Dak's Contract - again

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Creeper

Creeper

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https://sports.yahoo.com/article/cowboys-overshot-market-5-million-025335537.html

Since it is that time of summer when nothing is going on so why not another thread on Dak's contract?

This article points out what I have been saying since the deal was announced. Jerry gave Dak the worse possible contract from the team's perspective. It's $5 million more per year than what it should be. It comes with a no trade clause and a no franchise tag clause - and it is only 4 years making it more difficult of spread out the bonus money and restructures.

There was no need to do this deal with Dak. At some point a smart team sees that the player's demands far exceed his performance value and they decide to move on. Jerry really struggles assessing a player's value.

But it is also important to note that Jerry gave away all his leverage with Dak's previous contract. He never should have agreed to a no trade clause. But that is still no excuse. Sure Dallas could have lost Dak to free agency, but is overpaying him by at least $5 million per year worth keeping him?

I also dislike the argument that were are no alternatives. I do agree finding a QB is hard in the NFL. We've been down that path before. But maybe the alternative is to do something different. Build a strong defense. Build a strong running game. Find a game manager and let him keep the team in games while you continue the search for the next franchise guy. At some point Dak will be retiring anyway. At some point they will have to start a new QB search. Better now than to be handcuffed by a contracts worth well more than the QB you are playing.
 
Creeper said:
I do agree finding a QB is hard in the NFL.
Click to expand...
Correction - finding a QB who brings the Rodges, Brady, Mahomes skillset to the table is hard to find. Finding someone to replicate what Dak does isn't as hard. If you consider a scale where you have the low end equal to Sam Darnold and the high end being Brady as the GOAT - Dak Prescott falls in between those two and can be argued that he is closer to Darnold than Brady in terms of skill and what he brings to the table.
 
I’m not defending the deal, but keep in mind….

-They wouldn’t have spent the savings on improving the team, and if they did, you’d likely not notice 5m.

-The no trade clause doesn’t much matter. They couldnt just blindside him with a trade unless he knows about it and approves anyway. No team is trading for a QB who doesn’t want to be there.

-They should have just given him a Mahomes deal from the beginning. Jerry wanted to see more leaves fall, Dak failed, and he paid him again and again anyway. France had them over a barrel every time and knew it.
 
Creeper said:
It's $5 million more per year than what it should be. It comes with a no trade clause and a no franchise tag clause - and it is only 4 years making it more difficult of spread out the bonus money and restructures.
Click to expand...
This is the part I don't understand......he could have STILL made Dak the highest paid at $56M. Tells me Jerry either panic, or was too lazy to go through the process.
 
fivetwos said:
Dak failed, and he paid him again and again anyway.
Click to expand...
And that is the crux of where Jerry has failed as a GM. He paid him, he didn't live up to that contract so he paid him again. While a competent GM would have paid him once and when he failed would have found a way to get rid of him and move on. Failure is a part of this, what you don't do is fail and retain the guys who failed.
 
Johannes44 said:
And that is the crux of where Jerry has failed as a GM. He paid him, he didn't live up to that contract so he paid him again. While a competent GM would have paid him once and when he failed would have found a way to get rid of him and move on. Failure is a part of this, what you don't do is fail and retain the guys who failed.
Click to expand...
Right. They tagged him and delayed the signing. He failed, and they still signed him.

I get that it’s not all on him, but after the second SF playoff loss vs Purdy….Jerry was really down on him, saying “I really thought we had a big advantage at QB.”

Then does what to find a replacement? Zero. Gives Dak the biggest deal ever.

I don’t know why anyone expects anything as long as he is around with his fingerprints all over everything. Need a real GM to even have a chance in this league.
 
As always, Jerry's ego is front and center in this.

To not sign Dak would have been an admission that he was wrong about Dak. As long as Dak showed anything, that was never going to happen.

Conversely, signing Dak as an elite QB justifies Jerry as a football man, at least in his mind. Jerry is the guy who found his elite QB in the fourth round. That's GM of the year material, at least in his mind.

He loves his diamonds in the rough and he has chosen them and overvalued them throughout the entirety of his storied career as a GM.
 
Creeper said:
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/cowboys-overshot-market-5-million-025335537.html

Since it is that time of summer when nothing is going on so why not another thread on Dak's contract?

This article points out what I have been saying since the deal was announced. Jerry gave Dak the worse possible contract from the team's perspective. It's $5 million more per year than what it should be. It comes with a no trade clause and a no franchise tag clause - and it is only 4 years making it more difficult of spread out the bonus money and restructures.

There was no need to do this deal with Dak. At some point a smart team sees that the player's demands far exceed his performance value and they decide to move on. Jerry really struggles assessing a player's value.

But it is also important to note that Jerry gave away all his leverage with Dak's previous contract. He never should have agreed to a no trade clause. But that is still no excuse. Sure Dallas could have lost Dak to free agency, but is overpaying him by at least $5 million per year worth keeping him?

I also dislike the argument that were are no alternatives. I do agree finding a QB is hard in the NFL. We've been down that path before. But maybe the alternative is to do something different. Build a strong defense. Build a strong running game. Find a game manager and let him keep the team in games while you continue the search for the next franchise guy. At some point Dak will be retiring anyway. At some point they will have to start a new QB search. Better now than to be handcuffed by a contracts worth well more than the QB you are playing.
Click to expand...
We should have waited to see how last season played out first, which is the biggest mistake in this whole equation. I don't think the 4 year contract length was that big of a deal there is also 4 dummy years to spread out cap hit restructures. The no trade/no franchise clause was a big leverage play for Dak, but understand why players want that. The other part that makes this a difficult contract to work around is that next year's salary becomes guaranteed a year in advance through the first few years which forces the Cowboys to make a decision early, which makes it hard to move off the contract if they desired. It was a smart structure from Dak and his agent.
 
This all started when Jerry allowed Dak, on a 4th round deal, to play out his rookie contract. Being cheap that one year instead of extending him, was the beginning. They ended up franchising Dak. They tagged him in 2020 when they should have extended him a year early. Then they tagged him again in 2021 to lock him out of free agency while continuing to “negotiate.” They learned nothing from what happened with Kirk Cousins.

We all know they could have extended Dak for less by extending him a year early for a third time, but they basically let him stand on the precipice of free agency and paid him at the last possible minute. Is it really hard nosed negotiations by Dak and his agent, or is it Jerry giving them all the leverage time and time again by not extending Dak early. When you allow your franchise QB to keep getting that close to free agency, you are no longer paying him the going extension rate for QBs. You are now overpaying based on what the QB could get from a QB needy team with the cap space. Add to that giving him the two no trade, no tag clauses, and you have zero options that can be stomached other than restarting your team at zero and rebuilding.

Even those of us who like Dak don’t argue that he’s worth his contract, but letting him walk for nothing more than a 3rd round compensatory pick would have put Jerry in the same historical perspective as the Vikings in the Hershel trade or Ditka in the Ricky Williams draft. Jerry played it wrong 3 times and couldn’t admit it. He’d rather pay the salary, be relevant, and have people say he overpayed than to have people laughing at how poorly he handled the situation and lost a good QB with no compensation.
 
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