If Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott wants to quiet all the noise, there is one simple solution. It’s been the same solution for the entire decade he’s been a starter in the NFL. All you have to do is win.
For Prescott, winning will keep him off lists like the one Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox just put out of the 10 worst contracts in the NFL, placing Prescott at No. 2 with the 4-year, $240 million contract he signed in September 2024.
That’s only behind Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson and his fully guaranteed, 5-year, $230 million contract extension he signed in March 2023 — perhaps the worst contract in the history of professional sports.
“Dallas made Prescott the highest-paid player in NFL history by a fairly considerable margin,” Knox wrote on June 12. “With a deal worth $60 million annually, Prescott makes at least $5 million more per year than any other player—including quarterbacks like (Jordan) Love, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen … Prescott is an above-average quarterback, but he has never been elite. There is no scenario, at this stage in his career, that he’s worth $5 million per year more than any other player.”
Prescott, Cowboys Have Upstart NFC East Rival
It seems kind of foolish to say anyone with a contract like Prescott’s is at a career crossroads, but Prescott followed the best season of his career in 2023 with arguably the most disappointing season of his career in 2024 and did so after becoming the first player in NFL history to make $60 million in a single season.
In 2023, Prescott earned his lone NFL All-Pro nod and was runner-up in NFL MVP voting. Yet somehow, in Year 10 of Prescott’s career, we’re still wondering if he’ll ever make it to a Super Bowl and fresh off a season in which 2 of Dallas’ NFC East rivals faced off in the NFC Championship Game with the upstart Washington Commanders and the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
While the Eagles have been dominant for the last decade, the bigger problem for Prescott and the Cowboys has to be the Commanders.
In a year in which Prescott only played 8 games due to a hamstring issue, Washington quarterback and 2024 NFL draft No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels had perhaps the greatest rookie season for a quarterback in NFL history.
Now, Prescott is staring down a year in which he enters the season as the third best quarterback in his own division.
Cowboys Picked to Finish ‘Dead Last’ in NFC East
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons recently laid out a scenario in which the Cowboys actually finish dead last in the NFC East in 2025 — and it doesn’t seem entirely far fetched.
The New York Giants might actually improve quite a bit after going 4-13 in 2024 after getting 2 picks in the first round of the 2025 draft with edge rusher Abdul Carter at No. 3 overall and quarterback Jaxson Dart at No. 25 overall.
“So (the Cowboys) are just going into a season knowing you’re number three, and maybe even worse if the Giants are a little bit better right away than people think,” Simmons said on the May 29 episode of “The Bill Simmons Podcast” in a conversation with Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer. “So I do not feel good if I’m in Dallas.”
