Cowboys QB Dak Prescott faces immense pressure to perform after signing a record-breaking contract and following the trade of star defender Micah Parsons.
The trade of Parsons adds pressure on Prescott to carry the team despite owner Jerry Jones’ insistence that Prescott is capable of leading the Cowboys to a Super Bowl victory.
Prescott admits he wasn’t completely surprised by the Parsons trade after contract negotiations became contentious.
Dak Prescott already has enough pressure. There’s the matter of the Dallas Cowboys quarterback delivering bang for the buck as the NFL’s first $60 million man. The challenge of returning to form after half of last season was wiped out by a torn hamstring. A date to open the season amid the typical raucous crowd at The Linc in Philadelphia on Thursday night when the Eagles raise another Super Bowl banner.
And, of course, check-back-in-January heat persists for Prescott as a walking punching bag that reflects his franchise’s championship drought with his 2-5 playoff record.
The stunning trade last week that sent three-time All-Pro defensive end Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers added another thick layer of pressure on Prescott because…well, just because. Dealing the defensive centerpiece certainly increases heat on team owner Jerry Jones and his front office. It tightens the screws on new coach Brian Schottenheimer and D-coordinator Matt Eberflus, too. You know, scheme up pass-rush pressure.
Yet fair or not, nobody in the Cowboys universe assumes more pressure than Prescott, given his presence as the most scrutinized player on the NFL’s most over-exposed band of underachievers.
See, with or without Parsons, the expectation for Prescott was seemingly cast in stone a year ago when he signed a four-year, $240 million contract extension that averages 60 mil. Let it sink in for a moment. Prescott, who entered the NFL in 2016 as a fourth-round pick, is, Bless him, the highest-paid player in NFL history. With strings attached.
“I didn’t make him the highest-paid player thinking he wasn’t going to win a Super Bowl,” Jones told USA TODAY Sports during a training camp interview. “If I didn’t think he would win a Super Bowl, I wouldn’t have paid him.”
Jones made those comments before the bizarre contract negotiations with Parsons concluded with the trade that netted defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-round picks for the Cowboys. Yet the money to Prescott has already been paid (or at least committed, with $231 million guaranteed), which cements the expectation.
No, a great quarterback alone doesn’t win a Super Bowl. Look at the lineup of wanna-be champs beyond Prescott: Lamar Jackson. Josh Allen. Joe Burrow. And then some. It’s a team thing, which is why the greatness of Patrick Mahomes in winning three rings comes with an average of $45 million and the type of below-market deal that, like Tom Brady years earlier, intentionally allows the Kansas City Chiefs to keep or acquire premium talent around the star quarterback.
Then again, there are always choices and projections and creativity in managing the salary cap. In time, we’ll find out if Jerry, even with his delusional Herschel Walker trade comparison, was totally out to lunch in dealing away Parsons. Or not. As much as he disputes it, it sends a message that it was less about winning now and geared more to future reloading.
Maybe Parsons has a DeMarcus Ware post-Dallas experience and helps to win a Super Bowl. Or perhaps he doesn’t hold up physically to justify a record-breaking deal. We’ll see. Yet while Jones determined in previously assessing the long-term quarterback plan that there was no other available option to supplant Prescott – and that conclusion will be proven or not over time, too – the thinking on Parsons included spread-the-wealth dynamics.
Parsons wound up with a four-year, $186 million deal with the Packers that, according to Spotrac.com, averages $46.5 million. It makes him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history.
In pondering such a payday for Parsons before the trade, Jones told USA TODAY Sports: “When you pay one player that kind of money, it’s costing you four players. Premium players. When you have two of them – the highest-paid offensive player and the highest-paid defensive player, or something like that, you could have had eight players.”
That thinking, though, hardly lowers the bar of expectations for Prescott, who is in range of setting several key franchise passing records. He knows. For a franchise that hasn’t even advanced to another NFC title game in the 29 years since it claimed its last Super Bowl triumph, the noise has intensified around the recent postseason setbacks.
Think Prescott takes his mediocre playoff record personally?
“I’d better take it personally,” Prescott told USA TODAY Sports during a training camp interview. “You’re the leader of this team, the leader of that group. Whether it’s that record or another record, nobody should be happy with a losing record.
“That’s something I’m not proud of at all, but I understand. I know who I am. I know what I can and cannot do. I know each of those games are independent, right? Sure, some of it has been on me, some of it hasn’t.”
And so goes the noise.
In reacting to the big news over the weekend, Prescott maintained to local reporters that he didn’t think the Cowboys would trade Parsons. That might have been the teammate or football strategist speaking.
Reflecting the reality, with the series of dramatic twists and turns that included Parsons’ trade request and hold-in, and public salvos from Jones, Prescott also maintained that he was not “completely surprised” that the star player was traded.
“It seemed like it got personal,” Prescott allowed.
Which for better or for worse, is part of the equation that has surely turned up the heat for the Cowboys’ high-profile quarterback.
Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on social media: On X: @JarrettBell
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