There seems to be some disagreement on where Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott ranks among the best signal-callers in the NFL.
He threw for 4,516 yards and a league-high 36 touchdowns while completing 69.5 percent of his pass attempts last season, and for a minute late in the schedule, he was a leading candidate for the MVP award that eventually went to the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.
On the other hand, Prescott has a documented history of playing well beneath his ability come playoff time.
CJ Stroud, who is a rising star QB in his own right, gave his list of the game’s top five QBs, and Prescott was at No. 4 on that list. He also happened to put himself at No. 3.
Prescott has been the face of the proud Cowboys franchise ever since he was a rookie in 2016 and quickly won the starting job after Tony Romo, their previous longtime QB, was sidelined with a compression fracture to the L1 vertebra in his back that ultimately forced him to retire.
He got the first of his three Pro Bowl selections that year by posting 3,667 passing yards and 23 touchdown passes while guiding the Cowboys to a 13-3 record. In each of the last three years, he has helped them win 12 games.
At times last fall, they looked downright dominant, and some felt they were the favorites to reach the Super Bowl.
However, Prescott clearly hasn’t gotten the job done when it matters most.
In the 2021 wild-card round versus the San Francisco 49ers, he completed just 23 of 43 passes while getting sacked five times in a 23-17 loss. The following year, he threw two interceptions when Dallas lost again to the 49ers, this time in the divisional round.
Last year in the wild-card round, Prescott had two early picks against the Green Bay Packers, allowing the Packers to build a crushing 27-0 lead late in the second quarter. While he did throw three touchdown passes in that game, two of them came in garbage time in the fourth quarter with the outcome long ago decided.
The most important thing a franchise QB needs to do is deliver victory in the biggest games of the season when legacies are made and chiseled in stone.
Prescott hasn’t shown the ability to do that, and thus ranking him as one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL seems at least somewhat foolish.
CJ Stroud certainly was bold with his opinion about Dak Prescott. The Dallas Cowboys are hoping Prescott can take the next step and win big in the playoffs, but until then it’s hard to give him this much credit.
