When we reflect back on the remarkable rookie season of Dak Prescott in 2016, we had no certainty as to what he would become. No fourth-round pick had ever...
Five years and one playoff victory since his rookie season, we still don’t know as much about Prescott as we would like.Tim CowlishawWhen we reflect back on the remarkable rookie season of Dak Prescott in 2016, we had no certainty as to what he would become. No fourth-round pick had ever started 16 games as a rookie. But as the season went along and the team’s winning streak hit 11 games and the club’s veteran quarterback finally conceded the job was no longer his, we felt sure of one thing.
Balancing it out with figures that are not part of passer rating, Dak gets sacked slightly more often than Tony did. While Miami didn’t get where it wanted to go with either Don Shula or Jimmy Johnson coaching the Hall of Fame quarterback, Marino played in a Super Bowl, losing to Joe Montana in his prime. He played in three AFC Championship Games. And he finished with an 8-10 playoff record.
You can suggest anything is possible when you look at Brady on Sunday afternoon, still leading the Bucs at 44, but it’s a fairly sure thing that Prescott — 29 next season — isn’t taking the Cowboys on seven more playoff trips. Dak came into this league seven years after Stafford so he has more time to build his legacy, to achieve things that have eluded him thus far. But I think it’s instructive that in the season in which he broke Romo’s team record for touchdown passes, Prescott also become less of a player. After rushing for anywhere between 277 and 357 yards in his four full seasons as a starter, Prescott ran for 146 this year. His yards per carry, which had ranged from 4.1 to 6.3, fell to 3.0.