Agent’s Take: How Cowboys can make re-signing Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Trevon Diggs add up

The Cowboys have some unfinished financial business before training camp starts in late July. Contract extensions for cornerback Trevon Diggs, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott are on Dallas’ radar screen. 

Cowboys chief operating officer and executive vice president Stephen Jones addressed the subject during the team’s mandatory minicamp camp, which was held June 6-8. 

“No specific order,” Jones said. “It’s just kind of when opportunity arises. … But if the opportunity is there, we sure would like to get 1-2-3 of these guys signed. We’d love to do more than one, if we could (before training camp). Just because you want to doesn’t mean (you can), it takes two to tango.”

Salary cap room won’t be an issue. The Cowboys currently have $21.8 million of 2023 salary cap space, according to NFLPA data. 

Diggs should be the top priority since 2023 is his contract year. He is scheduled to make $4.304 million this season.

An extension could put Diggs in the exclusive $20 million-per-year cornerback club, which has three members consisting of Jaire Alexander (Packers), Jalen Ramsey (Dolphins) and Denzel Ward (Browns). Alexander’s and Ward’s contracts may have particular relevance. They are more recent data points. The deals were also signed last year when the players were entering the final year of their respective rookie contracts, just like Diggs.

Ward supplanted Ramsey as the league’s highest-paid cornerback in April 2022 on the five-year, $100.5 million extension he signed with the Browns, averaging $20.1 million per year. The deal has $71.25 million in guarantees where $44.5 million was fully guaranteed at signing.

Within a month of this deal, Alexander surpassed Ward’s $20.1 million per year. He received a four-year, $84 million extension from the Packers with $30 million fully guaranteed.

Based on Alexander’s and Ward’s dynamics, it’s conceivable that Diggs could reset the cornerback market. Diggs earned First Team All-Pro honors in 2021 when he led the NFL with 11 interceptions. He was the first player in 40 years to pick off that many passes.

Diggs’ interception total dropped to three in 2022 but the number of big plays he gave up decreased as well. His improved consistency resulted in a second straight Pro Bowl berth.

Diggs will be a prime candidate for a franchise tag in 2024 if he plays out his rookie contract. The non-exclusive 2024 cornerback franchise tag projects to 7.751% of the salary cap. If the 2024 salary cap is set at $250 million, the cornerback number should be $19.379 million.

Lamb has expressed a desire for a new contract. He indicated he isn’t going to let the prospect of an extension become a distraction.

Lamb is under contract through 2024 after the Cowboys picked up a fifth-year option for him in 2024 worth a fully guaranteed $17.991 million. He is set to make $2,520,457 in 2023.

Lamb had career bests of 107 receptions, 1,359 receiving yards and nine touchdown catches last season in his first year as Dallas’ clear-cut No. 1 option in the passing game. A new deal will certainly be more than the $20 million per year the Cowboys gave Amari Cooper in 2020 before he was traded to the Browns last year. Cooper’s deal contained $60 million of guarantees where $40 million was fully guaranteed at signing. 

Lamb could top $25 million per year given the deals signed by A.J. Brown, Terry McLaurin, DK Metcalf and Deebo Samuel in 2022 when heading into the final year of their respective rookie contracts. Brown signed a four-year, $100 million extension, averaging $25 million per year and containing slightly more than $57 million of guarantees in connection with his trade from the Titans to the Eagles during the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft.

The Commanders gave McLaurin a three-year, $69.6 million extension, averaging $23.2 million per year, with just over $53 million of guarantees last July. The deal is worth as much as $70.6 million through salary escalators and incentives.

Metcalf received a three-year, $72 million extension from the Seahawks at the beginning of training camp last July. His $24 million-per-year deal has $58.22 million in guarantees, which includes the biggest signing bonus ever for a wide receiver at $30 million.

The Metcalf deal provided a blueprint for the 49ers to reach an agreement with Samuel. He signed a three-year, $71.55 million extension, averaging $23.85 million per year with $58.167 million in guarantees where $41 million was fully guaranteed at signing. The maximum value of the deal is $73.5 million because of incentives.

Contract length may be a bigger sticking point than money in Lamb’s case. The Cowboys prefer to sign players to big money extensions that are at least five years long. 

The recent trend is for high-end wide receiver contracts to be shorter. Three of these four wide receivers received three-year extensions.

The Cowboys should want to get Lamb done before the Vikings sign Justin Jefferson to an extension. The expectation is that Jefferson will become the NFL’s highest-paid wide receiver in excess of $30 million per year, if not the league’s highest paid non-quarterback, before the regular season starts in early September. Under the proposition that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” a Jefferson deal in the market place should make it easier for Lamb to top the $25 million-per-year mark. 

The elephant in the room is Prescott. The Cowboys probably should do an extension with Prescott sooner rather than later although 2022 was a down year by his standards. He might be more affordable because of it. Prescott uncharacteristically led the NFL with a career-high 15 interceptions. 

The Cowboys will be caught between a rock and hard place by waiting until next year to address Prescott’s situation when he is in his contract year. He has clause a prohibiting Dallas from designating him as a franchise or transition player in 2025 should he play out his contract.

Prescott has the NFL’s second largest 2024 cap number at $59.455 million thanks to Dallas restructuring his contract for cap purposes on three different occasions since he signed. If Prescott regresses badly this season, the Cowboys will be contending with $61.915 million of dead money, a salary cap charge for a player no longer on the roster by releasing him. It would be the same amount with a trade, which would require Prescott waiving his no-trade clause. 

The quarterback market has increased dramatically since Prescott became the league’s second-highest-paid player at $40 million per year in March 2021 on a four-year, $160 million deal with $126 million in guarantees. The $95 million fully guaranteed at signing and $66 million signing bonus were the most ever in an NFL contract at the time.

Three quarterbacks (Jalen Hurts-Eagles, Lamar Jackson-Ravens, Aaron Rodgers-Jets) have topped the $50 million-per-year mark. Prescott is currently tied with Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and Giants quarterback Daniel Jones as the league’s ninth-highest-paid player. He will continue to drop down the salary ranks because 2020 first-round picks Joe Burrow (first overall) and Justin Herbert (sixth overall) are expected to sign extensions at some point before the 2023 regular season starts with the Bengals and Chargers, respectively, for more than Jackson’s $52 million per year, which puts him at the top of the NFL pay scale.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Prescott got more than the $48.75 million-per-year maximum value of Jones’ deal with a timely extension despite an uneven 2022 performance. A bounce-back year where Prescott returns to his 2021 form, which was arguably the best season of his NFL career, would give him the leverage under the circumstances to become the league’s highest-paid player. Prescott posted career highs in completion percentage (68.8%) and touchdown passes (37). His 104.2 passer rating and 4,449 passing yards were the second-best marks of his career. It’s conceivable that Prescott could command in excess of $55 million per year provided he chose to fully exploit his leverage.

The Cowboys will have another substantial extension looming as early as next offseason when 2021 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Micah Parsons will be eligible for a new deal once the 2023 regular season ends on Jan. 7, 2024. The pass-rushing linebacker will likely set his sights on eclipsing whatever edge rusher Nick Bosa, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of Year, gets from the 49ers. The expectation is Bosa will raise the salary bar for non-quarterbacks with an extension by the start of training camp in late July. Bosa becoming the NFL’s first $35 million-per-year non-quarterback isn’t out of the question.