The Dallas Cowboys gave Dak Prescott the franchise tag but after signing Andy Dalton is there a chance they rescind the franchise tag?
While it was surprising to see the Dallas Cowboys sign former Cincinnati Bengals starting quarterback Andy Dalton over the weekend, they ended up signing him for an absolute bargain.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Dalton will make $7 million on a one-year deal with only $3 million guaranteed. His contract decidedly isn’t the type of deal given to a player with a legitimate chance at starting, so Dalton is a cheap backup to Dallas.
But for Dalton to have chosen the Cowboys’ deal with no security, he may be banking on either impressing as a backup or getting an unlikely shot at starting.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio raised an interesting hypothetical, asking if the Cowboys could actually rescind starting quarterback Dak Prescott’s $33 million franchise tag, pocketing the money and moving forward with the ludicrously inexpensive Dalton as their starter.
It’s impossible to see this happening. If the Cowboys were insane enough to do this – and, to be fair, Jerry Jones has done even wilder things – they would enter the 2020 NFL season with a guy who cannot win playoff games as the starting quarterback of the most pressurized team in the league. Dallas has ambitions to go deep into the playoffs, and they would be moving on from one of the most talented young quarterbacks for a guy who had to settle on a veteran backup deal.
Dalton wouldn’t be an awful starter, but his ceiling is known. He’s had supporting casts as good as the Cowboys’ currently loaded offense, yet he’s taken them nowhere. And with the Cowboys increasingly anxious for a Super Bowl appearance, Dalton would be a massive step backward.
Dallas has added insurance with Dalton and may even see the Bengals quarterback as leverage, but even they cannot possibly be crazy enough to think he is a starter. At the very least, they can’t possibly think he’s an upgrade on Prescott, who is an ascending 26-year-old talent coming off a season in which he threw for 30 touchdowns, completed 65 percent of his passes, and averaged over 300 passing yards per game.
Prescott is the future in Dallas, and the Cowboys need to do everything they can to make sure Tony Romo’s heir to the throne stays with the team. Florio’s thought experiment is far from impossible, but the ‘Boys need to quickly slam the door shut on any thought of backing down from a commitment to Prescott. He is absolutely their guy.