Hot Takes for Dak Prescott, More Cowboys Stars Ahead of Training Camp (2024)

Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys enter a critical 2024 season with a ton of pressure to finally put everything together. Several key components of their franchise are facing contract years and there's a real possibility of Jerry Jones blowing up the team if things don't pan out.

That starts with the quarterback. Prescott is set to become a free agent in 2025. With quarterback contracts continuing to balloon along with the salary cap, Prescott is in line to become even more wealthy.

The question is whether the Cowboys organization will be the ones signing those huge paychecks.

It's going to take more than just production for Prescott to earn that shiny new contract. This is a team that hasn't won a divisional round playoff game since 1995. With one of the league's most star-studded rosters, expectations should be high in Dallas.

Here are three hot takes for how the season will play out for three of their stars.

Last year at this time, it seemed bold to say that CeeDee Lamb would clear 1,500 yards. He easily cleared that hurdle with 1,749 yards on 135 receptions.

This year, we'll go even more bold: CeeDee Lamb is going to break Michael Thomas's record for most receptions in a season.

Lamb led the league with 135 catches on 181 targets last season. Tyreek Hill and Amon-Ra St. Brown came in second with 119 receptions apiece.

Lamb was one the league's biggest target magnets last season. That isn't going to change. The 25-year-old didn't just dominate the Cowboys passing volume, he was also their most efficient receiver with a 63.5 percent success rate.

Success rate is calculated based on the percentage of yards a receiver gains relative to down and distance. When the Cowboys needed to move the ball, Lamb had the yardage needed more often than not.

One major criticism that you could lob at the Cowboys this offseason is they didn't do enough to improve their weaponry. The biggest addition of the offseason was bringing back Ezekiel Elliott.

That doesn't offer a lot of hope for the run game and they are going to rely on young player to develop into bigger roles as pass catchers. That all spells even more targets for Lamb and he could reward them with a historic season.

It's notable that the Dallas Cowboys haven't extended Dak Prescott. The conventional wisdom is that it makes sense to take care of franchise quarterbacks as early as possible. Quarterback deals typically age well for proven vets unless they fall off a production cliff.

That's why it's a little maddening that the Cowboys have allowed this whole thing to become a storyline.

Regardless, it's going to end the same way that it would have if they had taken care of things earlier: Dak Prescott in a Dallas Cowboys jersey.

The lack of playoff success for Prescott is frustrating. There's no way around that, but he was second in QBR last season and second in EPA and CPOE composite last season.

The best-case scenario for the Cowboys if they part ways is to trade him for a bounty of picks. Even then, they would have to assume that they could draft a quarterback who could play better than Prescott or Trey Lance is the answer despite playing just eight games in the league since being drafted in 2021.

Instead, Prescott is going to go out and do what he does. He'll play at an elite level throughout the regular season and remind the Cowboys that he's a good part of the reason they have been relevant the last few years.

They will have to pay him accordingly next offseason.

Micah Parsons is obviously the biggest star of the Dallas Cowboys defense. He should be in the discussion as Defensive Player of the Year throughout the season and could win the sack title.

There aren't a lot of hot takes there.

But Trevon Diggs returning to Pro Bowl form after sitting out most of 2023 with a torn ACL is a little spicier. For one, it can take a while to fully recover from an ACL injury. Even when players come back they are often a lesser version of themselves in their first year back.

Cowboys fans saw this first hand when Michael Gallup came back from a torn ACL in 2022. He was never quite the same receiver and never topped 450 yards in a season again.

Diggs is on a different level, though. At his best, he's an All-Pro cornerback who can snag 11 interceptions in a season. Even a hampered version is going to be good enough to earn his third Pro Bowl appearance in his first five seasons.

The 25-year-old is young enough that he should be able to recover faster and more completely than veterans who suffer the same injury. His ability to play the ball in the air and cause turnovers will have him in the public eye sooner rather than later and the Pro Bowl votes should follow.

The Cowboys defense will once again have two star players.