The Dallas Cowboys have inconsistency at the quarterback position, which is a wild assessment considering they drafted a QB at the end of the fourth round in 2016 and he’s been their starter since that season’s first week. Dak Prescott emerged from a flyer who was supposed to eventually replace Tony Romo under center for America’s Team to a Day 1 starter, rookie of the year and entrenched leader of the world’s most popular sports team.
Prescott has turned in multiple seasons where he was one of the best players in the league, but he’s also turned in others where things didn’t turn out as planned and still others he wasn’t able to play a full slate. 2024 was a combination of both of the latter, and it came on the heels of a 2023 campaign where the first of the three were true. Finishing second in MVP was followed by a total flop of a season’s first half and then another catastrophic injury.
ESPN, in assessing the most important question for the league’s 32 starting QBs, landed on Prescott’s health as the No. 1 driver of 2025 success. They aren’t wrong, but they aren’t right, either. Here’s what Dan Graziano had to say.
The Cowboys hope it’s the healthy version. Prescott has played six fully healthy seasons in his nine-year NFL career, and the Cowboys won the NFC East in four of those seasons. Even after losing Prescott to a hamstring injury midway through last season, Dallas still managed to finish 7-10.
Prescott is expected back healthy to start training camp, and the team added WR George Pickens to pair with top wideout CeeDee Lamb and expand Prescott’s options in the passing game. If the post-Zack Martin offensive line holds up the way the Cowboys expect, Dallas has plenty of reason to think it can contend with Philadelphia and Washington in the NFC East.
The reality is, Prescott has often played like one of the best quarterbacks in the game. He’s also played with a ton of inconsistency. His 2017, 2022 and 2024 seasons were mediocre campaigns and while he definitely leans towards being one of the league’s best more often than not, it should never be an assumption that’s the performance one is going to get even if Prescott is able to play a full season.
In Prescott’s sophomore year in the league, he had a career low 62.9 completion percentage and through an interception on 2.7% of his throws. He bounced back in 2018, though, which is the hope for him in 2025. In 2022 he led the NFL in interceptions but bounced back to lead the league in touchdown throws in 2023. There’s a pattern.
In his eight games of 2024, he had his worst completion percentage (64.7%) since 2017, his second-worst career INT percentage (2.8% to 2022’s 3.8%) and the lowest TD percentage (3.8%) of his career.
It’s more likely than not Prescott has a superb campaign, but health is only part of the equation. The bigger concern is whether he can maintain his pattern of big bounce-back seasons after down ones.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: ESPN’s worries about Dak Prescott’s health are warranted, but that’s not top concern
Reporting by K.D. Drummond, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
