FRISCO, Texas — Re-watching the Dallas Cowboys’ final game of their 2022 season is an exercise in self-harm, or a refusal to do something more useful with your time.
As painful as the original viewing was, the second and third are worse. You can watch again that their playoff game in Santa Clara against the 49ers was theirs to be won, and their offense didn’t make enough plays to do it.
We are months removed from that Jan. 22 afternoon, and anger has made its annual morphosis into optimism.
The Cowboys made their offseason adjustments, namely head coach Mike McCarthy replaced offensive coordinator Kellen Moore with Brian Schottenheimer, and quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier with Scott Tolzien.
The main criticism from that season-ending loss to the 49ers in the NFC divisional round was quarterback Dak Prescott’s inability to “see it.”
“See it” is one of the casual, footbally-football terms that basically means what it sounds like: Can your favorite quarterback see what the defense is doing, and make the play when it’s there? Sounds easy enough.
Does Dak Prescott “see it”? The answer is a firm “Yesishnope.”
It is Dak’s responsibility not to just see it, but know what’s coming before it actually does, and then make the play.
“As coaches we have the advantage of re-winding things five times,” Tolzien said in an interview during the Cowboys’ mini-camp.
Not just coaches have this advantage. Fans and media, too.
“(Seeing it) doesn’t mean you know exactly who came, whether it was the strong safety or the nickel, but it’s the power of knowing that guy is coming,” Tolzien said. “It’s, ‘I felt it. I saw this guy out of the corner of my eye and he came I knew I was hot.’ Sure enough, you look at your iPad on the sideline and they saw it. There is an element of instincts involved, and some have better instincts than others.”
Peyton Manning had this down like few others.
The question of “Did you see it” could net four different responses on the same play.
Then you have the quarterback who sees it all properly, and trusts his arm, or receiver, so much he throws against conventional wisdom anyway, and it all works.
Brett Favre made a career at this.
“I’ve been around guys when they come off the field and you ask them, ‘What did you see there?’ They can’t tell you,” Tolzien said.
They can’t tell you because the game is too fast. They can’t tell you because they can’t digest it all. They can’t tell you because they’re too dumb.
“They say, ‘I’m pretty sure the nickel came there,’ and then you watch it and nobody came. He clearly didn’t see it,” Tolzien said.
Tolzien is adamant this is not Dak Prescott’s problem. (What’s he going to say?)
“We are lucky in that he really feels the game; he comes to the sidelines and says, ‘I felt color over there,’ ” Tolzien said. “He felt that defensive lineman, he just felt color, that orange Broncos jersey, and he knew to step up in the pocket. To the person sitting in the 400 level, they may not know what that means, on the sidelines you know he felt it and he saw color.”
The idea that Dak Prescott doesn’t “see it” at all, ever, is brain dead.
He has been a good quarterback in the NFL since 2016, and his success is not an accident.
In reviewing the Cowboys’ last three playoff losses, however, it’s apparent there are “see it” issues.
In their 2018 divisional round loss to the L.A. Rams, both he and his teammates were awful in the first half. The Cowboys needed the offense to keep up, and after a first-quarter touchdown throw to Amari Cooper, they were all bad.
In the 2021 wild-card loss to the 49ers, at AT&T Stadium, Dak’s biggest problem was timing. He didn’t have much.
The 49ers pass rush brought hell with only four defenders. If a defense can pressure a quarterback with four down linemen, your quarterback is not going to be able to see much of anything other than his own lifespan decreasing.
The primary reason Tom Brady’s undefeated New England Patriots lost the Super Bowl in the 2007 season against New York was the Giants' ability to pressure him with four men. Hard to see, or do, anything when a giant human being is in your face.
In the Cowboys’ 2022 divisional round loss to the 49ers, if Dak saw it, he was terrible.
Some of seeing it has to do with anticipation, and Dak had nothing good that day.
By the start of the second half he looked like he was a mile in his own head, and scarred by killer interceptions in the first half. He was waiting too long, to be perfect, and no longer trusted his instincts.
These are the games, and specific performances, that have defined Dak’s career as much as the regular-season success. He knows it, too.
This is a good NFL quarterback with an enviable resume.
The Cowboys are married to him, and it’s his responsibility, and task, to be better in these moments that are the unwanted dog on a leash attached to his belt.
Dak Prescott “sees it.” Most of the time.
It’s those times when he doesn’t have cost his team.
