What Happens to Dak Prescott in the Playoffs?
Written by Vir Rawal
2/10/24
After the Dallas Cowboys suffered another crushing loss in the playoffs against the Green Bay Packers, questions arose about every part of the Cowboys organization, starting with the ownership and head coach. Over the last 3 seasons, the Cowboys have boasted a strong regular season record going 12-5 each season, this season earning them the 2 seed in the NFC. However, we see that the Cowboys struggle in the playoffs, not making it past the divisional round. The loss against the Packers was especially crushing considering it is the first time a 7 seed has beaten a 2 seed in the first round of the playoffs. It also marks the end of a 16-game win streak for Dallas at home, coming at the worst time possible for them. The owner of the Cowboys, Jerry Jones, has been vying for a shot at the coveted Lombardi trophy for nearly 25 years. Jones has faced struggles with his team for a large part of the last 2 decades, not even making it to a championship game, while 2 teams in his division have won super bowls in the same time frame. It is clear that time is running out for Jones, and if he wants to win a super bowl now is the time to do it.
For many who have watched the Cowboys in the playoffs over the last few years, this loss against Green Bay was no surprise. The starting QB of the Dallas Cowboys, Dak Prescott, has earned a reputation of being unable to win in the playoffs. He has earned this reputation because his performance in the playoffs is uncharacteristic of what he does in the regular season. On the surface, Prescott’s performance against Green Bay appears to be serviceable, even impressive in some aspects, passing for 403 yards, 3 TDs, and 2 INTs with a completion percentage of 68.3. What these stats do not show however is that the game was completely out of reach for Dallas partly because of Prescott’s performance. In the 4th quarter with 8 minutes left the score was 48-16, at this point in the game Prescott passed for 239 yards going 29/44, throwing 2 INTs, one of which was a pick 6 giving the Packers another 7 points on the board, the other set up a scoring drive for Green Bay giving them great field position. The final stats for Dak in the game represent “Garbage Time” stats and do not give a fair representation for how he actually played. At that point with 8 minutes left in the game, both Green Bay and Dallas knew it was over and Green Bay started resting starters and playing more conservatively allowing Prescott to put up stats that did not affect the outcome of the game. For some people this was a shock as Prescott seemed to be playing the best football of his career during the regular season. When comparing Prescott’s stats over the last 7 years in the regular season we see that he has been fairly consistent throughout his career. We also can see that this was Prescott’s best year since his rookie year.
When looking at playoff stats over the same period of time, we see that Prescott boasts similar stats as his regular season stats, but looking specifically at passer rating we see a drop off nearly at 9 points. This means that based on the 5 variables of pass attempts, completions, passing yards, touchdown passes, and interceptions, Prescott is significantly worse than he is in the regular season. This is a telling sign of Prescott’s true playoff performance when ignoring such “Garbage Time” stats as we saw in the Packers game.
In his interactions with the media recently, Jerry Jones has made it clear that the Cowboys organization still believes in Prescott and that he will be the starting QB for the Cowboys next season. However if the Cowboys want to see a change in their playoff success, it seems to be imperative that something changes at the QB position. A trade for a different quarterback could be in the cards for the Cowboys during the offseason, or even giving Trey Lance, who the cowboys acquired in the last offseason, a true shot at the starting position.
