Getty

2025 looks like a make-or-break year for Dak Prescott.

Ever since he put on an impressive, highly athletic show in Week 18 of the 2024 season, leading the New England Patriots to a 23-16 victory, albeit in a game that meant nothing in the standings or to postseason playoff seedings, 25-year-old former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joe Milton III became the subject of seemingly nonstop trade talk.

In fact, the Patriots would have been better off losing the game in which Milton led them to victory. A loss would have given then the No. 1 overall draft pick, rather than No. 4. Winning the game didn’t do much good for Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo, who was fired shortly after the game, ending his tumultuous single-season tenure taking the reins from legendary coach Bill Belichick, who had been fired just a year earlier.

But the win did wonders for Milton, who reportedly felt frustrated that the Patriots would not give him a chance to compete with No. 3 overall 2024 draft pick Drake Maye for the starting quarterback’s role.

Rumors Milton Would Overtake Prescott

It didn’t take long — only until early April — for the Patriots to liberate Milton, trading him for draft picks to the Dallas Cowboys. But no sooner did Dallas get its spring practices underway when reports began to emerge of Milton’s “wild” and “freakish” athletic abilities — and rumors started to circulate that perhaps the Cowboys would trade veteran starting quarterback Dak Prescott away (the Cleveland Browns may or may not have shown interest) and hand the starting job to Milton.

The rumor seemed unlikely, given that last September the Cowboys made Prescott the highest-paid player in NFL history, handing him a four-year contract worth $240 million — a staggering $60 million per season. That was a lot for a quarterback who had never even taken his team to a conference championship game, much less a Super Bowl, and had advanced past the Wild Card round only twice in nine years.

But after coming off a grisly hamstring tear that ended his 2024 season after eight games, Prescott must now prove himself worthy of his $60 million salary.

That, anyway, was the cautionary message delivered Thursday by longtime ESPN Cowboys insider Todd Archer on Thursday.

Prescott’s Job Not on the Line — Or Is It?

Archer started his message on ESPN.com by attempting to put to rest the rumors that Milton could somehow overtake Prescott for the starter’s role.

“Let’s start with the obvious: Dak Prescott’s job is not on the line,” Archer wrote on the site. But his next warning to Prescott seemed to undercut his initial assurances.

“The Cowboys signed him to an extension through 2028 in September that made him the highest-paid quarterback in the game. There is not an escape until maybe after the 2027 season,” Archer continued. “But the contract will be something Prescott will have to measure up to in 2025. He turns 32 in July. In the past five seasons, he has missed time with ankle, thumb, calf and hamstring injuries.”

While Milton has had nothing but glowing things to say about Prescott, at least in public, his erratic but eye-catching showing at Cowboys minicamp only served to perpetuate speculation that at some point, the Cowboys would transition out of the Prescott era.

“The Joe Milton experience was back today,” wrote DallasCowboys.com reporter Tommy Yarrish, following a June 11 minicamp practice. “With a couple errant throws and taking some time to decide on a target, but some ropes to with one on the move to Ryan Flournoy and another to (Jonathan) Mingo in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.”

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin