Dak Prescott contract should make 49ers negotiations with Brock Purdy easier

Dak Prescott’s contract should help the 49ers avoid a long contract negotiation with Brock Purdy.

The San Francisco 49ers had a tumultuous offseason on the contract front.

Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk’s hold-in for an extension lasted until Aug. 29. Left tackle Trent Williams’s holdout for a restructured deal lasted until Sept. 3. It remains to be seen whether the prolonged negotiations will have an impact on the two All-Pros this season, but their contract issues offered a blueprint they simply cannot follow with quarterback Brock Purdy next offseason.

There’s a little bit of good news on that front for San Francisco.

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott agreed to a massive contract extension Sunday just ahead of the team’s Week 1 kickoff. His deal is a four-year pact worth up to $240 million with a reported $231 million guaranteed.

Prescott’s $231 million guarantee would be the most ever for an NFL player. His average annual value of $60 million is also the highest ever.

This sets a firm line for the 49ers to work with when they’re negotiating with Purdy. There’s not a market to worry about the way there was at wide receiver where things dramatically changed throughout the course of the offseason. Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa and Prescott were the next two big QB contracts ahead of Purdy and both are done.

San Francisco’s front office now has an entire season to prepare a competitive offer for Purdy. They know where the bar is and it makes sense that Purdy would command as much or more than Prescott given that the 49ers’ signal caller has four playoff wins in two seasons – that’s two more than Prescott has in eight seasons. Purdy has also been to two NFC title games and a Super Bowl in two seasons. Prescott has never been to an NFC title game.

The 49ers’ business model of delaying big contracts until training camp cannot be the move with their franchise QB. Purdy is eligible to sign an extension the moment Week 18 of the 2024 season ends. That’s when the 49ers should get on the phone with the QB’s representation to begin negotiations, and they should begin those negotiations ready to raise their offer quickly.

Prescott offered a clear line on Purdy’s value. The 49ers just need to follow it accordingly to avoid another prolonged contract negotiation with one of their most important players.

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Jordan Love contract moves bar for potential Brock Purdy extension

Forget what we said about the Tua contract because the Jordan Love contract upended all of it.

The Tua Tagovailoa contract didn’t move the bar much for what Brock Purdy’s contract might look like. That’s not the case for the Jordan Love contract.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Friday reported Love and the Packers agreed to a four-year deal worth up to $220 million with $155 million guaranteed.

His $55 million average annual value ties him atop the market alongside Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow. It also comes in $1.9 million more annually than Tagovailoa.

As with all deals the structure will matter, but this was the kind of contract that was going to move the needle significantly for Purdy. The Tagovailoa deal didn’t upset the market much. Love started just one year for Green Bay and earned this deal which means Purdy’s camp will now have a firm leg to stand on if they ask for an extension that comes out north of $56 million per year.

This situation is going to be tricky for the 49ers as they try to navigate the realities of having a talented roster and a franchise quarterback. They might not have flinched much at the contract the Dolphins dealt their QB, but the Love one will definitely move the needle for the 49ers and Purdy, and now there’s a very real chance that when Purdy’s contract gets done he’ll be the highest-paid signal caller in the sport.

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What Tua Tagovailoa contract means for 49ers, Brock Purdy

The Tua Tagovailoa contract sets a new, non-market setting benchmark for 49ers and Brock Purdy.

Every new quarterback contract that is signed between July and next offseason will be of at least some interest to the 49ers and QB Brock Purdy. The latest deal was reported Friday afternoon between the Dolphins and Tua Tagovailoa. Miami inked their QB to a four-year extension worth $212.4 million and $167 million guaranteed per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

While this is a massive deal that Purdy’s camp will surely have circled entering negotiations after the 2025 season, it’s not one that completely reset the market which sets a good precedent for the 49ers.

The structure of the deal hasn’t come out yet, but let’s roll with just the average annual value and guarantees for now.

Tagovailoa’s average annual value of $53.1 million comes in just ahead of Lions QB Jared Goff for the third-highest AAV in the league. Trevor Lawrence of the Jaguars and Joe Burrow of the Bengals both pace the position in that category at $55 million.

His $167 million is the highest non-fully guaranteed mark among quarterbacks.

Purdy’s contract will surely come in ahead of Tagovailoa’s number. What’s important for the 49ers is that the Dolphins’ QB didn’t completely reset the market. There’s been speculation that Purdy would be earning upwards of $60 million on his next deal. Tagovailoa’s deal is an indication that won’t necessarily be the case.

Purdy could change that if he wins an MVP and/or a Super Bowl. That would alter the stratosphere in which he’s operating where he’d have cause to ask to be the highest-paid signal caller in the league. For now the Tagovailoa deal is overall good news for San Francisco since even a deal to reset the market would only need to come in a tick above the Lawrence and Burrow contracts from an AAV standpoint.

Next up on the QB market is Packers signal caller Jordan Love, who is entering the final year of his rookie deal and holding in while he waits for an extension from Green Bay. Cowboys signal caller Dak Prescott is also entering the final year of his contract and he may get a new deal at some point that lifts him back toward the top of the market. The 49ers will keep a close eye on those deals as well.

For now the Tagovailoa contract offers another benchmark for contracts that aren’t going to completely reset the market. That’s where the 49ers will likely want to play with Purdy. If he winds up commanding a deal in a different tier than that it means he was either an MVP or a Super Bowl winner, and that’s a bridge San Francisco would be happy to have to cross if they get to it.

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Trevor Lawrence contract gives idea of what Brock Purdy’s will look like

Brock Purdy is going to make a hilarious amount of money with his contract extension.

The Jaguars and quarterback Trevor Lawrence agreed to a massive contract extension that was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Thursday. As with wide receiver contracts and Brandon Aiyuk, we can surmise that the Lawrence deal will be one that Brock Purdy will be operating off of in his contract negotiations next offseason.

Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft, earned a five-year extension worth up to $275 million with $142 million fully guaranteed. His $55 million average annual value matches Bengals QB for the most in the NFL. His guarantees come in just behind Burrow’s $146,510,000  and just ahead of Lamar Jackson’s $135 million.

Browns QB Deshaun Watson’s $230 million fully guaranteed albatross tops the market, but there appears to be an understanding around the league that his deal won’t be the standard going forward.

For Purdy, who finished fourth in MVP voting last year in his first full season as a starter, he’ll likely have a floor in the Burrow/Lawrence range assuming he’s as good or better than he was in 2023. If he regresses his floor may come down a little bit, but chances are we’ll see some level of improvement since he’ll have a full offseason this year and his full slate of offensive weapons at his disposal once again.

Any kind of uptick in production from his super-efficient 2023 campaign could easily push his AAV up to $60 million. A contract in the range of five years and $300 million is certainly on the table if Purdy is as good or better in 2024 than he was a season ago. That’s the nature of starting quarterback contracts. The going rate is whatever the latest deal was.

As with all NFL contracts it’ll be the guarantees that matter the most. Purdy’s resume is better than Lawrence’s and on par with Burrow’s. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see Purdy’s guarantees come in around the $150 million mark with the $300 million max value.

Of course all of those numbers could get blown out of the water depending on how the contracts shake out for Tua Tagovailoa in Miami or Jordan Love in Green Bay.

Regardless of where the numbers land exactly, this will mark a sizable change for the 49ers in how they construct a roster. They’ve been able to spend big at other spots the last few years because their QB has been relatively inexpensive. Even Jimmy Garoppolo’s deal wasn’t near the top of the market by the time his final years with the club came around. Having a QB making money commensurate with the NFL’s top QBs will put a ton of onus on Purdy to pick up some slack when the roster becomes less expensive at other spots.

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