Dak Prescott’s contract details: How much money does the Cowboys’ QB make?

Dak Prescott signed a four-year contract extension with the Dallas Cowboys with the NFL deadline looming in March 2021. That deal, worth $160 million ($120 million guaranteed) included a $66 million signing bonus - an unprecedented figure at the time.

The 30-year-old was earning a base salary of $31 million plus other add-ons to take him to somewhere around the $40 million mark at the end of the 2023-24 season. Not bad at all for a player who just two years earlier had been taking home a base salary of around $2 million in the final year of his rookie contract.

Salaries (and expectations) rising

But a lot has changed in the intervening years - and now a number of players are earning considerably more, setting a standard that could see Prescott as the first quarterback to earn $60 million a year. Whether or not that’s with the Cowboys is still to be determined.

As Prescott enters the final year of his four-year contract, he can no longer be franchise tagged nor traded without his consent. As part of a restructure of the contract, the Cowboys lowered Presoctt’s 2024 salary cap to $55.455 million. Since then, they have yet to make any other contract negotiations. Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff signed a four-year, $212 million contract, making him the league’s second-highest-paid player with $53 million a year. The more deals like that one play out, the more leverage Prescott has.

This wouldn’t be the first time the Cowboys have dragged out contract negotiations with Prescott either. In 2020, after Prescott had become a two-time Pro Bowler and his rookie contract came to an end, the Cowboys stalled on negotiations and eventually chose to franchise tag him on a one-year, $31.4 million deal. They finally agreed to an extension with Prescott in 2021, which is the four-year, $160 million deal mentioned above. This contract is interesting because it features void years, which spreads out the payment through to 2028.

Now the Cowboys must be kicking themselves. They had several opportunities to give Prescott a contract extension much earlier, when the standards were much lower. And yet, here we are. Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence just signed a deal worth $55 million a year, tying Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow for the highest-paid QB in the league. The longer the Cowboys wait to come up with a plan for an extension, the more expensive Prescott becomes.

Prescott has led us to believe that he’s okay with playing out this final year of his contract and becoming a free agent in 2025 with the leverage to ask for up to $60 million. In that case, the Cowboys would be letting a healthy Pro-Bowler leave the team for the open market with plenty of interested parties. And no one to blame but themselves.