How did it get to a place where the Cowboys had no choice but to give it to him?

Two factors.

It was a bad plan, and there was bad luck.

The bad plan was two years ago, greeny when they signed Zeke Elliott and signed instead of signing Dak Prescott.

The bad luck was the pandemic.

And in texting with people last night around this deal, it was simply untenable for the Dallas Cowboys to tag deck craft Scott at $37 million this year with a cap going down.

And when you look at the numbers, they really are staggering.

The number that really jumps out to me is $106 million in cash in 16 years between last year and this year and what's really remarkable.

Greeny is the injury.

The catastrophic injury he had last year actually helped him.

It didn't hurt him Now.

In fairness, the one thing I would like to add is Dallas.

Their side of this is we come in at five years, about $191 million which is about $38 million a year.

So we come in a little bit less than Shawn Watson.

But make no mistake about it by Dallas.

Waiting and paying Zeke Elliott first cost them, in my opinion, at least $8 million a year.

What would have been $32 million.2 years ago turned into $40 million last night.

And I want to underline something that you said in there.

In a 16 month stretch, he will wind up making 100 and $6 million in cash.

Back press got wind in a landslide and Dan Graziano, What are your thoughts?

You were making a point this morning that this might be the best contract in the NFL.

Oh, greeny, I think it is.

I mean, look, people are gonna say, Compare it to Patrick Mahomes.

Deal.

It's not comparable.

I mean this.

This guy is going to make 100 and $60 million in four years.

The first four years of Mahomes contract, he'll end up making 100 and four million.

Those those numbers aren't even close to each other.

And then Dak Prescott, as Adam Schefter pointed out gets to be a free agent again, assuming he plays well.

In the meantime, we can't even conceive right now of what the quarterback number is going to be four years from now or three years from now if Dallas wants to do an extension with him.

At that point.

This is a home run for Dak Prescott and his agent, Todd France.

I mean, they got literally everything.

Got a record signing bonus, most guaranteed money at signing 95 million, surpassing Matt Ryan's deal from a couple of years ago.

The three year cash flow, the No franchise tag.

Promise.

Heck, they're gonna franchise him today, just as a procedural matter, so that anybody else whoever wants to franchise him years from now would have to pay the third year franchise cost to do it.

I mean, there's absolutely nothing they could have asked for Dak Prescott in his agent that they didn't get in this deal.

They absolutely cleaned up.

Yeah, it's remarkable.

And Mike Tannenbaum, I'm just thinking about something you said a moment ago, and it does strike me that so many things that you would have thought would have worked against Dak Prescott in this circumstance wound up working for him.

He suffers a serious injury, a season ending, terrible looking injury while playing on the franchise tag.

Your immediate thought is, well, that's a terrible thing to happen.

It winds up benefiting him because it showed how much the team missed him.

And then there's a pandemic.

The salary cap winds up diminishing.

There's less money to go around.

An initial thought would be, Well, that's terrible for a player looking to get paid.

But to the point you made a moment ago, Mike Tannenbaum, it actually wound up working out well for him.

So, Mike T.

That's what you mean by luck.

All these bad breaks wound up being good brakes for Dak Prescott.

Absolutely.

And again, it goes back to two years ago, greeny and you talked about it.

Dallas had control over Zeke Elliot's contract for years to come at least three more years.

That was the time to get a deal done.

And when you wait in the NFL and a player keeps playing the way that DAC did and we could argue was a good or elite, and I know where Dan Orlovsky is on that.

But when He's high character and you win a playoff game.

There's just not enough good quarterbacks to go around.

And they paid a massive premium by waiting, and that was a catastrophic mistake two years ago.

Layer in the bad luck, and we saw the result last night.

Dan Orlovsky Does it change the expectations?

This is such a unique circumstance.

It's one thing to become so highly paid as he is and so public.

The world, I think, sees this one.

Anyone who is really paying attention a little differently.

This was as unique circumstances I can ever remember.

A negotiation does do the expectations now multiply based upon the contract for the quarterback?

Oh, unquestionably, the expectations are sky high because he's no longer the feel good story.

Fourth round pick.

He's now the second highest paid quarterback in football.

He now has potentially the greatest contract in the history of football, And so now the expectations are Super Bowl.

I mean, that's that's what what comes not only from within your organization, but comes from the outside as well.

I mean, in the last four seasons, Dak Prescott led teams for the Cowboys are seven and 18 verse teams with winning records, seven and 18 verse teams with winning records in those games.

He's got 37 touchdowns and 36 turnovers that that that that won't cut it anymore.

The expectation will for that to flip 18 and seven versus winning teams in a way, more touchdown to turn over rate.

That's just the truth.

That's just the facts.

Okay, so I'm a person first.

I'm super happy for Dak Prescott.

Good for him.

He beat the system and has an incredible story, and I'm an analyst.

Second, the expectations will be wildly different and very quickly.

It will no longer be that feel good story of the guy, that fourth round pick that got the opportunity.

So it's great for him, but now it is mandatory.

You got to be the guy that breaks the the curse, so to speak, of not winning for the last 25 years, thank you for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.