Projecting Dak Prescott, Brock Purdy Contracts After Tua Tagovailoa Deal
The latest domino in the ever-evolving quarterback market fell on Friday, when the Miami Dolphins and Tua Tagovailoa agreed to a new four-year extension.
According to NFL Network's Mike Garafolo, the deal is worth $212.4 million or $53.1 million annually—the highest amount on a four-year extension in NFL history. If accurate, it'll make Tagovailoa the league's third-highest-paid quarterback behind Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence.
It may not be a top-of-the-market deal, but it's a noteworthy one for a couple of reasons. For one, Tagovailoa performed extremely well last season but has a stellar supporting cast and battled multiple injuries early in his career. This means that the bar has been set for quarterbacks who have yet to fully solidify themselves as top-tier signal-callers.
Secondly, Tagovailoa's deal is likely to impact how the next wave of quarterback contracts—a wave that includes Dak Prescott, Jordan Love and Brock Purdy—looks.
Prescott and Love are both entering contract years, while Purdy will be extension-eligible in 2025. Each of them should receive a lucrative new deal by the spring. In the wake of Tagovailoa's extension, let's project how their situations will unfold.
Jordan Love
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Love feels like the next quarterback in line to receive a payday. The Green Bay Packers signal-caller is skipping training camp practices until he receives a new deal, but that deal is reportedly close.
"Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Packers and quarterback Jordan Love are 'pretty close' to wrapping up an extension to a contract that pays him a base salary of $10.5 million this year," Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio wrote on Thursday.
Editor's Note: Ian Rapoport reported Friday evening that Love has agreed to a four-year, $220 million contract extension with the Packers.
An announcement could come literally at any moment, and it's unlikely that Tagovailoa's deal has a major impact on Love's situation—aside from possibly giving his camp just a smidge more bargaining power.
Love, who spent the first three seasons of his career as Aaron Rodgers' understudy, exploded in his first season as a full-time starter—especially late in the year. Unlike Tagovailoa, he didn't have an offense loaded with big names like Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and Raheem Mostert.
With all due respect to Green Bay's supporting cast, Love's 4,159 passing yards and 32 touchdowns in 2023 were largely a reflection of his own talent, poise and development.
Love was likely already looking at a deal worth more than $53 annually because that's what Jared Goff got on his extension this offseason. He has a strong argument to make more than the $55 million annually that Burrow and Lawrence have on their deals.
While Love hasn't carried his team to the Super Bowl, as Burrow has, he's also done something that Tagovailoa has not done. He's won a playoff game. And while Lawrence has started for two seasons longer than Love has, they both have exactly one impressive campaign on their respective resumes.
If Lawrence is worth $55 million annually, Love should command just a bit more than that.
Prediction: Love signs a four-year, $220.4 million extension in the coming days.
Dak Prescott
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The Dallas Cowboys have botched pretty much every aspect of Prescott's contract situation throughout this offseason. It began early, when franchise owner and team president Jerry Jones stated that he wanted to see more before handing out extensions to Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons.
"We'd like to see more leaves fall," franchise owner Jerry Jones said in April, per Patrik Walker of the team's official website.
What Jones was waiting to see remains unclear. Lamb and Parsons are two of the top players at their respective positions, and even if Prescott isn't considered elite, he's done more than enough to make the Cowboys contenders.
Prescott, who threw for 4,516 yards and 36 touchdowns last season, finished second in MVP voting behind Lamar Jackson. The 30-year-old wasn't responsible for Dallas' defense looking completely lost against Love and the Packers in the wild-card round.
By waiting, the Cowboys have allowed Prescott to watch as Goff and Lawrence signed their extension. Now Tagovailoa's contract is done too. Even if Prescott isn't looking to top the market, he'll want $53.2 million annually at a minimum.
Prescott is likely to get that, and possibly not from Dallas. His contract includes a no-tag and no-trade clause, meaning he can simply play on a $55.1 million cap hit this season and hit free agency in 2025.
If Kirk Cousins, at 35 and coming off a torn Achilles, can get a four-year deal worth $45 million annually in free agency, Prescott can get considerably more. That reality might have Jones coming to grips with the fact that he'll be looking for a new quarterback in 2025.
"In my life, I've had a lot of things I wanted that I couldn't get because I couldn't afford it," Jones said on Thursday, per NFL.com's Bobby Kownack. "...and life does go on. And sometimes when you get a bump like that, you turn around and do better than you would have had you got what you wanted."
It's starting to feel like a split between Dallas and Prescott is inevitable. The questions is which quarterback-needy team will pony up for the three-time Pro Bowler in 2025.
Prediction: Prescott plays out his contract, lands a four-year, $224 million deal in 2025 free agency.
Brock Purdy
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Tagovailoa's extension is very relevant for San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy. Like his Dolphins counterpart, Purdy has benefited from a star-studded supporting cast—one that includes Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey.
If the 49ers try to argue that Purdy is a product of his environment, he can counter by pointing to Tagovailoa's situation and his price point. Beyond that, Purdy has experienced far more postseason success than Tagovailoa—or Lawrence and Prescott, for that matter.
The 2022 seventh-round pick has gone 4-1 in playoff games that he's finished—an early injury knocked him out of the 2022 NFC title game—he's started two conference championships and one Super Bowl, and he's posted a 96.2 passer rating in the postseason.
Good supporting cast or not, Purdy has grossly outperformed even the most outlandish pre-draft expectations, and he deserves to be compensated for it. Barring a severe regression in 2024, there's practically no way he'll be willing to play the 2025 season under the $1.1 million cap hit he's scheduled to carry.
However, Purdy getting a top-of-the-market contract won't be a straightforward process. San Francisco is already projected to be $26 million over the cap next offseason, and they may or may not commit a substantial amount of money to Aiyuk and Trent Williams—who are currently camp hold ins—before then.
At the same time, though, it's hard to envision San Francisco moving off of Purdy or trying to convince him to play out his rookie deal. Quarterback contracts aren't going to suddenly go in the other direction, so if the top of the QB market is $55 million (or more) in 2025, it could be $60 million by 2026.
Purdy may be content to take a little less to help keep the 49ers roster together. However, Spotradc projects his market value at $50.9 million annually, and with Tagovailoa's deal on the books, Purdy will likely command a bit more than that.
And if Purdy takes San Francisco a step further and delivers the Lombardi Trophy this season, his next deal just might eclipse those of Lawrence and Burrow after all.
Prediction: Purdy signs a five-year, $266 million extension at the start of the 2025 offseason.
*Cap and contract information via Spotrac.
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