Insider shares direct take about wild rumor involving Browns, Cowboys' Dak Prescott

Longtime Cleveland sports media personality Bruce Drennan, now of BIGPLAY, went viral on X (formerly known as Twitter) when he shockingly claimed on Wednesday that the Cleveland Browns were "negotiating as we speak with the Dallas Cowboys for a trade" to acquire quarterback Dak Prescott from Dallas. 

NFL Media's Jane Slater quickly poured cold water over Drennan's report, and league insider Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk later expanded on why no such transaction will occur this offseason. 

"By converting most of Prescott’s salary into a bonus," Florio explained, "the Cowboys have pushed $36.6M in cap space into future years. If they trade him now, it all crashes back into the 2025 cap. Put simply, if the Cowboys were going to trade him, they shouldn’t have (and wouldn’t have) restructured the deal. As it stands, Prescott has a cap number of $52.974M for 2025 (he also has a no-trade clause). If the Cowboys trade Prescott before June 1, another $97.356M would hit the cap in 2025. That would push the total cap charge to $150.33M."

The Cowboys signed Prescott to a four-year contract extension reportedly worth $240M with $231M guaranteed ahead of the 2024 season, and they currently have no other legitimate starter on their roster. 

Meanwhile, the Browns are stuck with what's left of the disastrous five-year, $230M contract they gave Deshaun Watson back in March 2022. Cleveland has repeatedly been linked with Kirk Cousins of the Atlanta Falcons since this past December, in part because it was assumed he would sign a team-friendly deal with the Browns if he were released.

Additionally, it's no secret that one reason the Cowboys hired Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach this offseason is that Prescott wanted continuity. Schottenheimer was Dallas's offensive coordinator over the previous two seasons.

Those running the Browns reportedly want to acquire a quarterback who can "lead the team and serve as the face of the franchise," but Prescott won't be that man in 2025. As odd as it was when Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was temporarily linked with the Pittsburgh Steelers in February, the Prescott-Browns story could go down as the strangest of this NFL offseason.