Cowboys Fantasy Impact: Amari Cooper Signed, Dak Prescott Tagged

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Cowboys Tag Dak Prescott Re-sign Cooper

The NFL offseason is in full swing and big moves are happening all around the league. Many new faces will be in new places, but two faces that will remain in familiar areas are Dak Prescott and his top pass catcher Amari Cooper.

The Cowboys announced on Monday, that they are placing the exclusive franchise tag on Prescott. This allows the Cowboys and Prescott’s reps to work out a deal by July 15th. If no deal is reached, Prescott will have to play under the tag for the season and a deal will have to be reached next offseason. The cost of this tag will be somewhere between the $30-$33 million range. Talks between the team and the reps have been going on for quite some time now. The two sides were close to a deal back in September but talks ultimately came to a screeching halt. Now it’ll be interesting to see if Prescott chooses to sit out until he’s signed to a new deal.

Later on that day, The Dallas Cowboys announced that they were signing Amari Cooper to a 5-year $100-million dollar deal. That makes him the second-highest paid wide receiver next to Julio Jones. There was news early on in the day that the Washington Redskins were trying to sign Cooper away from the Cowboys but they did what they needed to do to keep him in the building. Finding a way to keep both Cooper and Prescott on the team was the plan all along, and Jerry Jones got it done. Now they have the second-highest paid receiver and the highest-paid running back.

Fantasy Impact

It’s good to see the Cowboys keep their core intact. With the coaching change already in place, it could have made for some murky waters in Dallas if they had to go through the process without their young quarterback or their star wide receiver. The offense could have been in real shambles which would have affected a lot of players. Prescott staying around, barring a holdout due to not being able to get a deal done in time, will be huge for both the passing game and the run game. This keeps the value of young guys like Michael Gallup who seemed to be on the rise throughout the season. He’s also coming into his third season and could be a potential buy-low candidate. It’s also going to keep the upside of the depth players that they currently have at receiver or a potential receiver that they take in the upcoming NFL Draft. Prescott can raise the level of play for anyone that is catching the ball from him, including Cooper on his fresh new deal.

Cooper staying is huge for Prescott. When you look at the receiving group that they have in Dallas, it’s not the deepest bunch. Keeping this tandem together is not only key for the success of one another, but it’s also big for their high-dollar running back Ezekiel Elliott. Having the threat to throw the ball on any down with those two should keep the holes open and keep the defense from loading the box to try and stop the run.

Life should be a little easier for Mike McCarthy and the new era of coaching in Dallas. It would have been interesting to see what they would do without those two on the team. Keeping this continuity together should bode well for fantasy football owners and dynasty owners that have them on their teams should be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Now we have to wait and see if they can get a deal done in time for Prescott.

Final Take

Looking at this from an overall fantasy perspective, this is a great move. So often we forget the effect events like losing a starting quarterback can have on a team as a whole. While some teams don’t like to pay players at the premium price, it can really put your team in a downward spiral losing the leader of your team, and from a fantasy perspective, that can only mean dark times from there.

Both Cooper and Prescott are perfect sell-high candidates in fantasy football. Cooper just got a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid wide receivers in the league, and fantasy owners seem to flock to news like that. You should be able to swindle a deal with hyping up the new coaching as well as his quarterback coming back. With Prescott, there still is some concern that he could potentially holdout, though, there isn’t much news swirling around that just yet but it’s definitely something worth noting. If that were to happen, you won’t be able to get the value you could get for him if you sold him now.

Elliot also is a sneaky sell right now as well. News like this always seems to get fantasy owners excited about certain situations. Since there’s positive news swirling around Dallas, it may be time to see what you could get for certain players that the news is related to. You can also factor in that the new head coach ranked last in rush attempts his last year in Green Bay and it seems to be like a good idea to take advantage of this news and potentially get some high value and players that are affected by the signings.