2024 could be a ‘contract year’ for entire coaching staff, and maybe Dak Prescott

The Dallas Cowboys could really be in “win or go home” mode for 2024.

The idea of a game being “win or go home” usually doesn’t apply until the start of the NFL playoffs on Wild Card Weekend. However, depending on the outcome, the entire 2024 season could take the meaning to a literal level for members of the Dallas Cowboys.

Michael Gehlken of The Dallas Morning News reports that Mike McCarthy isn’t the only one on a one-year “prove-it” deal for the upcoming year. The newly added coaches to the staff, including defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, are also on just one-year deals.

Mike McCarthy and his assistants, most of whom are at the NFL scouting combine this week, are not under contract beyond the 2024 season. That includes new defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and other recent hires; they signed one-year pacts, two people familiar with the situation told The Dallas Morning News.

Gehlken also adds that “team brass opted to keep new and returning coaches on a uniform track.” It makes sense that in a year when the head coach enters the final year of his five-year contract, the new coaches fate will be tied to the head coach.

If McCarthy is not retained at the end of the 2024 season, a new head coach will likely want to bring in their own staff. Although sometimes coordinators or assistant coaches do carry over from the previous regimen. Zimmer was the defensive coordinator under Dave Campo, and when Bill Parcells replaced Campo as head coach, he decided to keep Zimmer on staff until he retired after the 2006 season.

The coaching staff might not be the only ones who find themselves playing for a new contract after 2024. Earlier this week, Cowboys VP Stephen Jones spoke to the media, expressing a clear desire to get an extension done with quarterback Dak Prescott. However, it’s not impossible to think the franchise signal caller can’t play this season without an extension.

One person close to the matter told The News on Wednesday evening the team has not ruled out Prescott being signed to an offseason extension. High-ranking members of the organization have repeatedly expressed confidence in Prescott, who was voted last season the AP NFL MVP runner-up to Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson.

“Our whole thing with Dak is him being a Cowboy,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said Tuesday at the combine. “That’s all that’s on our mind.”

An extension happening this year is far from a given.

The Cowboys, in fact, could find some attraction in waiting until early next year despite the inability to place a franchise tag on Prescott. The NFL’s salary cap is not expected to jump next year as dramatically as it did recently when swelling from $224.8 million in 2023 to $255.4 million. There is some thought a Prescott extension this year would be more cumbersome on the 2025 cap than a 2025 deal.

Gehlken adds there’s no plan for the Cowboys front office to meet with the agents of Prescott, Micah Parsons, or CeeDee Lamb at the NFL Combine to talk about potential extensions. That doesn’t mean those conversations won’t happen when the team returns to Dallas.

Prescott could have most of his $29 million salary for 2024 converted into a signing bonus, which would free up around $18 million in cap space and could be done so without the quarterback signing off on it. Another move that can be made is the front office could add two voidable years on top of the current contract to free up more money (around $22 million), but that would have to be “agreed upon” by Prescott’s agent, Todd France.

The front office feels like having conversations in Indianapolis is “unnecessary” to get extensions done with Prescott, Lamb, and Parsons, relying on their previous history with the agents.

Parsons would be the only person not playing in a contract season for Dallas. Lamb would be a free agent in 2025, but the team could always issue the franchise tag. For Prescott, the franchise tag is not an option, and he could sign with any team, including the Cowboys, if both sides cannot reach a new deal before the end of 2024.

If that’s the case, it sounds like this season could become a crossroads moment in the franchise if the team falls short of expectations in a deep playoff run.