There are no “must-win” games in Week 6 of the NFL season. And yet, had the Cowboys lost back-to-back nationally televised games, it certainly would’ve felt like the sky was falling. However, the Cowboys were able to grind out an uncomfortable but ultimately successful 60 minutes of football en route to defeating the directionless Chargers on Monday night. The defense had a fantastic bounce-back game in which it limited Justin Herbert to a smidge over 200 yards passing and a negative total expected points added (EPA). The offense, on the other hand, still had its issues, but Dak Prescott did all he could to mitigate them, and he turned in one of his better performances in this young season. The number his game boils down to is 42: the number of rushing yards Prescott tallied (excluding kneel-downs).
Rushing yards aren’t exactly the peak of analytics, but in this game the stat is telling. Prescott had last reached 40 yards rushing in Week 16 of last year when he ran for 41 yards in a win over the Eagles, and before that you have to go all the way back to the start of 2019 to find a game in which he hit the 40-yard mark. Injuries have taken their toll over the last few seasons and limited his rushing ability to a degree, but the general decline in what Prescott has added on the ground has been stark.
He has never been a true dual-threat quarterback in the realm of a Lamar Jackson, but Prescott still averaged more than 20 yards on the ground per game through his first three seasons. Among quarterbacks, he was always at least above average in terms of the number of times he carried the ball and in the number of rush yards he earned per game—until this year. Through five weeks, his 2.4 carries per game and 9 rush yards per game ranked 23rd and 21st, respectively. On Monday night, he moved the needle.
The highlight came early on, when he took a fourth-and-1 option 18 yards for a house call, the longest touchdown run of his career. It was also the second-most impactful offensive play of the game, accounting for 3.6 EPA. The outlook of this game most likely would have been wildly different had Prescott been stopped short of the line to gain. Dallas went three-and-out on its first drive, and the Chargers responded with a 42-yard touchdown drive. If the Cowboys don’t convert the fourth down, a collective cry of “oh no, not again” would have been raised. After the TD, the Cowboys’ win probability jumped 12 percentage points, from 27 to 39 percent. That’s a huge swing, and it’s an especially impressive swing considering this game was still in the first quarter. Typically plays of this magnitude don’t show up until at least the second half. Of Prescott’s 400 non-kneel carries (including postseason), this ranked as the seventh-most impactful in terms of the change in win probability.
Not only did Prescott’s legs get Dallas on the scoreboard, but they also helped breathe life into what has been a fairly stagnant offense in 2023. Dallas coasted through three of the first four weeks largely on the back of a dominant defense, with the offense performing just well enough to look efficient. By EPA/play, Dallas ranked sixth in the NFL through 4 games, nearly identical to that of the Kansas City Chiefs. What the Cowboys were not doing, however, was finishing drives with touchdowns.
An offense’s EPA/play is highly correlated to its rate of scoring touchdowns. But the Cowboys have stalled upon reaching the red zone this season, resulting in the large distance between them and the blue line in the chart above. The Prescott run was a step in the right direction.
Prescott didn’t only use his legs to power the run game; he also utilized them to aid in the passing game, getting out of the pocket and turning nothing into something when the offense needed it most. No play was more indicative of this than the 60-yard catch-and-run to Tony Pollard on third-and-11 to open the fourth quarter. The fact that this play went 60 yards is a testament to Pollard’s elusiveness, but he never would have gotten the chance had Prescott not escaped a collapsing pocket and rolled right to buy time. The Cowboys opted for a lot of quick-hitting short passes early on this season, with Prescott releasing the ball in under 2.5 seconds on more than 60 percent of his dropbacks, per Pro Football Focus. The change has been drastic over the past two games, however, with Prescott now holding onto the ball for at least 2.5 seconds on more than 70 percent of his dropbacks. Holding onto the ball too long has its risks—all five of the sacks Prescott took on Monday came after more than 2.5 seconds had elapsed—but he can shine when he extends plays. He has a career 61 percent completion rate when holding the ball for at least 2.5 seconds (fifth among qualified QBs since 2016) and has the 10th-lowest sack rate under pressure among that same group. Extending plays when he needs to and making throws from outside the pocket and scrambling for yards have been keys to his success throughout his career.
If Prescott plays like this, he can be the quarterback who leads a successful offense in 2023. Mike McCarthy’s game plan probably won’t get much more creative than what we’re seeing, but that doesn’t mean the players can’t get creative when a play breaks down. The 42 rushing yards Prescott generated against the Chargers could portend an uptick in successful drives, and the Cowboys will need every bit of that kind of production to keep pace in the NFC.
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