A certain quarterback for a first place team in the NFL has faced absurd levels of shade through the first six weeks of his young career. This would be none other than Cowboys’ rookie Dak Prescott.
And then there is Tony Romo. While Romo slowly works his way back into playing shape, Dak Prescott is thriving against all odds – the fourth round draft pick has taken the NFL by storm.
With Dak setting rookie records, and leading the Cowboys to a 5-1 record, Cowboys Nation has learned that the criticism that’s faced Romo his entire career carries over to any Dallas starting quarterback.
In a way it makes Prescott even more special for Cowboys fans, seeing how he has already handled and shaken off any doubters. From within The Star, Prescott has plenty of supporters, including former players like Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman.
To get to this point, Prescott faced recent tests against the Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers, both of which he passed with flying colors.
Dating back to Week 3 though, national media members like Colin Cowherd – who has bashed Dak all along – practically guaranteed that the rookie would lose these two games, along with the game in San Francisco that saw Prescott battle back from a 14-0 deficit.
Will Prescott Ever Earn Respect?
Young quarterbacks that take the league by storm typically become budding superstars in the National Football League, but I already seriously doubt if Prescott will get this opportunity.
Everybody that follows football enjoyed the misery of the Cowboys 4-12 season just a year ago (besides us of course). These same people proceeded to have to diminish our excitement – or die trying to – when it came to Prescott providing hope for a life-after-Romo when he emerged this preseason.
Now that Dak Prescott is this efficient starter in his first year with the Cowboys, haters of America’s Team look as stupid as always. Even still, Prescott deserves even more credit for not letting any of this get to him, even rising to the occasion more when others expected him to fail.
The Dallas Cowboys are a young team with an immensely bright future. The world may never accept this, but Dak Prescott already has – that is all we need.
How Six Games Have Overshadowed a Decade of Work
Prescott has been so good, that he has a large percentage of fans ready to charge full speed ahead into the Dak era with this team. Amazingly, Romo’s lengthy body of work has been almost forgotten thanks to the energizing play of Prescott.
While I am a self-proclaimed captain of “Team Romo”, it very well may be recency bias that has allowed some fans to accept potentially never seeing Tony lead the Dallas Cowboys again.
Regardless of if he does or not, Dak Prescott is here to stay, embracing the situation he has been put into with the Cowboys – one of unfamiliarity. Prescott found himself in an unfamiliar situation as the quarterback of the #1 college team in the nation for some time at Mississippi State.
Now, he is the present and future of the Cowboys, making this writer confident enough to make this statement after six incredible performances. Will anyone else ever stop questioning this kid, and will it ever really matter?
Used to party in your town, back in the late 80s.
Did Romo get credit for 2014? Nope, OL did, is Zeke ballin’? Yep, but anybody can run behind that OL..Randle did, heck McFadden got a grand behind it. He throws to WittenBeasley alot< so he's a checkdown QB. Throws multi TDs in GB, didn't let 49ers game shake him, played well against the division so far.
Until he does a Romo and pulls a win out of his cloecka, he won't get the credit he deserves because he plays a team game. Romo made WRs-TEs better, he made a bad OL better, Romodini was never out of it…3yrs of 8-8 could have been 4-12 Romo won a few on his back alone, Dak actually fell into the Mach5 that was built for Romo.
Same accolades Romo got in 2014, OL gave him bull-riders time, Murray smashed the league in yards and YBC, well golly Randle avg. 5ypc and washed up McFadden had a grand in 9 games, “my daughter can run thru those holes” ie.Pacman Jones
So no unless he pulls a Romodini or just puts a few games on his back, he’ll be a part of a team effort.
You’d think the 49ers game gave a glimpse of this kids “IT” factor, he dominated GB in GB, his interception I’ve seen a few times with RomoWitten, this or that patterns have that effect on QBs. LB sat on the out, had he thrown inside it was pitch and catch, Romo has seen that adjustment a hundred times on the fly, set up early and progression back to it, he could have just kept it since the LB was spying on him, he had him once he took his eyes off Witten, he didn’t let the play develop, Witten usually pivots back behind once the LB keys QB roll, puts 82 well behind the LB for a easy pass or Dak can break down the LB on the run.
Hey Eric, thank you for reading and commenting! Very happy to hear that Point Pleasant was still fun in the 80s haha. Everything you said here is spot on. The good thing is that Garrett thrives off of this “team effort” thing, and Dak has embraced it incredibly well too (as you read). He’s going to be a good player here for a long time.