On Thursday, the Denver Broncos announced a new deal that rewarded quarterback Russell Wilson with an obscene amount of money. The club hopes Wilson, who was already set to make an obscene amount of money via the contract he was under when traded from the Seattle Seahawks, will end their carousel of QBs since the retirement of Peyton Manning. The Dallas Cowboys haven’t had to endure this uncertainty. They were blessed to move on from the Tony Romo era to the Dak Prescott era rather smoothly as far as QB switches go.
Romo was consistently hurt, and a woefully under-drafted fourth-round pick was waiting in the wings to take over and continue a window of championship opportunity. The fact Dallas hasn’t climbed through the window is a different conversation than having a QB capable of doing such things with. Prescott is capable, and Dallas was right to pay him a big contract in 2021. That negotiation brought much ire and outrage from the fanbase when the deal landed at $40 million a season. The fake issues were wrong then, but that wasn’t the only thing that was wrong.
Cowboys fans and analysts, including yours truly, have been wrong the entire time. Even before that deal was consummated, there was another large contingent of folks on the opposite side saying Dallas was waiting too long to give Prescott a new deal, allowing it to grow more expensive by the day. It turns out they (we) were wrong, too.
Here’s how it all is woven together.