By Dianna Russini, Saad Yousuf, Jon Machota and Amos Morale III

Dak Prescott will continue to wear the Dallas Cowboys uniform after the 2024 NFL season.

The Cowboys and their starting quarterback agreed to a multi-year contract extension hours before Dallas opens the season against the Cleveland Browns, making the three-time Pro Bowler the highest-paid player in league history. The extension is for four years and is worth up to $240 million, according to a league source.

Prescott, 31, is coming off one of the best seasons of his career last year, in which he spent much of the season as a league MVP candidate. He started every regular-season game and led Dallas to a 12-5 record while posting a career-high 69.5 completion percentage for 4,516 yards, 36 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Prescott earned second-team All-Pro honors and finished second in MVP voting.

But Dallas’ 2023 season came to a disappointing end in the playoffs with a 48-32 loss to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Wild Card round, leading to heightened questions about Prescott’s future. His contract was set to expire after the 2024 season, and the Cowboys could not use the franchise tag on the passer.

On August 15, Prescott told reporters he was confident a deal would be reached.

“There’s good conversations going on, I’ll say that,” he said. “A lot of good things happening there. A lot of confidence. I have confidence in my guys and these guys that they’re going to get something done.”

Prescott signed a four-year, $160 million extension in 2021. He has spent his entire career with the Cowboys after Dallas selected him with a fourth-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. He went on to start 16 games (of 16) for the Cowboys, leading them to a 13-3 record and earning Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.

He has become a regular starter for Dallas, aside from his absences due to injuries in the 2020 and 2022 seasons.

How Dak Got the Huge Deal

Most expected Prescott to sign an extension early in the offseason. Instead, the Cowboys waited all spring and summer, finally reaching a deal just hours before their season opener against the Cleveland Browns. The deal, worth an average annualized $60 million, is what most expected. Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love recently signed deals this offseason for $55 million AAV, but Joe Burrow was already at that amount with his deal this offseason, so that cleared the floor for Prescott.

The Cowboys quarterback had all the power — a no-trade clause, no franchise tag clause, a weak 2025 quarterback free agency class, and a relatively weak 2025 quarterback draft class. He was able to use it to get the deal that seemed inevitable for a while. — Saad Yousuf, Cowboys writer

Are there any changes coming to the coaching industry?

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said multiple times this offseason that he was “all in” for the 2024 season. After not doing much in free agency, most were scratching their heads. So if he wasn’t “all in” to improve the roster, he seemed to suggest he was “all in” if things weren’t going well, and that he would make some major changes. Those changes could be at the two most important positions: quarterback and coach. But there won’t be any changes at QB, regardless of what happens with Prescott’s deal this season.

Ultimately, Jones made CeeDee Lamb the second-highest-paid non-QB and Prescott the highest-paid player in league history.

The biggest question you can ask about both deals is why they weren’t finalized sooner. Maybe a new Mike McCarthy contract is on the way. — Jon Machota, Cowboys Writer

Required reading

(Photo: Cooper Neill/Getty Images)