The Dallas Cowboys‘ offense was the toast of the town the first few weeks of the season. The Kellen Moore-led unit was a far cry from what we saw last season under Scott Linehan — all in a good way. It looked like, dare I say, a modern offense.
However, last Sunday night, on the game’s biggest stage, with the Cowboys ready to grab the NFC by the horns, it all fell apart. Ten measly points and an L later, and we’re back to the multi-million dollar question(s): should the Cowboys pay Dak Prescott, and if so, how much?
To answer that we need to start off with the fact that heading into the season, Prescott’s grading profile did nothing to suggest he was worth any sort of market setting deal. He ranked 17th in passing grade among starters in 2018, 21st in 2017 and ninth in 2016. Every single one of those seasons he was outgraded by Kirk Cousins, and you can feel free to ask any Vikings fan how much they enjoyed wrecking their cap to sign him. In short, we’d need to see a marked step forward in Prescott’s performance this season to answer yes to the question above.
From a scouting perspective, the two biggest knocks on Prescott over the course of his career have been his tendency to hold onto the ball, taking sacks and downfield accuracy. Improvement in one or both of those aspects could be the key to justifying a big money deal. With what would be a career high 82.2 passing grade so far, let’s dig into the data to see if Prescott really is a changed man, or if it’s simply a product of facing the three defenses with bottom-10 coverage grades the first three weeks.
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