Dak Prescott is in line to have a $59 million cap hit next season. It’s fair to say Jerry Jones thinks about that daily.
The Cowboys’ quarterback situation is in a fascinating place. Prescott is under contract through the 2024 season, a campaign in which he’ll have the massive aforementioned figure attached to him. Prescott has always been a polarizing figure, so it raised eyebrows when Dallas swung a trade for Trey Lance.
A case could be made that the Lance acquisition is laying the groundwork for a Prescott exit. However, Lance is unproven despite his high draft slot, and the Cowboys only parted with a fourth-round pick to get him. They hardly cleared the decks and slapped the heir apparent title on Lance.
The trade nonetheless is a reminder that Prescott’s future in Dallas is, at the very least, uncertain. But Jones reiterated his desire to have Prescott around for a long time Tuesday during his weekly appearance on Shan & RJ.
“You’re implying on discussion – those numbers on those contracts, those types of numbers, especially the big ones, you live with constantly, that’s always on your mind,” Jones said after getting asked about the cap hit and if discussions would be tabled during the season. "There’s never a time when it goes away because you’ve got to make the entire thing fit. “
“So, it’s on the mind (with) a player decision in the middle of the year. It’s just a fundamental. We expect Dak to be with us a long time, and yeah, we’re always working around it with several machinations of numbers that would work.
"It’s a moving target because you don’t know where you are on any given day for sure with a salary that you want to have on your books in the future. Such as something you might want to be doing with a CeeDee Lamb -- I know our fans need points to start from here -- but those contracts you have to kind of assume you’ll have in place at some number knowing that that’s not going to be exact until you get it negotiated.
“That’s long-winded, but it’s constantly on your mind, it’s just a part of your makeup.”