NFL training camps won’t open for two weeks, but tomorrow is an important date for Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys. At 4 p.m. EDT, the deadline will pass for the Cowboys to sign Prescott to a multiyear contract or extension for the 2020 season. After that, no deal will get done until after the Cowboys’ last regular season game.
The problem for the Cowboys is that Patrick Mahomes reshaped the quarterback market earlier this month, signing a record $503 million, 10-year deal. Prescott, who reportedly turned down a 5-year, $175 million offer this spring, will be playing for $31.4 million in the final year of his rookie deal this season after recently signing the franchise tender.
I have made it clear in the past that I’m not a Prescott fan. If you look at his track record, it’s easy to conclude he’s no Mahomes. In spite of putting up career numbers last year, he couldn’t deliver when the chips were down. He had five chances to lead the Cowboys to victory in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter in 2019 games and was 0-5,
If the Cowboys had won just two of those games, they would have been in the playoffs, instead of finishing 8-8. In week 4 in New Orleans when the Cowboys were down by two, Prescott ended the game with a pick. There were three more games after that when they could have won, or tied, on the final drive and turned the ball over on downs.
The final one of those five games where Prescott failed to deliver was a game I’ll never forget last year in Philadelphia. It broke my heart. Prescott had his worst performance of the season when it counted most against the Eagles, completing just 25 of his 44 passes (56.8%) for 265 yards and no touchdowns against a Philadelphia team with key injuries.
The Prescott apologists will point to the stats, showing how he threw for 4,902 yards, 30 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, completing 65.1 percent of his passes in 2019. But time after time, I watched Prescott deliver the ball late, or throw behind his receiver. If you think he can deliver the ball on target in a clutch situation, you don’t know Dak.
But I can hear your voices being raised against me right now. You could care less about my homer tendencies and my sob stories about how the Cowboys coulda, shoulda, wouldna. What about Dak from a fantasy perspective? After all, he was not only one of the top NFL quarterbacks but also one of the top fantasy quarterbacks in 2019.
True. Prescott was actually the No. 2 quarterback in fantasy points scored last year, trailing only the extraterrestrial life form known to some as Lamar Jackson. But are you really going to use a mid-round pick to draft Prescott based on his 2019 numbers? Keep in mind that he was the 10th best fantasy quarterback in 2018 and 11th best in 2017.
I can promise you I won’t be drafting Prescott in the middle rounds of any of my fantasy drafts. I might take Mahomes, or Jackson, in the fifth or sixth round – if they are still on the board. But they won’t be. Novice, or ignorant fantasy owners will alway drafts their quarterbacks early, but it’s a fool’s errand with such a large supply of them available.
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