Dak Prescott has a real chance to be a true free agent a year from now. He is entering the last year of his contract with the Dallas Cowboys, the parties don’t seem to be particularly close on an extension, and the quarterback has no-tag and no-trade clauses.
And Fox analyst Nick Wright has an intriguing perspective about what can happen. For him, the Cowboys are terrified to be locked into a ceiling with Dak Prescott. And if they were to pay him, they would have already done it.
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That could end up in a crazy scenario where Prescott goes to the New York Giants, and his coach would be… Bill Belichick.
“It’s a minimum of $60 million, it is probably $65 million a year,” Wright said. “I’ve been saying it and I’ll keep saying it. I really think Dak Prescott, Bill Belichick, packaged deal to the New York Giants a year from now is going to happen. Bill gets to end where he started, the Giants get to rebrand and steal the Cowboys quarterback, and Dak gets something like three years, $200 million guaranteed, and that’s where this thing ends up going.”
It’s obviously a hard proposition. According to Over the Cap, the Giants are projected to be the 17th team in the NFL with the most cap space in 2025, but they can certainly work around that if they get rid of Daniel Jones.
Prescott has been with the Cowboys since being a fourth-round pick in the 2016 draft. He is coming off the best season of his career, finishing second in EPA+CPOE composite, just behind Brock Purdy. He was also third in success rate, which shows how consistent he was through the regular season.
The coach
For Bill Belichick, it would make sense to go to the Giants if Brian Daboll eventually gets fired. New York wasn’t exactly where Belichick started in the NFL, but it’s where he grew famous as a defensive mind.
Belichick first coached for the Giants in 1979 as a special teams coordinator and defensive assistant, then had five more seasons as the ST coordinator and linebackers coach. He was promoted to defensive coordinator (1985-1990), winning two Super Bowls. That led to his first head coaching opportunity, with the Cleveland Browns.
Belichich is 72 years old and will have several media roles this season away from football. But he wants to come back to break the winning record among head coaches in NFL history. For that to happen, it makes sense to have a veteran quarterback alongside him, and Dak Prescott fits that mold.
How realistic is this?
The question is tougher regarding Dak Prescott. While he can do that if he wants to, the most likely scenario is still that Jerry Jones will pay him whatever it takes to sign a new deal. The last time the parties found an agreement, it took time, but Jones eventually accepted a player-friendly structure to keep Prescott around.
And the possibility of losing his quarterback to a divisional rival obviously motivates Jones even more to get something done.
There are a lot of chapters left, and Nick Wright’s idea brings even more juice to an intriguing situation.