Dak Prescott had an uneven 2022. The season started off with an awful performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a broken thumb. His return to the Dallas Cowboys’ lineup featured streaks of greatness and stretches of mediocrity. He made big plays and saw passes carom off intended receivers’ hands into into drive-killing turnovers.
This created Schrodinger’s quarterback — a thought exercise unto football physicists. Prescott was simultaneously good and bad. By observing him, you seemingly changed his outcome.
That’s how a player who managed to tie for the league league in interceptions (15 in only 12 games) also finished 2022 as a top 10 quarterback in terms of advanced stats. Prescott’s season invited praise or scorn with little middle ground. He was either a loose cannon capable of blasting a hole through the Cowboys’ playoff hopes or the playmaker Dallas needed to prove its Super Bowl dream was legitimate.
On Monday night, Prescott seemed well aware of how divisive his season had been. After some early struggles, he put together the kind of consensus-building performance that suggests his Cowboys are a real problem for the rest of the NFC.
Prescott had 209 total yards and three touchdowns in the first half alone as Dallas went down to Tampa for what’s likely Tom Brady’s final game as a Buccaneer and beat the brakes off the 45-year-old’s team. The Cowboys won 31-14 to set up a Divisional Round showdown in San Francisco with the 49ers and their top-ranked defense.
After an auspicious start, Prescott was the engine behind three straight scoring drives of 80-plus yards despite a run game bogged down by Tampa Bay’s big bodies early on. He made things work from the pocket, but the larger development was the rangy quarterback’s ability to create magic on the run.
Extend the play ➡️ make the play!@dak & @BinghamBaller9 link up for their 2nd TD of the night!
📺: @espn | #DALvsTB pic.twitter.com/mt9yWwQE50
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) January 17, 2023
This was important. The past two seasons have been the backdrop to more stable pocket passing than dual-threat wizardry following the 2020 ankle injury that ended his season. Prescott’s 5.0 yards per scramble in 2022 were a career low. His 15.2 rushing yards per game were second-worst.
But in the Wild Card round, last year’s Nickelodeon Valuable Player (NVP) used that mobility to extend drives and find the end zone — though his bootleg score could have easily been a pass or a brisk walk or a moonwalk over the goal line because the Bucs had absolutely no idea it was coming.
Could've fooled us with that play fake, @dak!
Nice stroll in for 6️⃣ 🙌
📺: @espn | #DALvsTB pic.twitter.com/1YWJAQAAQ9
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) January 17, 2023
This wasn’t the only arrow in Prescott’s quiver. He was also capable of stepping up in the pocket and slinging heat on his deep shots downfield.
In the first 35 minutes of the game — a stretch in which Dallas took a 24-0 lead (sorry about your damn luck, Brett Maher) and claimed a 99.1 percent win probability — Prescott threw seven passes that traveled at least 10 yards downfield. Three of those covered at least 20 yards. He completed all of them for 140 yards, two touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.
Prescott finished his day with 305 passing yards, 25 more on the ground and five total touchdowns. He was in terms of advanced stats, worth 32 more expected points than Brady.
Doing that again will be the real test of his ability. The San Francisco 49ers only allowed two quarterbacks to throw for more than 275 net yards against them this season — Patrick Mahomes and, somehow, Jarrett Stidham.
He won’t be able to rely on Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard against a defense that held opponents to 70 rushing yards or fewer 11 times in the regular season. Even if Prescott’s scrambling renaissance is here to stay it may not matter against a team that allowed the fifth-fewest rushing yards from opposing QBs.
Prescott has cooked the Niners twice before in his career, recording a 5:0 touchdown:interception ratio in those road wins. But the last time he saw San Francisco was 2017 and each of those teams were a far cry from the perennial contender Kyle Shanahan has built since.
Combining that streak with Monday night’s momentum will be paramount to the Cowboys’ success. Prescott stepped up in a massive way to outplay Tom Brady and batter the Buccaneers through four dominant quarters. San Francisco, with Brock Purdy behind center, brings a very different challenge — but one the player we saw in the Wild Card round can handle.
Unless he reverts back to the guy who threw multiple interceptions five times in 12 games during the regular season. If that’s the case, well, the debate about Dak Prescott will once again consume football physicists across the offseason.
