The Dallas Cowboys kicked off training camp practices with their annual "State of the Union" type press conference with owner Jerry Jones, VP of player personnel Stephen Jones, and head coach Mike McCarthy taking questions from the media for over half an hour in Oxnard, California.
Despite training camp making it feel like football is (almost) back, McCarthy faced only three questions throughout the length of the press conference and the second one asked happened when the Cowboys PR team asked reporters if anyone had a question for Mike.
The reason for the lack of football-related questions is clear: CeeDee Lamb is holding out and Dak Prescott remains unsigned beyond 2024 after a second-team All-Pro season. Just like it happened in April prior to the NFL Draft, the Cowboys' financial troubles stole the thunder from the main event in question.
At one point of the press conference, Jerry Jones made a strong statement-slash-prediction regarding the future of Prescott:
"I do not think that this will be his last year with the Cowboys. At all."
Entering the season, Prescott is bound to occupy $55M in the Cowboys' salary cap space. But more importantly, as the team's front office admitted, he controls his future with a no-tag, no-trade clause on his current deal.
"I want to say it if it hadn't been clear of how much we appreciate what Dak Prescott has meant to this team in a positive way," Jones added. "And the players do play better when he's out there, his teammates play at a higher level, there's no question about it."
However, Jones didn't turn off the negotiating switch off amid his praise for Dak, following it up by claiming that "believe it or not in my life I've had a lot of things I wanted that I couldn't get because I couldn't afford it."
Fortunately for Jones, he can take it upon himself to make his prediction about Dak sticking around a reality.
The problem is that for it to happen, he first has to embrace the fact that he holds close to no leverage in the negotiation process. With a one-way ticket to 2025 free agency, there's nothing Dallas can do to keep Dak Prescott around other than persuade him to stick around. That will likely mean making him the first-ever $60 million per year quarterback in the NFL.
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