The big talk at the start of the Dallas Cowboys 2024 training camp is Dak Prescott and his expiring contract.

In the final year of a four-year, $160 million deal he signed in 2021, Prescott reportedly wants the kind of money the Packers just gave Jordan Love. If you’re wondering who the newest high-paid player in NFL history is, it’s Love, the man who replaced Aaron Rodgers, who was the man who replaced Brett Favre.

To be fair, Love’s new four-year, $220 million contract ties him for the highest-paid ever with the Bengals’ Joe Burrow and the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence. However, Love did receive a record-setting $75 million signing bonus from Green Bay, so in a way, Love is the NFL’s newest highest-paid player of all time. No matter how you look at it, it’s not bad for someone who sat behind Rodgers for his first three seasons before taking over as the Packers’ full-time starter just last year. And what a season it was for Love, who passed for 4,159 yards while throwing 32 touchdowns to only 11 interceptions.

Love led the Packers to the postseason as the seventh seed before they blew out Dallas on the road on Wildcard Weekend.

So, the quarterback who got blown out in his most recent playoff game wants money comparable to the quarterback of the team who blew him out?

It’s all about timing when it comes to being paid as a quarterback. You have to be franchise-level good, and you have to be on an expiring contract. You can ask for whatever you want if you check off both boxes.

Your team almost has no choice but to give you what you want. It’s why Lawrence, despite having a 1-1 record in the playoffs, had all the leverage before signing his new deal in June. That’s why the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, who lost to Lawrence and the Jaguars in his only career playoff appearance, signed the contract he did last summer which came to five years and $262.5 million.

Kirk Cousin is 35 years old and only has one postseason victory in 12 NFL seasons. But he’s also passed for 39,471 yards while throwing 270 touchdowns to only 110 interceptions. Even at his advanced age, and with so little playoff success, few men on the planet can still play quarterback as well as Cousins.

Some team was going to ink Cousins to a lucrative, new deal this past offseason, it just happened to be the Falcons, who signed the veteran to a four-year contract worth $180 million with half of that fully guaranteed.

If you’re an NFL team, the chances of finding a quarterback as good as or better than Cousins are pretty slim, but the odds of employing one much worse are far greater.

Terry Bradshaw, the Steelers Hall of Fame quarterback, got angry at Dwight White for hitting him one day at practice in the early 1970s and famously told the legendary defensive end, “You might lose with me, but you’ll never win without me.”

I don’t believe anyone in the history of the NFL has ever so accurately described the importance of having a franchise-level quarterback.

You need one to have a prayer of winning a Super Bowl.

Prescott, 31, is entering the ninth year of his career. He’s already passed for 29,459 yards while throwing 202 touchdowns to just 74 interceptions. He has a passer rating of 99.

There is the matter of Prescott’s 2-5 postseason record. In that regard, he’s no different than Tony Romo, who also threw for a bushel full of yards and made a bushel full of money during his career but never came close to winning a title in Dallas.

But America’s Team hasn’t produced a title for nearly 30 years, and that has more to do with the guy pulling the strings–owner Jerry Jones–than any one player.

For as tough as things have been for Jones with Prescott as his expensive quarterback, they’ll likely get worse with a cheaper alternative.

Jones would be wise to give Prescott whatever he wants. He’s a franchise-level quarterback on an expiring deal.

If the Cowboys don’t meet his demands, someone else will.