It was a simple statement of fact, but, given that I posted it on social media two weeks ago, it drew an oversized angry response in defense of the Dallas Cowboys quarterback.
It said: Twelve of the 14 playoff QBs are younger than Dak Prescott. The two that are older have won Super Bowls. Make of that what you will.
What most people made of that was that I was obviously an idiot for not noticing how bad the Cowboys’ defense was this past season. Well, trust me. I noticed. Might have even written a dozen columns on it this past four months.
Nothing is simple in the world of NFL quarterbacks and, especially, in the case of one Rayne Dakota Prescott. He’s without question an accomplished leader, an excellent passer, a solid, caring gentleman in the community. But with him, as with the Bills‘ Josh Allen or the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, questions will be asked as long as he doesn’t reach a Super Bowl. In Dak’s case, that also means 10 years without an NFC Championship Game appearance.
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He’s climbing the ranks in the Cowboys’ record book, and he should be. He plays in an era where quarterbacks have a much greater opportunity to pass for 300 yards on a given Sunday than they did in Troy’s or certainly in Roger’s era. Dak already has more starts than Tony Romo and Staubach. With a couple of reasonably healthy seasons, he will surpass Aikman in that category while having blown past him in yards, touchdowns, and the rest.
But what do we make of the 2-5 playoff record? How much of a stain should that be for a quarterback playing a team game?
That’s why we look to numbers, to the current playoff scene for help. Now we have two former No. 3 overall draft picks taking teams to Super Bowl LX in Drake Maye and Sam Darnold. Any time you have high first-round picks going to the Super Bowl, it makes the game feel off limits to Dak, the 135th pick in the 2016 draft (the Cowboys had to make sure they had locked down Oklahoma’s Charles Tapper in the start of that fourth round before getting around to a quarterback).
Then again, it didn’t stop Brock Purdy from going to a Super Bowl or Tom Brady from winning seven of them.
Still, you look at the odds and Dak is fighting an uphill battle. Again, it’s not one he controls by himself. The Cowboys regularly commit more money to their assets on offense. They try to mix and match on defense which may explain why they will have their sixth defensive coordinator since 2019 operating this fall.
The 2025 season began with six quarterbacks who had won Super Bowls, a product of the amount of oxygen that Patrick Mahomes and Brady have sucked out of the position. Along with Mahomes, the list was Jalen Hurts, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and Joe Flacco. That’s it. And given the mileage on the tires of those last three, there may be only four Super Bowl winners playing next year — Mahomes, Hurts, Stafford and the new champion.
Now the fact that Darnold and Maye are going to their first Super Bowls has an encouraging element to it. In Maye’s case, getting there in just his second season, the notion of going from 4-13 to Super Bowl participant reminds us that the door is open next year, even for clubs with losing records in 2025. In Darnold’s case, arriving at the Super Bowl with his fifth team in eight years tells us that quarterbacks can fail, can fall and get back up and reclaim their dignity and their standing among their peers.
Dak hasn’t fallen so much lately as having suffered injuries. That’s what made this past season so disturbing when 17 starts from the game’s highest-paid player bought Dallas a 7-9-1 record.
The tougher hurdle, historically speaking, is that the Cowboys haven’t sniffed a conference championship game in Dak’s time. (Or Tony’s time or Quincy’s time or Vinny’s time or Drew’s time). There are 15 active quarterbacks that have at least managed that. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson can surely get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame based on at least that limited playoff advancement and their MVP trophies. Dak has neither on his resume (he finished second to Lamar in the MVP voting in 2024) and turns 33 this summer, which is why we discuss the likelihood of these things ever happening.
Dak already has shot past the championship game deadline in that no other quarterback has ever begun his career with a team and played 10 seasons without reaching the NFC or AFC title game, then reached a Super Bowl with that team later in his career. I don’t believe that makes it impossible. I do believe there’s a reason this hasn’t happened which makes Prescott at least historically challenged.
The fact we have seen Stafford make a late career surge after infrequent trips to the playoffs in Detroit has to be something of a model for Prescott. Stafford might win the league’s MVP award at 37 this season. Then again, he had to change teams and land in the lap of the anointed offensive genius, Sean McVay, to redirect his career path.
Dak won’t have that opportunity. His contract makes it nearly impossible to be moved in what’s left of the prime of his career, nor would the Cowboys be interested. But once again we have a situation where the highest-paid quarterbacks in the game, the ones that eat up 20% of their team’s salary cap or more, are not going to the Super Bowl. And you might say that’s just one more hurdle, a self-imposed one, that Dak will be forced to clear if he and Cowboys’ fans are going to get their wish in the next few seasons.
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