If Dak Is Eventually Done With Cowboys - Promote From Within?

What If Dak Prescott Is Really Done (Eventually) With the Dallas Cowboys? Promote From Within? Part 1 of A Series

Dak Prescott is paid. He’s locked in. But that doesn’t mean the planning is done.

The planning for 2021 and beyond, that is.

Not locking up Prescott to a long-term contract might, or might not, be one of the worst mistakes the Dallas Cowboys have made in recent memory. We’ll get to what I think about that later this week.

With Prescott a Cowboy for the 2020 season, but nothing guaranteed beyond that, there are five ways this can go. The first, of course, is for Prescott to either sign the franchise tender in 2021 or get a long-term deal from the Cowboys. The other four are the ways this can go without Prescott: promote from within, free agency, trade or the draft. The Cowboys would be smart to game out every option before determining what they’ll do at quarterback in 2021.

While understanding that any Dak disgruntlement might be temporary ... That’s what we will do for the next few days: Take a look ahead to 2021 and possible life without Prescott. 

First, is there a chance to promote from within?

Ben DiNucci and Clayton Thorson. That’s what the Cowboys have under contract at quarterback past 2020. That doesn’t fill anyone with confidence, does it?

The other quarterback on the roster is Andy Dalton. He’s the name you know, of course. Dalton has put together a solid NFL career, having thrown for more than 31,000 yards passing and 204 touchdown passes in nine years in Cincinnati. No one is going to confuse Dalton with an elite quarterback. But, he went 70-61-2 as a starter and understands the ropes of how to run an NFL offense. His job in Dallas in 2020 is to back up Prescott and, if all goes well, throw just a smattering of passes in blowouts.

RELATED: Inside Andy Dalton's Cowboys Text To Dak Prescott

But he isn’t under contract in 2021, and if things go truly south with Prescott — as in, he provides the Cowboys an ultimatum that he won’t even show up to team activities if they tag him again — the Cowboys may need to make a run at Dalton in 2021. He won’t cost the Cowboys nearly as much as Prescott will.

But, Dalton is in Dallas for career rehab. At age 32 his days as a starter are not done. He came to Dallas this season because his options weren’t that great on the open market and because his family lives in Dallas. Quarterbacks in Dalton’s position — who were good, but not great, in their previous homes — sometimes just need to stay off the radar for a year to get teams more interested in signing him as a starter. It’s the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” effect. And when it comes to the open market in 2021, in a nuclear scenario where Prescott and the Cowboys are at odds over a new deal, that drives up Dalton’s market price with the Cowboys and other suitors.

Would the Cowboys out-pay other suitors to keep Dalton in that scenario? Or, would they try to lean on either DiNucci or Thorson in a development scenario to try and ride out the impasse?

It’s highly unlikely that either DiNucci or Thorson would be in a position to replace Prescott in 2021. DiNucci is a former Pitt product who put together a great season in his senior year at James Madison (3,441 yards and 28 touchdowns in 2019) and led the Dukes to the FCS national title game. The Cowboys took DiNucci in the seventh round and he’s strictly a developmental pick. Could he develop ENOUGH to lead the Cowboys in 2021? The bigger question is whether you want to count on that if you’re the Cowboys.

Same goes for Thorson, who made the Cowboys’ practice squad last season and led Northwestern as their starting quarterback in the 2018 season (which is when I saw him play against Purdue on that season’s opening weekend). I wasn’t exactly impressed that night in West Lafayette, Indiana. Thorson is a player I would consider to be at best a career NFL backup, and while every team needs at least one backup, I’m not sure his ceiling is any higher than DiNucci’s, and neither’s ceiling is as high as Dalton’s based on the veteran’s track record alone.

We can’t, of course, rule out either DiNucci or Thorson becoming more than what we think right now. I mean, two words — Tom Brady. But Brady was nothing more than a flier 20 years ago, and those are not a dime a dozen. Success stories like Brady (and former UDFA Tony Romo) are the exception and not the rule.

If you believe in the nuclear scenario — that the relationship with Prescott and the Cowboys will fall apart next year and the pair will engage in sort of game of NFL contract chicken — what the Cowboys have under contract for 2021 should not make you feel better about the situation.

And you have to think that way. You know the saying, right? Hope for the best but plan for the worst? The Cowboys need to do that. And so does Cowboys Nation.

Next up, we’ll take a look at the free agent options in 2021.