Cowboys Jerry's Prediction: QB Dak Prescott Won't Hold Out

FRISCO - When it comes to Jerry Jones Word Salad, a "diner'' often must dig through it with a gigantic fork in order to arrive at the meat of the meal. So it is with the Dallas Cowboys owner's recent feel-good pronouncement of the club's offseason relationship with unsigned QB Dak Prescott.

The subject of Prescott remaining unsigned - even via declining to sign Dallas' franchise-tag tender, should it come to that - and using the leverage he has by staying away from the team. Captains Workouts. OTAs. Minicamps ... Training camp in Oxnard?

And indeed, Prescott himself is the one who lit this fire by coyly suggesting that maybe he won't be hanging around Frisco (and, therefore, The Star) during the spring.

Worried, Jerry?

“It’s not a concern of mine,” Jones recently told the DFW media. “One of the great things about Dak is his commitment to building a team. I don’t have an issue there.”

Indeed, a source close to the situation tells CowboysSI.com that it is the Jones family's view that their "good-faith'' bargaining, dealing all the way back to last August, when they offered (and almost sealed) a deal with Dak that would've make him a "top-five-paid QB'' has earned the sort of mutual faith that would preclude a withholding of services.

And now, with CowboysSI.com's exclusive Sunday night report of the Cowboys having upped the total value of their offer in excess of the previously-reported $33 mil APY/$105 million guaranteed? Dallas continues to believe in its own "good faith.''

But when Dez Bryant was tagged, he stayed away. When DeMarcus Lawrence was tagged, that was a bit nasty, if only for a moment. And last spring and summer, Ezekiel Elliott stayed away from Oxnard in protest of a contract that eventually was re-done in a way that made him the highest-paid running back in NFL history.

Is Prescott more "devoted to team-building'' than they were?

In Jerry's view, the answer is different for Dak than it is for most players. That's the nature of Prescott's character but it's also the nature of his position - especially as the Cowboys have presented him with a new coach in Mike McCarthy who has a Green Bay-based history of working with his QB on a daily basis.

For the Cowboys to be good for the next half-dozen years or so, McCarthy and Prescott are going to have to be good. Together.

Indeed, reinforcing the belief that Dak understands all of this is Jones' recent remark about Prescott being like another member of the Jones "family.''

“There’s no going forward without Stephen or one of your family members,” Jerry said, comparing Dak to one of his own offspring. "So you got to get it figured out.''

It is Jerry Jones' sincere belief that once we dig our way through all the dialogue, Dak Prescott will help the Dallas Cowboys figure it out. And that he'll do so, despite his veiled threat, by working shoulder-to-shoulder alongside McCarthy here inside The Star.