Prescott answer to $40M question puts ball in Cowboys’ court

As opinions fly about whether the Cowboys should pay their starting QB top dollar, Dak weighs in on if he’s worth a record-setting contract.

When it comes to Dak Prescott’s coming payday, things basically boil down to two schools of thought. One philosophy says when your franchise quarterback’s contract is due, you simply pay him the going rate for a starting NFL passer, with the next man up possibly setting the financial bar at the position just because it’s his turn in line. The other wants to tie the player’s paycheck directly to his skills, with a ranking of all quarterback salaries closely mirroring the current pecking order of who’s best.

Everyone has an opinion on the Dallas Cowboys quarterback’s next deal. And now Prescott himself has elaborated- at least a little bit- on his own view.

In a sit-down interview with Kimberley A. Martin of Yahoo Sports, Prescott was asked point-blank about the staggering annual number getting tossed around by what Prescott calls “the talking heads and prognosticators,” a figure that would make him the highest-paid player in the league.

“Are you a $40-million quarterback?”

“You tell me,” Prescott deadpans. In three succinct words, it’s precisely what the signal-caller is telling Jerry Jones and the Dallas front office as their negotiations continue.

“If it’s my call to write it,” Prescott continues, “yeah, no telling. I mean, let’s be honest, right? So like I said before, I mean, I trust my agent. I trust the Cowboys. Something will get done. We’re not going to sit here and put a number on it. Something will happen.”

Whether that something happens before the franchise tag deadline of March 10 remains to be seen.

Prescott knows he has doubters. Even inside Cowboys Nation, there’s a vocalfaction of fans who haven’t warmed up to him because he replaced Tony Romo or because they can’t forgive a three-game stretch of infamously bad games in 2017 or because they feel he owes it to the organization who drafted him to take a hometown discount or because they cling to a misguided notion that he’s inaccurate and can’t throw the deep ball.

But the four-year veteran who hasn’t missed a game as a pro tunes out those skeptics.

“I don’t necessarily listen to the people that can’t put me in the box,” the two-time Pro Bowler said. “I ignore them and I put that away before they even being to open their mouths, I guess you could say. And I have to do that because the only thing I can worry about is what I can control. And that’s going out there and being the best teammate, the best quarterback, and the best player I can be to give my team and myself a chance to win.”

The guy who throws the passes for the Cowboys has just put the ball back in the front office’s court.

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