Last season, the Dallas Cowboys shelled out four years and $240 million for Dak Prescott to make him the highest annually paid QB in the NFL. It was a massive deal that put to bed the controversy over a potential holdout into the season. Something that the team owner/GM, Jerry Jones, is experiencing with another star player this offseason.
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Now, the team has restructured Dak’s contract to free up cap space. They made his base salary for this season cheaper while pushing most of it into the final three years of the deal. It created $36.6 million in cap space when all was said and done.
While most would look at the restructuring and commend Dak and the team for getting out ahead of the issue, Stephen A. Smith didn’t commend anyone. Instead, he looked at it from a different perspective. That perspective was that Dak has had to have his deals restructured so much throughout his career because he is overpaid.
“Do y’all know that Dak Prescott’s contract has been restructured 5 times? In the last 5 years… That is a grand total of $82 million… In cap space for Jerry Jones. That’s how you know you’re overpaying your quarterback. That’s how you know you’re not structuring deals right,” Stephen A. argued on First Take.
It’s not a bad argument to make. Dak hasn’t played a full NFL season in 3 out of the last 5 years. Furthermore, he led the league in interceptions thrown in 2022. With only 2 playoff wins to round out the resume, it’s hard to justify why he gets paid more annually than Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, and Josh Allen.
.@stephenasmith believes the Cowboys restructuring Dak Prescott’s contract five times shows that he is overpaid
“That is a grand total of $82 million … in cap space for Jerry Jones. That’s how you know you are overpaying your QB.” pic.twitter.com/QORmjsX6RY
— First Take (@FirstTake) August 12, 2025
At the same time, though, the NFL QB market does not pay players based on their skill level. They pay based on what the market is demanding. Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love haven’t experienced much playoff success either, yet they make $55 million a year because they would’ve walked if their teams didn’t pay up.
The same could be said for guys like Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff, and Kyler Murray. All are paid a ton of money despite not achieving much or any playoff success in their careers. That’s because QB is the hardest position to play in sports, and teams quickly realize that an average one is better than nothing.
At the end of the day, no, Dak doesn’t perform like a $60 million man. But that’s what it took from Jones to get him to stay. If he didn’t give him the contract, it would’ve been Trey Lance’s season in 2024. And that would’ve been more disastrous than anything Dak could’ve done on the field.
