Ryan Clark wildly likens Dak Prescott’s Cowboys situation to ‘The Bachelorette’

Jerry Jones isn’t ready to give Dak Prescott the final rose.

With the Cowboys holding off on a contract extension for their star quarterback as he enters the final year of an expiring deal, the move has befuddled many around the league, with ESPN’s Ryan Clark likening the situation to being on ABC’s reality TV series “The Bachelorette” following a lengthy union in a wild take.

“When you’re an organization, you can play the field at the quarterback position. You can have three of them on the roster sometimes, two of them on the roster sometimes, you can draft one this year, you can draft one that year,” Clark began on “Get Up” on Wednesday, “it’s like a single man who’s going to college at LSU, he could just live it up and date who he wants. But at some point, he’s going to decide he wants a wife. And the bible says, he who finds a wife finds a good thing, it’s the same thing in football. He who finds a quarterback finds a good thing,”

“And so when you get that quarterback, and you lock into that marriage, and that is your person, you are never going to sit at home and one day tell your person, ‘You can go be on “The Bachelorette.” I don’t love you enough to lock you in’… Jerry Jones has said, Dak, next year, we’re going to let you go on ‘The Bachelorette.’”

“The Bachelorette” features the female star dating several suitors before narrowing it down to one, who typically receives the final rose in the season finale after a potential marriage proposal. “The Bachelor” chronicles a male lead going through a similar process with eligible women.

Prescott’s union with the Cowboys began in 2016, when he was selected in the fourth round of the NFL draft and was later named the starting QB. He signed a four-year, $160 million contract extension in 2021.

Though it was reported in December that both parties were expected to iron out the details of a long-term extension in the offseason, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday that the team and Prescott, 30, “have a mutual understanding that there will be no adjustment to his contract entering the 2024 season.”

That decision — which comes two months after yet another early Cowboys playoff exit — could potentially result in Prescott hitting the open market if the two sides decide it’s best to move on.

“When you look at this team, not only are we saying, you have to go out and play a certain way, win a certain amount of games, get us to a certain point for us to keep you, we are also not going to give you the necessary tools to do so. We are essentially giving you a job, giving you a task that we are not equipping you to be able to do,” Clark continued.

“So what does that say? We’re going to get to the end of the season and Dak Prescott is going to be somewhere else.”

Prescott isn’t the only member of the Cowboys entering a critical year ahead.

Head coach Mike McCarthy is returning for Year 5 and will also be coaching the 2024 season on an expiring deal.