*Photo by Kieth Allison
https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/
Dallas Cowboy fans disagree about a great many things. They disagree about coaching changes. They disagree about personnel moves. They disagree about draft picks. They disagree about whether or not the Cowboys should have moved on from Tony Romo or not and they disagree about whether Dak Prescott is truly a franchise quarterback. One thing most Cowboy fans do not disagree on is that Dak Prescott was a much better player in 2016 than he is now. The real question is whether the 2016 season was a fluke or did Dak Prescott just lose his mojo?
I am not convinced that 2016 was a fluke. Remember how poorly Matt Cassel and Brandon Weeden played the previous season behind the same offensive line Dak had in 2016. Prescott may have had a little bit of luck and may have outperformed his skill set but clearly he did some good things to produce one of the greatest rookie seasons ever. He won 13 games as a rookie with a team that had won only 4 the previous season. Prescott came in to a difficult situation with immense pressure and handled it with great poise. He proved to be mature, a good decision maker and genuine leader. 2016 was no fluke but why is Dak Prescott playing so poorly in 2018.
Just 2 years after that magical rookie season Dak Prescott no longer appears poised, he is making bad decisions and it seems as though some of his teammates are quitting on him. The moment that it all changed for Dak Prescott seems to be the Atlanta game last season. The Cowboys were 5-3 and came off of their biggest win of the season against the Chiefs the previous game. Leading up to the game against the Falcons Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension had begun and Tyron Smith was forced to miss the game with a back injury. The result was that Dak Prescott was sacked 8 times and was hit or hurried on seemingly every single play in that contest. It was a blowout loss and the worst game of Dak Prescott’s career up until that point. Ever since that Atlanta game Dak has not been the same quarterback. Here is a look at his numbers before and after the Atlanta game.
| Wins | Losses | Comp | Att | Comp% | Yards | TD’s | INT’s | Passer rating | |
| Before Atlanta (24 GP) | 18 | 6 | 492 | 718 | 63% | 5485 | 39 | 8 | 104.9 |
| After Atlanta (16 GP) | 7 | 9 | 294 | 468 | 62.80% | 3166 | 16 | 14 | 81.5 |
Ever since the Falcons put a beating on Dak Prescott other teams have followed suit. In Dak Prescott’s first 24 games prior to the Atlanta game he had been sacked 33 times. In the 16 games afterward he has been sacked a whopping 52 times. It is no coincidence that Dak Prescott has struggled mightily in those conditions. The offensive line that Dak Prescott has now is nowhere nearly as good as the one he had in 2016 but that does not tell the entire story. Dak Prescott shares some of the blame for a good portion of those sacks due to his tendency to hold onto the ball too long. He is uncomfortable in the pocket and when he feels the pressure he does not want to force the ball to his receivers, many of which he probably does not trust with so many new faces on the team, so he takes sacks and hits instead. It is probably difficult for him to trust these receivers and tight ends because they have been plagued by drops and have not been able to consistently get open. To make matters worse for Prescott is the ineptitude of the head coach and the offensive coordinator calling the plays. The end result is that you have a quarterback that is playing without confidence. An athlete that has no confidence is like a pianist with broken fingers, they are both simply unable to perform.
Is Dak Prescott broken? The answer is yes but neither Scott Linehan nor Jason Garrett have the ability to fix him. It is possible that Dak Prescott may be unrepairable at this point but the Dallas Cowboys front office have to at least try to give another coaching staff an opportunity to repair him. Dak’s future may be a question mark at this point but I think we all know what the future looks like with Garrett & Linehan and it is bleak.
All data and statistics obtained and verified from https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/P/PresDa01/gamelog/2016/
*Photo by Kieth Allison https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode