The Monday after the NFL draft is always a somewhat sad day, a time officially turn the page on what we had watched and predicted and forecast over the previous year. For the Cowboys, the 2024 draft class is in the books, and the team now will have to get real with the notion of paying up for its three prime star players as mandatory workouts approach next month.
If that sounds like not quite as much fun as mock draft debates then have no fear. It’s early—just about as early as possible—but we’re already seeing the first 2025 mocks sprout up. And Pro Football Focus has a rather intriguing pick for the Cowboys, given the way the 2024 offseason has unfolded.
That would be Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, whom the Cowboys would take to replace Dak Prescott. That presumes, as is looking increasingly likely, that Prescott will not get an extension from the Cowboys in 2024 and will play out the season as the final year on his contract. If that happens, perhaps Ewers is their man going forward.
Quinn Ewers Was the No. 1 Recruit in 2021
Here’s how PFF laid out the scenario:
“Dak Prescott is in the final year of his contract, and all indications are that he’ll play this season without an extension. While still relatively raw, Ewers has a high ceiling and posted an 85.6 passing grade this past season. Jerry Jones finds his quarterback of the future and keeps Ewers in the Lonestar State, where he was born and raised.”
Indeed, Ewers was the No. 1 recruit in the nation in 2021, coming out of Southlake Carroll High, and has been at Texas ever since. He threw for 2,177 yards in his first season and came back with 3,479 yards last year, throwing 22 touchdowns and just six interceptions.
He finished last year strong, with 452 yards passing in the Longhorns’ Big 12 championship win over Oklahoma State, and 318 yards in the Texas loss to Washington in the CFB playoffs. In the second game of the season, at Alabama, Ewers was outstanding, leading a fourth-quarter comeback and finishing with 349 yards on 24-for-38 passing, with three touchdowns.
In a quarterback draft class expected to be much weaker than this year’s, Ewers has a chance to solidify himself as a top draft pick, and the Cowboys would have to be interested.
CBS’s scouting report on Ewers reads, “Ewers was blessed by the Football Gods — and his parents — with a naturally live arm. He’s capable of really cranking the velocity from any arm angle and lower-body base. He exudes arm talent.”
Cowboys Not Making Progress With Dak Prescott
Certainly, the team has set up 2024 as a do-or-die scenario for Prescott. The Cowboys have yet to fully engage their Pro Bowl QB in contract talks, but Prescott is entering the final year of the four-year, $160 million contract he signed in Dallas in 2021.
That heavily backloaded contract is slated to pay him a whopping $55 million in 2024, and the Cowboys could have brought that number down if they’d reworked the deal over a longer time frame. But nothing got done on an extension, leaving the team a bit hogtied in its salary-cap situation.
If the Cowboys had intended to give Prescott a long-term deal, it would have made sense to do so before free agency started, to free up some cap space. They did not, though, and lost five starters in free agency as a result. That indicates that the Cowboys are prepared to let Prescott walk if this season flames out in the playoffs the way last season did.
If they do, expect them to look to bolster the quarterback room in the draft.
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