Dak Prescott is now entering his 3rd year and there is a lot of pressure on him to perform at a high level this season. After a surprisingly successful rookie campaign, not to mention becoming the official heir apparent to Tony Romo, expectations were high for him last season. I would argue that the expectations were unfairly high for a 4th round draft pick in only his second season. But, that is part of the job when you are a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Unless he wins a Super Bowl he is destined to disappoint a great number of fans. I, unlike a portion of Cowboy fans out there, am quite impressed with our young quarterback through his 1st 2 seasons. He has shown incredible poise and leadership at a young age and is no doubt the future of the franchise. He will receive a hefty raise in the next couple of years and that will only multiply the pressure he will be under but I am ready to ride it out with #4 for the next several years. While my position is clear, even a practical fan such that I am must admit that this season Dak needs to improve in order to lead this team to the playoffs again and earn the trust and admiration of his critics.
While the starting quarterback job is clearly Dak Prescott’s, the role of back-up QB is up in the air. Last year, undrafted FA Cooper Rush made quite an impression during the preseason and won the job over veteran Kellen Moore. In an interesting twist of events, now Kellen Moore is Cooper’s QB coach. This year the Cowboys drafted a young QB named Mike White out of Western Kentucky. The Cowboys really like Mike White and some consider him the favorite to win the backup job this year. It should make for an interesting training camp and pre-season as Rush and White battle it out. It is likely that the Cowboys will carry 3 QB’s on the roster.
The overall outlook at QB is positive. Dak Prescott will face the challenge of having a lot of new faces at WR and TE this season. While he may not have the star power of Dez Bryant and Jason Witten to target anymore, I am confident that a fresh new crop of young and motivated players will have a positive impact on the offense this season. The Cowboys aim to make their offense Dak friendly, and I believe this season this will be Dak’s best yet.
*Photo by Kieth Allison (c) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode