The Landry Hat
Fansided

Dallas Cowboys: Predicting a comeback for Dak Prescott in 2018

By Christian Blood

ARLINGTON, TX - NOVEMBER 19: Dak Prescott #4 of the Dallas Cowboys warms up before the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium on November 19, 2017 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
ARLINGTON, TX - NOVEMBER 19: Dak Prescott #4 of the Dallas Cowboys warms up before the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium on November 19, 2017 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 4
Next
IRVING, TX – SEPTEMBER 9: Quarterback Tony Romo #9 of the Dallas Cowboys gets sacked by Barry Cofield #96 of the New York Giants during the NFL game on September 9, 2007 at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. (Photo by Layne Murdoch/Getty Images).
IRVING, TX – SEPTEMBER 9: Quarterback Tony Romo #9 of the Dallas Cowboys gets sacked by Barry Cofield #96 of the New York Giants during the NFL game on September 9, 2007 at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. (Photo by Layne Murdoch/Getty Images). /

You know what happened from there – one-and-done following a divisional round loss to a wild card New York Giants team that would go on to beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. It was arguably the biggest upset in the history of professional football’s championship game and especially disappointing for Cowboys fans because Dallas had swept the Giants during the regular season.

In fact, the G-Men proved that the NFL had reached the point where the best team in the league would often not win a championship in a given year. At this point, the winner of the Super Bowl might be the team that was likely just the healthiest and sometimes luckiest.

Following the bitter end to ’07, expectations were sky-high for the Cowboys in 2008 with a still-young Romo seeming to already be in his prime. The roster looked like it had been strengthened with additions like Adam ‘Pac-Man’ Jones and Terry ‘Tank’ Johnson and also two first-round draft picks in the ’08 NFL Draft. It would be the final season at Texas Stadium and a trip to Super Bowl XXLIII seemed as likely as the sunrise.

Well, a 44-6 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in a Week 17 ‘win-and-you’re-in” scenario secured a highly disappointing 9-7 record that eliminated the Dallas Cowboys from the postseason.

Sound kind of familiar?

Not that Romo was to blame for the setback, but saw the same kind of ‘regression’ from Romo in ’08 that we saw in Prescott in ’17.

Romo threw 36 touchdown passes to 19 interceptions in ’07, although a five interception victory over the Bills that year really padded the total turnovers the undrafted quarterback was charged with. Romo threw for a staggering 4,211 yards and had a total quarterback rating of 78.6.

In ’08, Romo threw just 26 touchdown passes and 14 interceptions to go along with a total quarterback rating of 56.3. His 3,448 yards were still impressive, but the efficiency simply wasn’t there in the 13 games in which he played.

In other words, the team surrounding Romo wasn’t as good, period.

Dak Prescott had a tremendous rookie season in ’16 that came out of nowhere. Along with fellow-rookie Ezekiel Elliott exploding out of the backfield, Prescott engineered the same type of season that Romo did during his first full season under center, although Prescott didn’t show nearly the gunslinger style of passing that Romo did.

Prescott threw a solid 23 touchdown passes to a ridiculously low four interceptions in leading the Cowboys to a 13-3 record and the top seed in the NFC playoffs. Just like Romo, Prescott wasn’t able to win at home in the divisional round against the Green Bay Packers.

Many feel that the Dallas defense was the real let down in that game, which it certainly was early on, but in football the quarterback generally shoulders too much blame for losses while getting too much credit for victories. For that season, Prescott threw for 3,667 yards with a total quarterback rating of 78.8.

Home/Cowboys News