With a potential second franchise tag looming over the Dak Prescott situation, what the future has in store for the Dallas Cowboys remains uncertain. There are several different scenarios capable of playing out over the next year, and not all of them have happy endings. For a team on the precipice, with both pieces to win now and problem areas, Dallas should be contingency planning for a future without Prescott, just in case. One potential way to play for both 2021 while keeping an eye towards the future would be to pair Prescott’s franchise tag with whatever QB they can grab with the tenth overall pick.
Now while this scenario is unlikely to play out, itmakes sense given the Cowboys unique situation and the unprecedented and rapidly evolving QB market. There’s a good chance one of the non-Trevor Lawrence QBs would be available for Dallas at No. 10 on draft night. The bomb it would drop on both the team and rest of the NFL would be enough to force the issue with Prescott, rather than maintain the status quo the Cowboys have operated at for approaching three decades now.
If Dallas did select a QB at No. 10, there are probably three different scenarios which are most likely to play out at that point.
Scenario No. 1
In the first, this finally becomes the straw which breaks the camel’s back between Prescott and the Cowboys. In a bizarro Aaron Rodgers-Jordan Love scenario, during a time when professional athletes are wielding as much control over their fate than ever before, Prescott signs his franchise tender and demands to be traded before the start of the season.
At that point, Dallas can jump right into a seller’s market and link up with whichever team missed out on their original QB target. Both the Cowboys and Prescott are able to move forward, and although whichever QB they field in 2021 would be a downgrade, the team would at least have more of a clear path and direction with their rookie QB than going year-to-year with a player they claim to value yet haven’t committed to.
Scenario No. 2
Through Door No. 2, Prescott grins and bears it, and plays the 2021 season on the franchise tag and in front of the team’s first-round draft pick. Things go really well, the team rallies around its leader, and Dallas finally makes the deep postseason run that’s eluded them since their last Super Bowl victory. With Prescott facing free agency yet again, the Cowboys have no choice but to re-sign him, on his terms, going all-in on this version of the team and entrenching Prescott’s place in team history forever. Their most recent first round pick immediately becomes both their biggest trade chip.
From a pure value standpoint, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to utilize their highest draft pick this way, but there’ve also been worse uses with prime picks.
Ideally, the Cowboys won’t picking this high again, and if they are forced to start looking for a Prescott replacement, picking tenth overall may represent their biggest swing towards finding an option worth moving forward with. The total contract value assigned to the tenth overall pick is just over $14 million. Dallas could easily swallow the $2,6M cap hit it’d cost in 2021 and its incremental increases through 2024. From a pure value standpoint, the choice is hard to ignore, especially given the positional scarcity and relative drop off compared to other positions.
Looking for a DB or OL in the top of the second round is a different ballgame than looking for a QB in the same spot. The Cowboys could also look to free agency to fill their defensive holes in way they cannot at the QB position. They’ll have multiple chances with mid-round draft picks and FA signings to address their needs, but only one opportunity to grab a top-5 QB prospect-it’s the ultimate best player available move, rather than drafting for need and prioritizing short-term needs.
And given the fungible nature of highly-drafted QBs in recent years, from Josh Rosen to Dwyane Haskins, and possibly Tua Tagovialoa, it wouldn’t be particularly unprecedented for Dallas to grab a QB when they can, only to ultimately flip him for whatever value the market dictates in the future. Things change rapidly in the NFL, and you never which team might be desperately willing to part with valuable assets for a QB in 2022 and beyond.
Scenario No. 3
In the third scenario, Prescott again plays out the season on the franchise tag and the chips fall somewhere in between last year’s 6-10 record, and the best-case-scenario finish. The Cowboys once again face an uncertain future, are even less sure about committing to Prescott, and the $54M cost takes a third straight franchise tag off the table.
Here, Dallas likely lets Prescott walk, but is ready to hand over the reins to their 2021 first rounder, thankful they’re able to rather than having to come up with a solution from the late-teens/early 20’s pick they’re likely left with after a full season with Prescott at the helm.
At the very least, another viable QB option at least gives the Cowboys back some leverage during future negotiations with Prescott, greasing the wheels and helping the two sides reach a compromise.
So if March 9 passes without Dallas and Prescott reaching a long-term deal, and the Cowboys find one of the top QB prospects is available when they go on the clock at 10, they should think long and hard about what that pick might mean for the team going forward. It wouldn’t be the best or first choice, but the same could be said about plenty of the decisions Dallas has made since finding Prescott back in 2016.
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