Philadelphia Eagles: Patrick Mahomes’ deal will haunt the Dallas Cowboys
A loss for the Dallas Cowboys is a win for the Philadelphia Eagles.
When ex-Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid and his Super Bowl champion Kanas City Cheifs signed Patrick Mahomes to a record-shattering 10-year, $503 million deal, it put the Dallas Cowboys in really, really dire straights.
Now I know, I know, this isn’t a new topic of conversation. Since that fateful July day, seemingly everyone has a take on how the Mahomes situation affects one Rayne Dakota ‘Dak’ Prescott and his team’s wily general manager Jerry Jones, but by failing to land a long-term deal before the league’s July 15th franchise tag extension deadline, the Cowboys just set themselves up for an ugly spring of negotiations in 2021.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Carson Wentz‘s once-considered-monstrous 2018 extension now looks like a bargain.
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So as you may or may not know, the Cowboys and Prescott’s camp never really got close to a long-term deal. Per ESPN’s Todd Archer, the Cowboys and Prescott’s agent, Todd France, weren’t even in serious conversation about an extension in the lead up to Wednesday’s 4 pm deadline, a clear indicator that it wasn’t going to happen. Prescott’s camp reportedly wants a four-year deal in the ballpark of Russell Wilson‘s 2019 four-year, $140 million extension, whereas the Cowboys would like to sign him to a five-year deal – the same length they gave to Ezekial Elliott and DeMarcus Lawrence, among others – in the $32-35 million range.
Theoretically, the two sides should be able to bridge that gap and make something work but when Prescott’s brother Tad is sending out tweets like this maybe they don’t really want to.
With July 15th now passed, Prescott will officially play out the 2020 NFL season on a franchise tag worth $31.4 million. While this is a massive amount of money, nearly eight times the amount he made over the entirety of his four-year rookie contract, it doesn’t provide the security many quarterbacks crave. That being said, a quarterback can become really, really rich jumping from tag to tag year after year – just ask Kirk Cousins. The textbook definition of a good-but-not-great quarterback, Cousins made the most money of any quarterback in the NFL from 2016-19 per FS1’s Undisputed, a lucky break thanks to a pair of franchise tags with Washington’s football team and a three-year, fully guaranteed $84 million free agency deal.
By prioritizing optionality over a concession on the number of years, the Cowboys could conceivably sign Prescott to another franchise tag next spring if his play remains good enough to keep but not great enough to extend, however, doing so now become oh so much more costly.
You see, the franchise tag is the average of the top five paid players at any given position. In 2020, that number is right around $31.4 million. However, that number jumps considerably in 2021 thanks to massive payouts scheduled to Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and our very own Carson Wentz, with the QB tag paying out at a little over $37 million at the time of writing.
Fun Fact: the Cowboys only project to have $36 million in cap space in 2021, so giving Dak another franchise tag would effectively wipe out any ability to improve the team in free agency.
Next. Yannick Ngakoue trade talks are likely finished. dark
So in summation, the Cowboys will enter the 2021 NFL calendar year in one of the worst negotiating positions imaginable. They could sign Dak Prescott to a long-term deal, but after watching Patrick Mahomes cash out on a massive deal that just became exorbitantly more expensive regardless of how many years the deal runs. Alternatively, Jerry Jones could slap Prescott with the franchise tag, but in doing so, he couldn’t parse out the money over multiple years and would effectively forfeit any ability to improve his team in free agency, let alone retain internal talent on new deals. No, by kicking the tire down the road once more, the Dallas Cowboys have set themselves up for an even bigger fall – much to the chagrin of Philadelphia Eagles fans.