Six very quarterback needy teams will be drafting a quarterback in a few weeks. That’s six more teams that will not be considering trading for any quarterback. That hurts Dak’s trade value, further. Three of those QBs will be busts, but by the time their teams come to terms with that Dak will be a free agent. Teams that don’t draft a QB in a few weeks, but feel Dak would be an upgrade, would at best be dealing 2025 draft picks for him, and the odds one of those handful of teams is one Dak desires to go to is slim. There are only a few teams in a position to take on the kind of salary Dak will seek, as it is. Teams will need time to create cap space just to get into the “Dak sweepstakes” even if he were a free agent. It’s too late to engineer a trade for anything significant. As often happens, teams hold on to assets too long. That NTC is a real problem. The Eagles will rue the day they gave Hurts a NTC in his new deal. I’ll bet all top QBs will seek the same going forward, like Tua, and Trevor.
There are at least ~12 teams that need/want a QB.
Not every team is going to be willing to take a gamble on an R1 guy.
Especially an outside top 3 R1 guy.
Some franchises have tried 2 or 3 times and that failed.
Right now Nix and Penix are hit or miss on draft boards as R1 at all.
The Jets drafted a QB 2nd overall and gave up after only 2 seasons to add AR.
The Bears just moved on from Fields to draft a QB first overall again after 3 seasons.
Dak is coming off a year in which he was 1st in TD passes in the league and 3rd in passing yardage.
And he did that with 9 INTs. That made him 2nd overall in quarterback rating AND in QBR.
Which led to a 2nd in MVP voting finish.
There is simply no world in which Dallas would trade Dak for that return. It is essentially a 1 round value. A 3rd this year is worth a 4th next. They'd get a 3rd next anyway.
If France shops Dak he will get teams interested pretty easily.
Cousins coming off an injury as a 35 year old(5 years older than Dak) was able to get 45M AAV and 90M GTD.
A team like the Raiders makes a ton of sense.
Aiden O'Connell or Minshaw?? Gross.
Take Nix or Penix at 13. Way too early.
Wanna trade up to 5 and ensure you get a guy? The cost is insane.
Or you flip 13 and a future pick to Dallas for 24 and Dak.
Pats? They can rebuild that team by trading down a couple or even 3 times and taking a very good OL.
Move some lightweight assets to meet Dallas TWO R2 asks and get Dak to compete again.
Saints? They have a QB 3 years older than Dak that is markedly worse as a player.
How much would they tip Dallas in a swap?
Both teams eat massive dead money but get benefit on new QBs they can extend restructure out for a few years at peanuts.
And we can sit and talk about how 55M AAV is too much but every rookie franchise guy is going to get or surpass that over the next couple seasons.