Dak Prescott continues to impress in win over another divisional rival

The Dallas Cowboys’ season opened flawlessly behind brilliance from Dak Prescott. Could he keep it up against another divisional foe and an arch-nemesis?

The Dallas Cowboys entered the season with great expectations based on the personnel and talent they had returning combined with what they were able to show last year. After seeing their performance in the season opener against the New York Giants, it seemed as though these expectations were warranted, although the Giants were seen as a somewhat easy opponent and target. Led by Dak Prescott, the Cowboys finally looked as though they would meet or surpass the hype surrounding them in the offseason for a change.

Speaking of Dak Prescott and after getting off to what some measures considered to be a perfect start, while also considering that some saw his season-opening stat line and performance as flukish or the one-off in a sample of mediocre game managerial type performances, Sunday’s game against the Washington Redskins would prove to be a test of validity. Needless to say, Prescott didn’t disappoint and what makes it that much sweeter is the fact that it was against a divisional foe and long-time Cowboy rival in the Redskins.

The game started off shaky for this Cowboys team. They were marred by drops to start the day, as they were the victims of several sets of shaky hands early on.

Amari Cooper dropped a pass early in the game. Although the defender came in late and appeared to get his hands through Cooper’s hands to disrupt the catch, if Coop were actually going to catch the pass in the first place, the grab would have occurred slightly earlier than the defender getting his hands through. However, because Cooper wasn’t going to make the catch anyways, it seems as though the defender had a greater impact on the play than he did when in all actuality it was just a drop on Amari’s behalf.

Randall Cobb was also a culprit in the game of dropsies that the Cowboys were obviously playing early. Not only did he have the drop, which came in the form of a tipped pass, but that eventually turned into what would be Prescott’s lone interception on the day. That particular pass should have been caught as well, as although the ball was slightly behind the receiver, he did get both mitts on the ball before it tipped and Prescott threw it on the move after shaking off a defender.

That wasn’t the last of the bungled connection between Prescott and his receivers early on in the game though. This next instance is the only one of the three mentionable ones that can really be seen as being at least half the fault of Dak Prescott.

The pass in question is the deep ball to Michael Gallup in the first half. It could have been a better ball from Prescott to Gallup, which is fully admittable, but it was half Gallup’s fault as well on that incompletion. Gallup failed to make what should have been a basic adjustment for an NFL wideout considering the space he had on the defender and the depth of the pass itself, in essence, to say that he had a ton of room and freedom to search and readjust to the trajectory of the pass.

Even with all of the blunders mentioned above though, Prescott and the rest of his team had a really good game. Dak had a firm grasp on things, with a resounding command and control of both the game and his offense. He exerted his will with both his arm and legs as he also had a marvelous rushing day on Sunday.

With his arm, Prescott completed 26 of 30 passes, going a perfect 14 for 14 in the second half. With his legs, he rushed five times for 69 yards, with a game-long 42-yard run included in that number. His day consisted of a combined 338 yards rushing and passing, with three touchdowns and an interception.

Not only did he follow up a superb opening day performance with another huge day on Sunday, but he did so while sharing more of the touches with Ezekiel Elliott, who received almost double the number of carries this week than he did last week. All in all, Dak passed his latest test and it appears that it wasn’t a fluke to open the season, this is the Dak Prescott we should be seeing from here on out.

That should be quite a welcomed sight to Cowboy fans, almost as welcoming as the lowly Miami Dolphins look walking into Jerry World next week. *Rubs hands together diabolically before screaming, “HOW BOUT THEM COWBOYS!!”