231 million guaranteed, a historic level, according to multiple reports, including NFL.com.

This means he will remain with the team as the franchise quarterback beyond the 2024 season – news that follows the mega deals given this summer to Jordan Love of the Green Bay Packers and Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins.

Earlier this year, he made it clear that while money is a necessary part of the business side of the game, it is not what wakes him up in the morning, nor is it what drives him to perform at his best – as a person, a father or a player.

“I never played the game for that reason,” he said Thursday. “I played a game purely for the love of the guys in the locker room. Yeah, that game has always brought me something that not many things in life do. That kind of peace, that’s what it does. Just being out there between the lines with guys that you share a brotherhood with. Yeah, that’s something that just makes this game of football special and we’re just blessed that the money comes with it and I’m in the position that I’m in that we can have those conversations.

“But that doesn’t motivate me.”

During the first contact practice in full gear in Week 1, the three-time Pro Bowler reiterated his desire to finish his career in Dallas, and in particular why the thought of winning the Super Bowl with the Cowboys – more than any other team – drives him.

“That’s what motivates me to be here, just to be the quarterback that gets it done, that wins,” he said. “I don’t think it would be the same to win anywhere else as it would be here.”

He will now have several more chances to achieve this goal.

Prescott, the 2022 Walter Payton Man of the Year and just the fourth person to ever win that award in Dallas alongside Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman and Jason Witten, was set to enter a new contract year starting this September, which is nothing new for him considering he’s already been awarded the Cowboys’ franchise tag twice before – which basically amounted to contract years – and his latest, untagged variation is set to hit the current salary cap of more than $59 million in 2024.

In 2020, Prescott became the first quarterback in Cowboys history to ever receive a tag.

His second contract of 2021 literally lasted just one day before he signed a four-year contract extension worth a maximum of $160 million with $126 million guaranteed in March 2021.

Despite the explosive news that a salary cap of $255.4 million was set for 2024 (more than $30 million more than last season and nearly $13 million more than expected) and the help the Cowboys received as a result, they were still over the cap at the time and therefore needed the additional relief provided by Prescott’s contract extension.

“I feel like 24 hours can really change your life,” said All-Pro wideout CeeDee Lamb, who himself just got a new contract extension that kicked in at the end of August. “It certainly did for me and throughout the whole process that I went through, and this is Dak’s second time at the table, so I know he’s very familiar with it and with Jerry’s way of working. I have no doubt they’ll get the job done, but he can’t win a game on his own.”

To provide some relief for the moment, both sides agreed to revise the agreement last spring, but the extension is likely to secure additional savings in the tens of millions for additional flexibility in capping debt.

Not only will this move guarantee the Cowboys avoid the purgatory of quarterback purgation—such as Clint Stoerner, Stephen McGee, Quincy Carter, etc.—but it should also free up tens of millions of dollars in 2024 salary cap space that can be fully rolled over into the 2025 calendar season, or rather, the portion of it that remains unused until then.

A fourth-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, Prescott is entering his ninth year in the league and has emerged as one of the best in the business. His 2023 season not only earned him his third Pro Bowl nomination and first All-Pro honors, but also second place in the NFL MVP voting, behind only Lamar Jackson.

Prescott finished the 2023 season with the third-highest number of passing yards of his record-setting career (4,516) and his second-highest number of touchdowns (36), while also throwing the lowest number of interceptions (9) in a full season since 2018 – making a 180-degree turn in that category after setting a career low of 15 interceptions a year ago.