Prescott: 2026 is year Cowboys 'make a big jump'
Chris Simms and Mike Florio discuss Dak Prescott's recent comments on the team's future, analyzing Dallas' roster construction and the use of the franchise tag on George Pickens.
Video Transcript
Heck yeah, most definitely, especially low, as I said, no projects.
You know, what, or, pe- what do we need guys now to play- No red shirts.
Yeah, no red shirts or whatever.
yeah, I mean, we, we got a coach in the second year.
we know we've had, we had some ups and downs.
There shined some good moments last year, and, this is, this is the year that you make a big jump, and getting big-time players who can help immediately, is a key part of it.
That's Dak Prescott talking about the Cowboys' immediate future.
And look, one of the reasons you need good players right away, especially in the draft, is you're paying so much money to Dak Prescott, and I'm not criticizing him for getting every last dollar he can.
There are some weird discrepancies, though.
Things I heard about, you know, direct efforts by him to get Javonte Williams to take a deal that's ultimately a $7 million a year deal with a million dollars per year in per game active roster bonuses, which is a lot for a running back to tie up and the ability to play every week.
And then he said the thing yesterday about George Pickens and, you know, play under the franchise tag and bet on yourself.
It's very different for a quarterback to do that than a non-quarterback.
Yeah.
Maybe- A quarterback can play deep into his 30s.
Right.
Non-quarterback, non-quarterback has limited opportunities to get a big contract.
A great quarterback's gonna get three or four big contracts.
A great receiver's gonna get one.
Yeah.
Well, and when he got the franchise tag, the number was where it should be, an astronomical, astronomical and up towards the highest of the sport.
George Pickens, okay, is 10, 12, $13 million below where he should be in a per year average.
So it's not fair there.
I wanna get back on the bed with Dak Prescott so he can give me the side eye there.
In fact, we gotta bring up George Pickens and go, "Hey, you know, Dak says just, you know, bet on yourself here.
Take 13 million less than, you know, what you would really get on the market."
And then I wanna play the clip for Dak Prescott and go, "Hey, I said something similar to you, and you gave me the old side eye when I said that."
So that, yeah, that, that's not cool.
That's not cool.
That's, na- and the players don't wanna hear that.
And George Pickens, I bet you, was like, "What?
Yeah, okay.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
I'll play in the franchise tag.
Sure."
You're right.
You explained it right.
There's a difference there.
It's a horrible, horrible formula they're using right now, and it screws over the, the, the wide receivers as far as this one and how it's calculated.
So yeah, the Dallas needs to make some moves.
It's good they restructured some things.
We know they need some help on the defensive side of the ball.
But yeah, I certainly think they got a can of worms and issues here with, George Pickens and his situation.
You know, that's why this show for me I mean, look, we talk about football for two hours.
Sometimes we say words that blurt out.
I apologize.
I need to make sure I apologize for what I said last segment, because my wife hears it.
She's gonna be like, "I hope you apologized for that."
So I don't really mean it, I'm just saying it because I need to.
Okay.
it's, it's almost like a meeting, it's almost like a meeting, like what are the topics that I need to write about today?
And one of my other writers handled the story with the Dak comments, so we just kind of move on.
But it's like I need to circle back around and do the, okay, what was the franchise tag for a quarterback when Dak got it?
What was the market when Dak got it?
And he got tagged, well, he got tagged twice, but he signed the contract right after he got tagged the second time- Yeah because the Cowboys crapped their pants.
See, I said c- I, I didn't say the other word.
They crapped their pants when they realized what was gonna happen the next year.
The next year, the, the franchise tag number that had gone up by 20% from the prior year was gonna go up 44%, and it was gonna be impossible for them to, to pull that off.
So they signed him to a four-year $160 million contract, which has since been replaced by another contract, which will be replaced by another contract, and yeah.
I You, you need to be careful when you talk about somebody else's money because George Pickens isn't getting the same kind of treatment under the tag that Dak got when he got tagged by the Cowboys after his rookie contract expired
