As a man with the trajectory of his legacy on the line over the next month might say…
“OK, HERE WE GOOOOOOO!!!!”
Dak Prescott has several seasons left in his NFL career. But it is hard to imagine how many opportunities he will have that will compare to what is in front of him over the next 60 days. The Cowboys have built a roster that appears better and more developed than what they fielded last season, a testament to the notion that they have one of the best scouting departments in the league. They’ve stayed relatively healthy. They have a head coach who is here to win and win now, rather than preside over a transitional stage or rebuild.
They’re also about to embark on one of the toughest remaining schedules in the NFL, with the likelihood of having to trudge through the playoffs on the road as a wild card entrant. Prescott is playing the best football of his career. Over the next six games and whatever playoff matchups await, he has a very real chance to alter his perception from pretty good to great. Dallas is unlikely to catch Philadelphia and claim the NFC East crown. But if the Cowboys win at least three of their next five and continue to flash a high-powered offense as they enter the postseason, it will go a long way in changing the way the public perceives Prescott. Of course, the final boss will be winning at least two playoff games and taking this franchise further than it has been in nearly 30 years.
First, though, it’s important to understand why the Cowboys may finally be up to that task. In the five games since their Week 7 bye, they’ve arguably been the best team in football.
The pass rush remains dominant, leading the league with a pressure rate of nearly 50 percent. The gap between Dallas at the top of the league and Cleveland, ranking second, is the same as that between Cleveland and ninth-ranked team Cincinnati. It is truly hard to fully wrap your head around how disruptive Dan Quinn’s side is. DaRon Bland has made NFL history by returning his fifth interception for a touchdown. Tyron Smith has already started more games than he has in two of the last three NFL seasons. CeeDee Lamb has splashed onto the scene as a true number-one receiver. For Prescott and McCarthy, the time is now.
The road ahead is daunting. The Cowboys are about to face five straight weeks of elite pass rush units: Seattle (11th), Philadelphia (12th), Buffalo (eighth), Miami (sixth), and Detroit (fifth). It isn’t just that Prescott and company are about to square off against five very good teams. They’re about to square off against five defenses whose first priority is to get to the quarterback.
The good news for Dallas is that its quarterback has been elite against pressure and in moving through his progressions. Per Pro Football Focus, Prescott has the highest completion percentage when pressured. He is PFF’s highest-graded quarterback under pressure, with the third-highest quarterback rating. Your uncle at Thanksgiving (and my dad) might hone in on the missed throw here and there, but the facts are what they are. Dak Prescott has played at an MVP level over the last five games.
Want more? Another metric that PFF tracks is “second-read” throws. Prescott is the highest-rated passer on these throws by a wide margin. For the first several years of his career, his performance in this metric was average at best. In his earlier years, he might take off and run when the defense clamped down on receivers. It didn’t help that the receiving options were less than desirable. Now Dallas has paired a good and only getting better collection of targets with a quarterback more likely to stand in the pocket long enough to find them.
As an aside, Jason Garrett and Kellen Moore deserve a lot of credit for Prescott’s development. I always remind people that one of the best teams in the NFL selected its quarterback with a compensatory pick at the end of the fourth round in 2016. With the franchise centerpiece playing at this level, we should be reminded how many people had a hand in this process.
But now, it’s on McCarthy and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. This feels like the tipping point of what you could term the second act of Prescott’s career: to nail down the last big contract of his career (probably a given) and to win big postseason games (far less so). It is certainly a tipping point for the Mike McCarthy era in Dallas.
Here’s where it becomes more complicated. The Cowboys are about to face a slew of teams with good to great pass rush units. At the same time, they’re about to see some of the best run offenses in the league. By Expected Points Added (EPA), the schedule looks like this: Seattle (13th), Philadelphia (fifth), Buffalo (third), Miami (second) and Detroit (fourth).
The Cowboys are not just entering their most difficult stretch in the schedule. They are running into a slate of teams that are not built like they are. I don’t intend to characterize Dallas as soft, or anything of the sort. But the front office has made a conscious decision—wisely, in my opinion—to be a team that disrupts the opposition’s dropbacks first and foremost. This comes at a cost, though. And the cost, especially after the injury to Leighton Vander Esch, is that the defense is less physical in the run game. Pressuring the quarterback is the most important thing a defense can do in probably 75 percent of its games. How do you respond when you play the other 25 percent of games in the span of five weeks?
We’re about to find out. It is cliche to say that if McCarthy doesn’t lead this team to the final four, he’ll be replaced by defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. But how popular will Quinn be if the team gets clowned on the ground? The Cowboys have been good against the run this year, yielding the ninth-lowest EPA/play on rush attempts. But they haven’t seen anything like the buzzsaw they’re about to encounter. There are teams that run to protect their young and/or bad quarterback. Then there are teams who run because they know you can’t stop them. These are those teams.
None of this is fair. McCarthy and Quinn are great coaches; Prescott is a very good quarterback. But after winning 12 games in each of the last two regular seasons, the bar is set to All-Madden mode. They’re undefeated at home this year and have won 13 straight at AT&T dating back to last season. But to get to where they need to go, they’ll have to win on the road. They’ll have to win away from the comforts of artificial turf, which plays to their speed. Imagine the redemption chance this team could have in San Francisco or Philadelphia. Imagine Prescott walking off of either (if not both) of those fields victorious. The defense will have to buckle down against the run, yes. But the outcome will ultimately come down to McCarthy and Prescott. They’ve come a long way in five weeks. The next five—and the playoff games that follow—will arguably be the biggest of their careers.
Author
