If Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had the top overall selection in the upcoming NFL Draft, and Dak Prescott were available?

"If he was getting ready to go in the draft and I had the No. 1 pick,'' Jerry told ESPN's Chris Mortensen on Friday from the Scouting Combine, "that’s who would get that pick in this draft.''

That sort of settles any question about a Dak extension, doesn't it? But Jerry went on.

"We’re a fortunate franchise to have Dak Prescott and we’re going to build around him for the future,'' the owner added.

Maybe this is why Dak calls some of the criticism he receives "comical''; he's fortified not only by his success, but also by the unbending support of ownership, which is essentially saying here that Dak is (in part because he's a known quantity) superior to the likes of rookies-to-be Kyler Murray and Dwayne Haskins.

“People are going to question and I want them to,” Prescott told USA Today. “I don’t care. I am here where I am today because of the people always saying what I couldn’t or could do. It’s almost comical sometimes. if I hear it or allow myself to get involved in the talk, sometimes it’s comical. But I just keep going out there and just doing what I know I can do best.”

What Prescott "does best'' is guide his team to winning football games. In his three NFL seasons he's played all 48 regular-season games. He and the Cowboys have won 32 of those -- a number since 2016 that only New England's Tom Brady can match.

But does that automatically mean that Dak, who as he enters Year 4 of his contract is now eligible to negotiate an extension, should be paid like Brady? Or like Kirk Cousins? Or like Jimmy Garoppolo? Or like Russell Wilson?

"Comps'' will come up in the negotiations between Dallas COO Stephen Jones and Prescott's new agent, Todd France of CAA. In Dak's conversation with USA Today, he seemed to dismiss the idea of a Brady-type contract, noting that the Patriots QB (who made $15 mil last year and will make $20 mil this year) isn't the lone "breadwinner'' in his household, as his model wife Gisele Bundchen earns the same amount of annual salary at her job.

“Nobody’s wife makes as much money as his wife does either,” Prescott said. “When Tom Brady isn’t the breadwinner in the home, then that’s a great problem to have. So, in that case, he can do that. He can do his contract however you want to do it.”

Translation: Brady can "do'' a hometown discount. Prescott -- presently scheduled to be paid just $2 million in 2019 -- is slyly making it known that doing the same isn't his plan. And the Cowboys are openly pretty much saying the same thing.

With the help of colleague Bobby Belt, we've written a breakdown of how Dallas can give Prescott a gigantic contract (and "Softball Stephen'' suggests the plan is to do that this offseason, not after yet another year of success). You can read that here.

It is Dallas position that Dak has absolutely "out-played'' his contract. Also in play is trying to get out in front of the cost of a franchise QB. Paying him now in an "extraordinary'' way (Jerry's words) will actually save money years from now, when the cost of a player of his caliber goes up.

That is, assuming that Dak Prescott's "caliber'' is what the Cowboys -- and Dak himself -- are so certain it is.