Josh Allen definitely is not overrated. He definitely is underpaid.
The latest Dak Prescott contract confirms it. By nearly $120 million.
After the 2020 season, the Bills quarterback signed a six-year extension that put him under contract through 2028. After the 2020 season, Prescott signed a four-year deal and, more recently, a four-year extension. The new deal puts Dak under contract through 2028.
Dak, from 2021 through 2028, will have earned $400 million. Allen, during those same eight seasons, will have made $281.9 million.
That’s a gap of $118.1 million.
Allen has said he’s fine with his contract. What else could he say? Fans are conditioned to resent players for the money they make. If Allen complains — and rightfully so — about being grossly underpaid relative to the market and the cap, he risks coming off to the fans as a spoiled brat who wants to gobble up cap space and not bring a championship to Buffalo.
Regardless, he’s grossly underpaid. He’s due to average $35.2 million per year from 2021 through 2028. Dak will average $50 million per year during that same window.
Dak didn’t choose to do things that way. The Cowboys blew the chance to make Dak an offer he couldn’t refuse after his third season, at a time when he was due to make peanuts for 2019. Then they tagged him for 2020. By 2021, they realized they were one year away from Dak becoming a free agent.
So they cried uncle, with a four-year, $160 million deal, designed to put him in position after the third year to get another new deal or become a free agent after the fourth.
The Cowboys dragged their feet again. They cried uncle again. And, yet again, Dak has positioned himself to force a new deal after three years or become a free agent after four.
Short-term deals are always better. Longer-term deals allow the team to procrastinate — and they force the player to agitate. Since most deals have an escape hatch for the team after one or two or three years anyway, why not insist on something shorter and, if the player keeps playing well, position yourself for more?
How much more? Over an eight-year stretch, nearly $120 million more.