Dak Prescott keeps holding up his end for the Dallas Cowboys, even if the standings in Arlington don’t show it. Sports Illustrated’s Matt Verderame moved Prescott up one spot to No. 7 in his latest NFL quarterback rankings, with the Cowboys sitting at 2-3 after a 24-16 loss to Tampa Bay that dropped them in nearly every set of power rankings.
Verderame’s case for Prescott is built on volume. He has thrown for 1,381 yards and nine touchdown passes with three interceptions through five games, and he has topped 300 passing yards in each of the past two weeks with CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens on the outside. The problem, in Verderame’s words, is a defense that is about as stout as “paper in a monsoon.”
Prescott’s clock is ticking in Dallas
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That description is hard to argue with. Dallas ranks 31st in total defense at 395.4 yards allowed per game, is last against the run and is the only team in the league without an interception. Tampa Bay ran for 241 yards last Thursday, with Bucky Irving accounting for 165 yards and two touchdowns. The response was moving Christian Parker to the booth to call plays and adding Mike Pettine as a senior defensive assistant. Opponents also own a league-worst 120.5 passer rating against Dallas, which is a lot for any quarterback to outscore.
Prescott wasn’t spotless against the Buccaneers, either. He completed 24 of 42 passes for 316 yards with one touchdown pass and two interceptions, and his season-low 57.1% completion rate came with a late pick off Jake Ferguson’s hands that sealed it. He has also gone three straight games without multiple touchdown passes, even if his best moment Thursday was a 10-play, 99-yard drive capped by an 18-yard score to Pickens. Still, he’s on pace for roughly 4,700 yards, which would be the fifth 4,000-yard season of his career. At 33, Verderame noted, Prescott doesn’t have many more years to turn those numbers into January wins.
Prescott isn’t treating 2-3 as a crisis. “We control what we do, whether it’s offense, whether it’s defense,” he said, adding that it’s still early enough for Dallas to fix things. With the Giants leading a wide-open NFC East at 3-1-1, he has a point. The next test comes Sunday night at Lambeau Field against a Packers team that just beat the Bears 31-7, followed by a trip to Philadelphia on Oct. 26.
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