Tuesday Open Thread: March 9, 2021

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Well, we expected to start seeing some NFL news with the transition/franchise tag period coming to a close later today, and we weren’t disappointed. The Cowboys and Dak Prescott FINALLY agreed to a deal. After having a long talk that lasted almost two years (and cost the Cowboys a ton of money, they could have signed him 2 years ago for far less cash than they are now), the Cowboys signed Prescott to a four-year deal which is reportedly worth $160 million, link courtesy of FoxSports. Details are not yet available, but rumors are that $140 million of that $160 million is guaranteed. It’ll be interesting to see how this deal is structured. The Cowboys are taking a significant risk in signing a quarterback who is coming off of an ugly injury, I’ll be interested if they found a way to add verbiage in the contract to protect themselves in the event that Prescott is unable to return to form. I suppose there is the standard “contingent upon passing a physical examination” clause, and I would bet that the Cowboys hired teams of doctors, surgeons, veterinarians, astronauts, rocket surgeons, and paleantologists; all who examined Mr. Prescott very thoroughly (those paleantologists are very thorough, I hear), but it’s still a big risk to sign a player who hasn’t played since being sidelined for the season with an ugly injury. Congrats to Prescott, he gets his big payday, and will be coming up for his next contract while in his prime, and when the NFL’s new media deals will have been finalized. He should be able to make ends meet.

Around the DN since our last open thread:

The Vikings are NOT expected to pick up their fifth-year option on Mike Hughes, per Chris.

GreatOdinsRaven does a SKOL search with Daniel House.

GASkol brings us a Vikings pre-free-agency Mock Draft.

Other Vikings/NFL news:

NFL.com has five takeaways from the Prescott/Cowboys deal.

The team with no name applied the franchise tag to Brandon Scherff....again, per NFL.com. This is the second year in a row that the ........football team used the franchise tag on Scherff. It’s not common to see a team other than this team use the tag twice on the same player, but they did the same thing with Cousins before he escaped. Interesting.

After a tumultuous one-year relationship, the Titans traded their 2020 first-round pick, Isaiah Wilson, to the Dolphins, per NFL.com. The Dolphins reportedly swapped 7th round picks with the Titans. The Titans were lucky to get anything at all, after the team and player both publicly stated that they planned to part ways, but it’s still bad when you can’t even get a 7th round pick for the guy on which you used a first round pick less than a year prior. For the Dolphins, it’s a free shot to see if they can turn the kid around. Hey, why not? The Dolphins have had great luck signing troubled offensive linemen, just look at how well it worked out when they signed Richie Incognito.......oh wait.......

We come to today’s media selection:

I get this song in my head any time I have to mention the team with no name, so here you go, it’s America with A Horse With No Name. Enjoy!

Again, we all know the rules, but in case someone is new:

-No discussion of politics or religion
-No feeding of the trolls
-Take the gender hatred elsewhere, it won’t be tolerated
-Keep the bad language to a minimum (using the spoiler tags, if you must)
-If discussing a newer show or movie, please use spoiler tags
-No pictures that could get someone fired or in serious trouble with their employer
-If you can’t disagree in a civil manner, feel free to go away
-While navigating the open thread, just assume it’s sarcasm.

With that, the beer light is on and the bar is open. Belly up & tie one on, don’t forget to tip the cows and settle in, this part of the season gets long and boring.