Dallas Cowboys 2023: 5 steps to start things out (Part One)
By John Herndon
Dallas Cowboys Step 2: Dak Prescott – friendly
When the 2023 NFL regular season starts, Dak Prescott will be 30 years old. How time flies in the NFL.
In 2023, Prescott will earn a base salary of $31,000,000, while carrying a cap hit of $49,130,000 and a dead cap value of $89,070,000. Dallas has a potential out after the 2023 season.
The Cowboys should stay the course. Because from what we have seen, Prescott has shown he may not be an exceptional quarterback but he’s a good one. He is not Mike McCarthy’s quarterback by choice, but someone who McCarthy inherited when he was hired to be the head coach.
Do you think a change in scheme and investment in new talent will benefit the quarterback? The Cowboys have a potential out they can explore in the future. Let Prescott earn his next contract.
Dallas should be very careful here. The NFL has become arms race and teams paying quarterbacks market value that doesn’t translate on the field.
Dallas is not alone, but it’s league wide. Look at the Chiefs and the Eagles. Patrick Mahomes justifies his $45 million plus salary as he adds another Super Bowl Trophy to his growing resume and he’s not even 30 years old.
The Chiefs traded away their most explosive player in Tyreek Hill and they didn’t miss a beat as The Patrick Mahomes Show dominated the 2022 playoffs.
No one in Kansas City is talking about how much Mahomes makes. For good reason. He is the NFL’s best player. The best quarterback in the game.
What does this have to do with Dak Prescott? Everything.
After the 2022 season, you would hope that the brain trust at The Star realizes what kind of quarterback they have. He is not Patrick Mahomes, but in fairness, no one in the NFL is. With the ousting of Kellen Moore. Dallas can tailor their offense to what Dak does best.
It has been painful watching this team run an offense that is not shifted towards Dak Prescott’s strengths.
The mission should be how can Dallas be a team with an elite offense. No one can convince me that Kellen Moore was a great offensive coordinator.
Designing plays is something kids in the sandlot can do. Designing a scheme that keep defensive coordinators up late night is another.
The very best NFL offenses have ways to stress an opposing defense. From a coaching philosophy to personnel grouping.
When I gathered data from various sources, this is what I discovered:
- The Cowboys play-action rate was league average
- Their motion rate was league average.
- Their RPO rate was league average
- Boots and rollouts were league average.
The Dallas Cowboys offense is vanilla. We rarely saw them create mismatches because their motion rate is average. It is baffling they don’t use play action at a high volume because they are committed to running the football.
RPO rate, boots, and rollouts all league average. Astounding when you think about it. These concepts fit the strengths of the quarterback?
It is a foregone conclusion. The Cowboys will extend Dak Prescott. I would take a different approach and see what happens with Mike McCarthy calling the plays. There is no reason to extend him. I don’t want to hear about the size of his contract.
The way things are done at the star is different from letting him earn his next deal. They are guided by fear and loyalty. Stephen Jones has told everyone who will listen they are going to extend Dak Prescott.
(At the time of this writing. The Dallas Cowboys have restructured the contracts of Dak Prescott and Zak Martin. Freeing up $30 million dollars in cap space.)