Dallas City News

The second week of free agency begins on Monday, and as it does, the Dallas Cowboys have a little bit more breathing room in terms of salary cap space. It was reported by ESPN’s Field Yates that the Cowboys created $4M in salary cap space by converting part of Dak Prescott’s roster bonus into a signing bonus by adding two void years to his current deal. As his colleague Dan Graziano noted, this could not have happened with Prescott’s consent.

We have noted many times that the Cowboys did not need Dak Prescott’s consent in order to restructure his current contract. They could have created about $19M with a few flicks of a pen, but doing so would have kicked the can down the road to a point in time where Prescott may no longer be on the team.

That the Cowboys did not do that feels significant, but seemingly more significant is that the two parties worked together to accomplish this. We should not make a mountain out of a $4M-sized mole hill or anything, but harmony is harmony. History tells us that contract negotiations can be fickle and we have seen them go down to the wire between Prescott and the Cowboys so this feels like an olive branch of sorts.

But that this was the chosen route also suggests that there is no extension coming in the immediate future as has been reported for a while. This is admittedly an assumption but if it were imminent then there would be no real reason to execute this specific move right now. Dallas adding the void years that tie (in a literal sense) Prescott to their team through 2028 suggest that they have some potential plans of having him under contract then, but reading into this beyond that right now feels hard to do.

Perhaps the Dak extension will come later on in the year closer to training camp as has been expected and reported by various people. In the meantime it is good to see the two parties working together.