When Dak Prescott last left the football field, the Dallas Cowboys were in shambles. Over three and a half quarters, they managed to accumulate three points and a middling amount of yards. A fresh sense of despair set in. Things looked bleak. Just look at some of the stuff published on this website!
You know what has happened since. Cooper Rush commandeered the Cowboys’ offense to competence, which allowed a dominant defense (plus a pinch of opportunistic special teams) to carry this team to four victories in five weeks. When is the last time a Dallas quarterback had the luxury of doing so little to get so many results? Tony Romo only briefly enjoyed that kind of help in the other two phases of the game. Dave Campo’s Cowboys never sniffed that defensive excellence, either. The defense is experiencing the kind of renaissance that recalls the Super Bowl-winning dominance of the early ’90s and their doomsday defense in the 1970s.
Dallas currently ranks third in points allowed at 16.3 per game. The only Cowboys defenses in the last 25 years to sniff that number were those spunky Parcells Cowboys in 2003 and the Wade Phillips group in 2009, both of which played in far less pass-friendly eras. And while those defenses propelled their teams to surprising success, neither defense had a suffocating pass rush like these 2022 Cowboys. This defense is averaging four sacks a game, which would be the highest mark for a Dallas defense since 1966. This is a special brand of dominance, and there’s no reason to anticipate that changing so long as Micah Parsons stays healthy.
Now this team has its starting quarterback again. And with him comes pressure.
Every Cowboys quarterback navigates a thorny privilege in his career: the star, the spotlight, the unwarranted slotting in primetime games. Prescott knows this pressure well, but now comes the toughest challenge of his career. The expectations have changed since he fractured his thumb.
Lest we forget, no one outside the Cowboys’ building entered this season with optimism. Dallas traded Amari Cooper. Tyron Smith got hurt. The Randy Gregory negotiations went haywire. They drafted Tyler Smith in the first round, who was perceived to be a multi-year project.
But as our Jake Kemp pointed out, the Cowboys scouting department has won the war. Noah Brown isn’t a true replacement for Cooper, but he has emerged as a vital cog in the passing game. Dorance Armstrong stepped in for Gregory with almost no drop-off. Smith wasn’t just ready to play in the NFL; he’s held his own at Tyron’s left tackle spot as a 21-year-old. Rush proved every naysayer wrong by keeping the ship afloat in Prescott’s absence (even if the hype got a little overcaffeinated). Most important, a defense that the fanbase assumed would be competent has instead become a wrecking ball.
That leaves Dak in a very interesting predicament. Given what’s on the roster and considering the state of the NFC, this could be his best chance to make a Super Bowl yet. Shoot, if you drank a few Lone Stars, you could talk yourself into this being the best chance a Cowboys quarterback has had in 25 years.
Because Prescott takes this offense to much greater heights than Rush ever could. His presence opens the read-option section of Kellen Moore’s playbook. It allows both Ezekiel Elliot and Tony Pollard to become more dangerous as runners and pass catchers. All the dangerous throws to the outer edges and checks at the line of scrimmage that couldn’t be made when the offense was in battery-safe mode? Those are back on the table now.
It’s OK to hope again, in other words. To believe that this team can make real noise. But any time you open up, you risk vulnerability, and Dak will need to safeguard that fragility for this fanbase. We are skittish and rightfully so. Living in the cocoon of Rush’s play-action throws may feel comforting—at least he won’t turn the ball over, or so we thought until the Philadelphia game—but that will not win challenging games in January. Prescott needs to be empowered and turned loose for that to happen, which means taking the kinds of chances that may give us heartburn.
And we’ve seen what happens when he’s unleashed. Just last season, Prescott set the Cowboys’ franchise record for touchdowns. He was fourth in franchise history in yards. Pro Football Focus ranked him as the eighth-best quarterback in football last season.
Now Dak must replicate that performance without Cooper and without Tyron Smith. He has to produce when the other offensive pillars around him have crumbled. But he’ll also have a true load-bearing defense around him for the first time. We have seen what this team can do without even a league-average quarterback. Now it has a great one.
These will be the defining 11 games of Dak Prescott’s career. He has the opportunity to elevate this team to an elite level. What else is there by way of competition in the NFC? The South and the West are in shambles, while the best team in the North, Minnesota, is riddled with holes. We’ve already seen the Rush-led Cowboys stomp the 5-1 Giants. Only the Eagles stand in his way, and it’s Prescott’s job to make sure the rematch in Week 15 counts toward their playoff race.
There’s no boogeyman lurking in the shadows to rip away postseason success. There isn’t a porous defense to blame, either. Even the head coach has done an admirable job of warding off adversity to keep the season on track. The only person standing in Dak Prescott’s way is Prescott himself. If he’s enough, this team will succeed. If he isn’t? Get ready for a discourse so noxious that you’ll need a gas mask to wade through it.
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