On Jan. 3, 2016, the Cowboys’ quarterback authored a fantastic finale.
Playing against the NFC East champions in AT&T Stadium, he passed for a career-high, record-setting 435 yards and three touchdowns. The gaudy performance, in retrospect, was amazingly …
Hollow.
It occurred in an utterly inconsequential exhibition, ending a 4-12 season. It didn’t build momentum for the team. Nor confidence for the player. Just a shooting star. A bright, short one-off that vanished before we could accurately behold its beauty or sufficiently gauge its impact.
Moral to the story: We shouldn’t put any more stock in Dak Prescott’s game against the Giants last weekend than we did in Kellen Moore’s against the Redskins three years ago.
To supporters willingly becoming prisoners of the moment, Prescott’s 387 yards, four touchdowns and clutch throws on the road against a division rival trumpeted his finest moment, his arrival as a star in the NFL. To critics stubbornly overlooking team success for his individual flaws, it was merely an extended, unnecessary, garbage-time asterisk adorning a meaningless scrimmage against a five-win outfit.
Through seasons of 13-3, 9-7 and now 10-6, Prescott remains a polarizing enigma.
But on this, both sides agree: He will become much more defined Saturday night against the Seattle Seahawks, when he tries to win his first playoff game and lead the Cowboys to their first post-season success in four years. (The last time they won a playoff game they got two touchdown catches from a guy named Terrance Williams.)
Things I trust: Ezekiel Elliott. The defense. Amari Cooper. Cole Beasley.
Things I don’t trust: Jason Garrett’s risk/reward analysis. Jeff Heath. Brett Maher. Cooper Rush.
Things I have no friggin’ idea about: Prescott.
So iffy is Prescott’s persona that he could star in Fox’s newest reality show: The Mask Slinger. His play consistently vacillates, trending like a pendulum between Ring of Honor and Canadian Football League.
To wit:
The Cowboys are 25-1 when he doesn’t commit a turnover, yet he fumbled 12 times this season because of reckless ball security.
He is the first player in NFL history with 20 touchdowns passing and five rushing in each of his first three seasons. He’s Sack Prescott, lacking the pocket presence to avoid being tackled for a loss a franchise-record 56 times.
He threw for a career-high 3,885 yards. He’s inaccurate and not adept at identifying receivers before they are wide open.
He’s a leader and a winner, going 9-3 in December and 32-16 in his first three seasons (only Tom Brady has more wins since 2016). He’s merely a game manager, driving a bus powered by a rushing champion, three Pro Bowl offensive linemen, an elite receiver and a Top 10 defense.
He’s the perfect leader for the Cowboys that’s navigated 14 game-winning, fourth-quarter drives. He’s so imperfect that Pro Football Focus and its next-Gen analytics ranked him 10th among the 12 playoff quarterbacks ahead of only Mitch Trubisky of the Bears and Lamar Jackson of the Ravens.
He’s good, headed toward great and still young. He’s mediocre, limited and peaked after four years in college.
“I keep reminding everybody that he’s in his third year,” says Cowboys’ vice president Stephen Jones. “No one wants to be better at what he does than him. And he’s got an insatiable appetite to be great. He’s got rare leadership skills and rare ‘it’ factor. The best thing I like about him is he’s a winner.”
Evidenced by its Sugar Bowl domination of Georgia, Texas is back. But for the ’Boys to join them, they’ll have to solve the Seahawks’ defensive Rubik’s Cube. The Cowboys have played Seattle four times in the last five seasons, but haven’t scored more than 13 points in the last three meetings and have just one touchdown in their last 33 drives.
In this game – and his career – Prescott needs to channel Russell Wilson.
Through their first three seasons, the non-first round draft picks produced similar statistics: Prescott with more yards (10,876 to 9.950) and fewer interceptions (26 to 25), but Wilson with more touchdowns (72 to 67).
Prescott’s got Wilson’s running part mimicked, evidenced by almost as many yards (376-305) and more touchdowns (6-0) in 2018. He’s adequately sampling the durability, as Wilson played every snap and Prescott only missed six in the late stages of a blowout win over Jacksonville. But Wilson is clearly a more accurate, more productive passer.
In 100 less attempts this season, Wilson threw 13 more touchdowns and one less interception. He also has, of course, led Seattle to two Super Bowl appearances.
Saturday night – unlike last week in New Jersey – will help us unveil the real Dak Prescott. Is he merely Moore? Or potentially Wilson?
“We can definitely build on this,” Prescott said of his heroic finish against the Giants. “I can build on this. That game was not meaningless to me.”
After his eye-popping, bar-raising performance in 2016, Moore went on to never throw another pass for the Cowboys and today is Prescott’s quarterbacks coach.
After his eye-popping, bar-raising performance last week, Prescott went on to . . . .
