💸 Dak Prescott Is About To Get Paid

The Cowboys held off on giving their quarterback a contract extension ... and it’s going to cost them. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: Dak Prescott looks more valuable with every win he racks up this season ... a Monday Night Football cat made a big impression ... and welcome to Opening Day of the 2019-20 college basketball season. Dak Prescott is in a weird spot, though far from a bad one. He will make a touch over $2 million this season and yet, because this is the Dallas Cowboys and normal realities don’t apply here, one pass could inflate or deflate his potential earnings by that much ... or more. Whether a normal reality even exists in the National Football League’s salary market is up for debate, but let’s just agree for now that once you get within the intense confines of Cowboy Nation, you’re talking about a different game altogether. It’s a game Prescott is playing particularly well, as he seeks to leverage his quarterbacking ability and tilt owner Jerry Jones’ balancing act between talent-retention and salary cap management in his favor. Every time he does something good — especially those moments impactful enough to change a game — you can hear the cash register: cha-ching! All those “cha-chings” are going to fatten his long-term bank account, and each one twists Jones’ arm a little more. Monday night’s victory over the New York Giants wasn’t a great game, but it did a lot. It proved that the Giants are either susceptible to a black cat curse ... or just aren’t very good at football. It saved the Cowboys fan base from going into full-blown panic mode — the difference between starting 5-3 versus 4-4 and seriously jeopardizing its postseason chances. And it showed that Jones’ franchise, in its current state, needs Prescott. When Jones decides he needs someone, he pays them. A lot. Having faced some uncertain voices at the start of the season, Prescott now has himself in a position where a blockbuster new deal is not a question, but a formality — and the numbers keep rising. Prescott wants to marshal the Cowboys offense for years to come and has positioned himself as a vital leader in the group. He’s part of the furniture now, and he talks like a lifer. [STORY IMAGE 1] “The brotherhood here is second to none,” he told reporters. “I’ve never been on a team like this, going back to high school. When you have a team like that, when you face adversity, it’s like water off a duck’s back.” The adversity he was referring to is the fact that the Cowboys sputtered and struggled for much of Monday night before prevailing, 37-18, against a Giants team that has now lost five straight and has a game-yet-inexperienced young QB in Daniel Jones. Prescott had his own troubles early, with an interception on the first play from scrimmage. But by the end, he had hit for three touchdown passes and thrown for 257 yards. It wasn’t his best performance, yet it was one in which the QB had to produce in key moments — and he did. Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore has opened up the playbook to allow Prescott more downfield options and he has responded well. Had it not been for his ability to uncork a pair of 40-yard-plus touchdowns, the game would have been a lot tighter. Such things gave an impression that Prescott was the difference maker — and those are the kind of impressions that get people paid. Many thought Prescott and Jones would have come to terms on a new contract by now, and suggestions are that the parties are reasonably close. Even while topping the NFC East, Dallas hasn’t been outstanding and there were distinct and understandable rumbles following the team’s Week 6 loss to the otherwise hopeless New York Jets. However, the most generous version of Jerry Jones isn’t the one hanging around when everything is going completely smoothly. Rather, it’s the version that appears where he sees hope and potential and believes it’s on himself to make the final pieces fit. Jones has paid Ezekiel Elliott (to the tune of a 6-year, $90-million contract extension) and he will need to pay Amari Cooper, but Prescott’s play is escalating to the number one order of business. [STORY IMAGE 2] In the summer, it was rumored that Dallas might try to get away with offering Prescott something in the region of $25 million per year. That seems like a forlorn hope for Jones now. Prescott has done enough to ensure his representatives will fight hard for guaranteed money that will match or better Jared Goff’s $110 million with the Los Angeles Rams. Or, for the kind of shorter-term deal some believe Prescott favors, Dallas may be looking at an annual rate in the region of Russell Wilson’s league-best $35 million salary. Prescott has had to fight through many things, including the perception that his throwing accuracy is not up to scratch. “There is a myth out there about Dak Prescott, the most under-appreciated, over-criticized quarterback in the history of pro football,” [FS1’s Skip Bayless said on]( [Undisputed]( last week. “There is this incredibly erroneous label tattooed on his forehead that says ‘inaccurate.’ All he does is throw accurate passes, but everyone continues to dismiss him as inaccurate.” He’s also had to work through Jones’ early belief that this was a position in which he could pinch a little money to make the other pieces fit a bit more neatly. That he was not necessarily the right guy. That he was in danger of regressing after a spectacular start to his career. Dallas’ normal doesn’t apply to anyone else. Being sat right here, with a season that in four weeks — after formidable clashes with the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, New England Patriots and Buffalo Bulls — could either look glowing or disastrous, is prime soap opera fodder. The dramatics never slow down much around the Cowboys. But there is big money to be had in popular theatric productions, and Prescott is on course to claim a large slice of it. [STORY IMAGE 3] Here’s what others have said ... Michael Luciano, 12Up: “With every touchdown Dak throws and with every win the Cowboys pile up, his price tag is only going to go up. Eventually, he will force Jerry's hand, and the Cowboys will pony up for their franchise quarterback. Looks like Dallas should've just paid Prescott this summer.” Robert Mays, The Ringer: “After the Rams chose to extend Goff and the Cowboys chose to wait on Prescott, changes in circumstances have both players looking like drastically different quarterbacks then they did when those decisions were made. Playing in a modern NFL system for the first time, Prescott looks like an MVP candidate capable of lifting an entire offense, while Goff has languished as the circumstances around him have worsened.” Bob Sturm, The Athletic: “Dak Prescott did not have a perfect evening, but his ability to diagnose and get them into the right play and look for each blitz scare or coverage was exceptional for most of the night. He needed a veteran quarterback performance, and he provided one in New York on Monday.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - The decade belonged to Serena Williams, [reports Christopher Clarey at]( New York Times]( but the youngsters have clearly arrived as the new faces of women’s tennis. - After five years of mostly obvious choices, the College Football Playoff committee potentially faces some tough decisions, [writes Chuck Culpepper at]( [The Washington Post](. - A year ago, the Camp Fire killed 85 people, destroyed 18,793 structures and turned a town of roughly 27,000 people into an apocalyptic ruin now inhabited by only 3,500 or so. [Michael McKnight at]( [Sports Illustrated]( shows how sports at Paradise High are helping to rebuild the town. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( Monday Night Football was briefly interrupted by an intrepid black cat, displaying the customary New Jersey attitude you’d expect from a resident(?) of MetLife Stadium. The memes were immediate and nonstop and [not even Shannon Sharpe was spared](. But easily the best and most wholesome thing to come out of all of this was the above video, where two black cats viewing at home saw their comrade on MNF and hopped up to get a closer view, while a third cat wondered what all the commotion was about. Cats and football: a winning combination. [VIEWER'S GUIDE] No. 1 Michigan State vs. No. 2 Kentucky (ESPN, 9:30 p.m. ET) College basketball tips off with one of the Opening Day games ever, if not the biggest. The preseason No. 1 and No. 2 teams will go head-to-head in the Champions Classic. Hold on to your hats, folks. WWE Backstage (FS1, 11 p.m. ET) Beginning tonight, FS1’s all-access WWE news and analysis show will air every Tuesday at 11 p.m. ET. Hosts Renee Young and Booker T will be joined by special guests (including Shawn Michaels on Tuesday night) and the panel will cover everything that happened in WWE in the past week, on-camera and off. Chicago Blackhawks at San Jose Sharks (NBC SN, 10 p.m. ET) Both the Blackhawks and the Sharks are off to rocky starts this season, leaving their fan bases uneasy. The Sharks are at home on Tuesday night and attempting to snap a worrying five-game losing streak. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( Kansas -2.5 vs. Duke The start of a sports season is always magical — and that’s doubly true for those of us who enjoy placing a friendly wager now and again. And the college basketball schedule tips off in style this evening, with Mike Krzyzewski’s No. 4 ranked squad hosting No. 3 Kansas, with Bill Self’s team coming in as 2.5-point favorites. And according to our insights, the over 55% of the tickets and nearly 65% of the money are on Kansas, which actually opened as 2-point underdogs. But if your faith lies with the home team, Duke to win by 6-10 points is going off at +650. [WHAT THEY SAID] "If you're a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions." — Tom Brady [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download the FOX Sports app for live scores and streaming [App Store]( [Google Play]( Available on: [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] Forwarded this message? [Sign up](. Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2019 FOX Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. FOX.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900