QB's mega deal with Dallas means pressure has elevated
By Tim Cowlishaw
The Dallas Morning News (TNS)
They a sat a few feet apart Wednesday, carefully distanced as has been the case for a calendar year now. But there is no mistaking the pressure that binds Jerry Jones to Dak Prescott as the Cowboys get busy in pursuit of veteran free agents, much needed draft picks and then what we assume will be a more normal and vigorous offseason and training camp.
Dallas has not had a winning record since 2018, a year that required a midseason course correction in the form of trading a firstround pick for wide receiver Amari Cooper. That was the moment that Prescott lost all excuses regarding a lack of weapons, and there's little doubt that the Cowboys' offense ranks as the best in the division and one of the top five in football.
With that in mind, with Jones having pledged $160 million to Prescott over the next four seasons, the debate rages as to whether the pressure to turn this thing around in 2021 lies more with the owner and the quarterback.
The answer is that both should feel plenty of heat but neither ranks No. 1 in that department.
Here is a look at the three men who should be subject to the most scrutiny in the months ahead:
No. 3: Jerry Jones
He spoke confidently Wednesday, as he inevitably does, as to how the Cowboys manage the cap, play the game. But the Lombardi Trophies that he sees in the lobby of The Star were earned prior to the NFL even having true free agency or at the very birth of the salary cap. The Cowboys have won three
playoff games this century and they have been spread out like Jerry, Stephen and Dak were at the news conference (2009, 2014, 2018 seasons).
Jones is never going to change the manner in which he operates because he gets the business part right. That and the incredible success he enjoyed alongside Jimmy Johnson in the early ’90s won’t allow him to change which means the Cowboys will remain the only one of 32 NFL clubs where the general manager (Jerry) and top personnel man regardless of title (Stephen) never fear for their jobs. If the Cowboys don’t reach a Super Bowl in the next four years, how can anyone regard this as a system where the people know what they’re doing?
No. 2: Dak Prescott
I grow weary of the term “Dak haters” being thrown about (not saying that there aren’t any) simply because someone questions the wisdom of paying a quarterback $40 million per year. The Super Bowls being won by quarterbacks whose pay is up in the stratosphere (Tom Brady’s salary virtually never is, by the way) makes for a short list. Regardless, it’s on Dak to change that, to show that his holding out for maximum dollars won’t cripple the product.
Two years into his career we heard that he wasn’t to be judged by some of his ordinary stats, that the 22-10 W-L record was all that mattered. Dak was a winner. Now I type that the Cowboys are 32-28 in Dak’s last 60 starts and hear that wins and losses are not solely a product of quarterback play (people stating the obvious) and that Dak’s monster stats and 400-yard games are the way to evaluate him and pay him.
Well, he has been fully paid for those 400-yard performances. But even passers as otherworldly as Dan Marino eventually receive a big part of their final grade on how many Super Bowl trips they make. Prescott’s salary cap number is a bargain this year, but it shoots to $33 million in 2022. It’s on him to prove himself against winning clubs, which has been a problem in recent years.
No. 1: Mike McCarthy
As good as Cowboys fans are allowed to feel for having Prescott’s salary locked down, there is the matter of who is guiding this team. In a division as short on talent as the NFC East, the Cowboys would present themselves as a runaway favorite in 2021 if this coaching staff even generated a reasonable level of confidence.
It doesn’t.
Maybe Dan Quinn as defensive coordinator will prove to be an exemplary hire. But the word “great” was tossed around Wednesday in reference to both McCarthy and special teams coach John Fassel, and you still have to go back to the second Washington game when the Cowboys pass rush was dominating Alex Smith and shutting down the visiting offense and yet, trailing by four points, the Cowboys tried a fake punt on fourth-and-10 from their own 24.
McCarthy told us we can’t dwell on negatives and thinking that plays won’t work. That loss cost Dallas the division and demonstrated a lack of awareness that helped produce a 6-10 record and third-place finish.
No one needs a clean slate for 2021 more than McCarthy, who can hardly live off his own Super Bowl victory any longer if Doug Pederson, having won one more recently by seven years, is out in Philadelphia. Jones has given McCarthy a one-year gift with Prescott’s salary cap number being outside the top 10 in the league behind players such as Jimmy Garoppolo and Teddy Bridgewater.
The opportunity to fashion a solid team around Dak exists. After the scouts do their job in April, it’s on McCarthy to do his in a manner we did not see in 2020.