Two Years Later, Dak Prescott Has Problems

[Smitty]

Well going by Sturms numbers I posted above he's at least average in completions he just doest take the shots....why he won't is a better question

The Brett Kollman video sums it up nicely for me.

He misses things, he's not great at reading defenses, he has bad mechanics, etc.

 

[Texas Ace]

I still think he could be Alex Smith good, but it would take one helluva better coaching staff than our retards here

It wouldn't surprise me if he went on to be a solid starter if you put him under the tutelage of an Andy Reid type, but even if we hired the next QB guru, I wouldn't want the Cowboys to just leave it at that because this guy just may not have it.

So if they wanted to give him another shot under a great offensive mind, then I'm ok with that.......but only if they still make real attempts to address the position just in case.

Do not put all of your eggs in the Dak basket no matter what.

 

[jsmith6919]

It wouldn't surprise me if he went on to be a solid starter if you put him under the tutelage of an Andy Reid type, but even if we hired the next QB guru, I wouldn't want the Cowboys to just leave it at that because this guy just may not have it.

So if they wanted to give him another shot under a great offensive mind, then I'm ok with that.......but only if they still make real attempts to address the position just in case.

Do not put all of your eggs in the Dak basket no matter what.

I agree, and we know thats whats going to piss everyone of us here off. Dak will get the benefit of doubt, Garrett will get the benefit of doubt, and at most we'll get a new oc that's still calling plays from Garrett's playbook so we're right back where we started and the cycle will start again without removing the real culprits

 

[Simpleton]

It wouldn't surprise me if he went on to be a solid starter if you put him under the tutelage of an Andy Reid type, but even if we hired the next QB guru, I wouldn't want the Cowboys to just leave it at that because this guy just may not have it.

So if they wanted to give him another shot under a great offensive mind, then I'm ok with that.......but only if they still make real attempts to address the position just in case.

Do not put all of your eggs in the Dak basket no matter what.

Yea, this is why I want to see him for a year under a new staff just to see what it looks like. The fact that I'm not especially enamored with the 2019 QB's, while really liking the 2020 QB's is another big part of that, but either way I really want to see what he looks like with a different play-caller in a different system.

It may not work, and theoretically speaking if we were picking in the top 5-10 and there was a QB that I loved I would take him, but I don't think that's going to be the case so we might as well get a look at him in another system on the last year of his rookie deal.

 

[Texas Ace]

The problem that I have with giving Dak another year is that I am of the belief that he just doesn't have it.

It's not like he was a prolific passer at the collegiate level either. He wasn't throwing for 300 yards a game then, so there's no real evidence to suggest that this guy is going to become a legitimately good passer at the NFL level when he wasn't even that in college.

Even if they come from a small school like Romo, they have to show you that they could sling it. Prescott never ever displayed that at Miss St. because he has never been that type of QB.

I cannot recall a single "athlete" QB coming into the NFL and becoming a prolific passer, so wanting Dak to make that transition is asking a hell of a whole lot and it frankly isn't likely.

 

[boozeman]

Yea, this is why I want to see him for a year under a new staff just to see what it looks like. The fact that I'm not especially enamored with the 2019 QB's, while really liking the 2020 QB's is another big part of that, but either way I really want to see what he looks like with a different play-caller in a different system.

It may not work, and theoretically speaking if we were picking in the top 5-10 and there was a QB that I loved I would take him, but I don't think that's going to be the case so we might as well get a look at him in another system on the last year of his rookie deal.

I am now convinced he is a.limited gimmick player. Thought it about him when he was drafted. Now he is living up to my low expectations despite being put on a pedestal after a miracle rookie year.

 

[Simpleton]

The problem that I have with giving Dak another year is that I am of the belief that he just doesn't have it.

It's not like he was a prolific passer at the collegiate level either. He wasn't throwing for 300 yards a game then, so there's no real evidence to suggest that this guy is going to become a legitimately good passer at the NFL level when he wasn't even that in college.

Even if they come from a small school like Romo, they have to show you that they could sling it. Prescott never ever displayed that at Miss St. because he has never been that type of QB.

I cannot recall a single "athlete" QB coming into the NFL and becoming a prolific passer, so wanting Dak to make that transition is asking a hell of a whole lot and it frankly isn't likely.

His senior year at Miss St. he threw the ball nearly 500 times and averaged almost 9 YPA, equating him to a Tebow or something like that is definitely underselling him as a college passer. It doesn't really make a difference at this point but I wouldn't group him with guys like that.

At any rate, Prescott is clearly a problem but he's not the sole reason for the offense being such shit. He's enough of a problem that I'd look to replace him if given the opportunity, but it doesn't change the fact that you can't really point at a single player or aspect of the offense that is functioning at a high level right now.

I'd probably rank the issues like this:

1. Stale offensive design/philosophy

huge gap

2. Pass protection
3. Prescott (he makes the pass protection look worse at times also)
4. Lack of pass-catching talent
5. Elliott (he snapped out of his obligatory early season funk today but found some new, creative ways to fuck up)

2/3 could be flipped and 4 isn't far behind either.

 

[Smitty]

I don’t agree it’s anywhere close to that ranking. The Kollman video pretty much shows it’s not.

 

[Rev]

The Brett Kollman video sums it up nicely for me.

He misses things, he's not great at reading defenses, he has bad mechanics, etc.

What thread was that posted in? Didn't get a chance to watch it at the time.

 

[p1_]

 

[p1_]

What thread was that posted in? Didn't get a chance to watch it at the time.

found it.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I still can't believe he went from as good as he was his rookie year to this. I guess it was a combination of perfect conditions (great weapons + OL), defenses being unfamiliar with him, and pure luck.

But I think we've seen enough now to know this is what he is.

 

[Smitty]

found it.

Yeah, the first 5-6 minutes are spent on Linehan/Garrett's deficiencies and lack of creativity, and it's legitimately damning, but the remaining 12 minutes are on Prescott.

There's a reason Kollman concludes with a statement at 5:40 of the video, "Good quarterbacks have the power to make a wrong playcall right, and Dak Prescott was just not doing that." Play after play, Kollman shows that gains were there to be made within the playcall that was sent in, and Prescott just misses it. Kollman cites three touchdowns that Prescott could have engineered, simply by seeing the field better or making the right read.

As much as everyone wants to lay everything at Garrett and Linehan -- and they deserve a lot of criticism right now -- this is the NFL, and players DO have to execute.

Ranking Prescott's own struggles on some sort of flow chart as the fourth most problematic thing, is just wrong. It's as wrong as when people said Prescott was on par with Goff and Wentz. Not surprisingly, and I'm not trying to be mean, Simp, but it's coming from one of the same people who was saying that Prescott is on Goff's level, or close.

It's more apologism for Prescott from a poster who wants to be right that Prescott is just fine.

No, Prescott is bad right now, and has been for some time. His struggles are his own, and going to play with McVay isn't going to suddenly make Prescott a competent QB. Garrett and Linehan are not doing any favors, but the coaching problems aren't monumentally the larger share of the problem. If anything, Prescott's performance is the bigger problem. Prescott has a complete inability to be efficient or effective moving the ball downfield through the air.

Which is why calling yards per game passing "meaningless" is utter idiocy in this situation. Prescott misses huge chunks of yardage every game, and it's costing us points. Directly. Prescott's inability to find these plays is what is causing his ypg numbers to suffer, and thus, it's actually extraordinarily meaningful. Prescott needs to find 3-4 more of these chunk yardage plays per game. You know what the result would be? Oh, another 75-100 passing yards and another 10-17 points, probably, which would have us right on track.

 

[Smitty]

I still can't believe he went from as good as he was his rookie year to this. I guess it was a combination of perfect conditions (great weapons + OL), defenses being unfamiliar with him, and pure luck.

But I think we've seen enough now to know this is what he is.

It's 100% the book not being out on him. It's the Robert Griffin effect.

 

[Genghis Khan]

Yeah, the first 5-6 minutes are spent on Linehan/Garrett's deficiencies and lack of creativity, and it's legitimately damning, but the remaining 12 minutes are on Prescott.

There's a reason Kollman concludes with a statement at 5:40 of the video, "Good quarterbacks have the power to make a wrong playcall right, and Dak Prescott was just not doing that."

As much as everyone wants to lay everything at Garrett and Linehan -- and they deserve a lot of criticism right now -- this is the NFL, and players DO have to execute.

Ranking Prescott's own struggles on some sort of flow chart as the fourth most problematic thing, is just wrong. It's as wrong as when people said Prescott was on par with Goff and Wentz. Not surprisingly, and I'm not trying to be mean, Simp, but it's coming from one of the same people who was saying that Prescott is on Goff's level, or close.

It's more apologism for Prescott from a poster who wants to be right that Prescott is just fine.

No, Prescott is bad right now, and has been for some time. His struggles are his own, and going to play with McVay isn't going to suddenly make Prescott a competent QB. Garrett and Linehan are not doing any favors, but the coaching problems aren't monumentally the larger share of the problem. If anything, Prescott's performance is the bigger problem.

Yep.

 

[Simpleton]

I don’t agree it’s anywhere close to that ranking. The Kollman video pretty much shows it’s not.

I've already seen it, he spends about 70% of the video complaining that Dak doesn't check out of plays based on the defenses like Romo did, which honestly only strengthens the belief that many of us have had for years that the offensive design has always been pretty shit and that Romo was really the one running things.

Dak has not been anywhere near good enough, that much is obvious, but to expect him to adjust plays like a 12th year Romo, who was by all accounts one of the brightest QB's in the league to boot, is ridiculous. Dak deserves plenty of blame for it but to me its more an indictment of the coaches, and its probably because they grew lazy just relying on Romo to clean up their mess.

You realize that all last season (and maybe still this season) McVay was literally in Goff's headset while he was at the LOS helping him read the defensive alignments and adjust plays, right?

Do you think Linehan, or Garrett in particular, could ever do that or even considered it? They are literally incapable of it I'm pretty sure.

Dak has been dreadful, obviously, but there is nothing that will convince me that the number one issue is the offensive design.

One thing I did find very interesting is that play he missed to Beasley while rolling out to his right for what the guy called "a sure 90 yard TD", which is a bit of an exaggeration. But what I found so interesting is that play is almost a carbon copy of the two bombs he threw to Butler in Arizona last year, rolling out to the right and finding Butler downfield along the right sideline. This time he either didn't see it or was afraid to throw it.

That's the sign of a broken QB to me, and while Dak deserves plenty of the personal blame for that obviously, I also put that on the coaching staff whether it's because they haven't been able to help him break out of it or because it was their fault in breaking him in the first place last year with the laughable lack of adjustments while Tyron was out and Dak was getting killed.

Which brings me to the pass protection. In the two losses they've given up 11 sacks, that's 5.5 a game, or 88 prorated over 16 games. That's all-time bad, and while Dak deserves blame for that too for holding the ball too long or not maneuvering in the pocket well enough, it's also on the OL as a group. That dude broke down about 7 plays in his video and on several of them there was pressure on Dak within 3 seconds.

Basically, it's all bad. Nothing will convince me the number 1 problem isn't the coaches/offensive design, you could put Dak after that and I wouldn't argue but it doesn't take away from the fact that the offense is a complete mess in every regard and its definitely not just Dak.

 

[bbgun]

Dak has been dreadful, obviously, but there is nothing that will convince me that the number one issue is the offensive design.

 

[Simpleton]

Yeah, the first 5-6 minutes are spent on Linehan/Garrett's deficiencies and lack of creativity, and it's legitimately damning, but the remaining 12 minutes are on Prescott.

There's a reason Kollman concludes with a statement at 5:40 of the video, "Good quarterbacks have the power to make a wrong playcall right, and Dak Prescott was just not doing that."

As much as everyone wants to lay everything at Garrett and Linehan -- and they deserve a lot of criticism right now -- this is the NFL, and players DO have to execute.

Ranking Prescott's own struggles on some sort of flow chart as the fourth most problematic thing, is just wrong. It's as wrong as when people said Prescott was on par with Goff and Wentz. Not surprisingly, and I'm not trying to be mean, Simp, but it's coming from one of the same people who was saying that Prescott is on Goff's level, or close.

It's more apologism for Prescott from a poster who wants to be right that Prescott is just fine.

No, Prescott is bad right now, and has been for some time. His struggles are his own, and going to play with McVay isn't going to suddenly make Prescott a competent QB. Garrett and Linehan are not doing any favors, but the coaching problems aren't monumentally the larger share of the problem. If anything, Prescott's performance is the bigger problem.

I don't think I've said Prescott has been just fine since the regular season started and even after they won last week I said I was really starting to question him based on that missed throw to Gathers in the end zone and the near pick to Beasley in the 4th. On top of that I've said I'd draft a QB in the top 5-10 if a guy I liked was there.

I want to see Dak with a different coaching staff next while he's cheap before giving up on him, especially if the options in the draft are Trubisky types, but if we are sitting at 4 this year and have an opportunity to trade up for Haskins I'd do it without thinking.

Everything about the offense is terrible except for the running game and at this point its just a matter of arguing over the extent to which certain people or units are terrible. With that said, at the end of the day, nothing will convince me that the offensive design/Garrett/Linehan aren't the most egregious problem.

 

[Simpleton]

Isn't, fun with double negatives.

 

[Smitty]

I've already seen it, he spends about 70% of the video complaining that Dak doesn't check out of plays based on the defenses like Romo did, which honestly only strengthens the belief that many of us have had for years that the offensive design has always been pretty shit and that Romo was really the one running things.

Apparently you didn't watch it closely. He says this ability to check out of plays is basically commonplace around the NFL, which, if you stop and think for two seconds about what you were saying, you would realize.

The entire benefit to something like an RPO, which we all have been clamoring for more of, is to call something that the defense has to react to, and then the QB has to select the right option once the ball is snapped.

The "kill kill kill" mechanic that Kollman is referring to, is the same concept. Which yes, Romo did a lot of that, but it does not mean that the original playcall was bad. It means that a play is called, but without the foresight of what look the defense will present, and it's up to the QB to choose the right response, just like an RPO.

Look at the Beasley swap to the out left on the "sail" play design. Beasley makes the right adjustment that would have picked up a first down. The play, as called, of course, will not work against the defense, but that's the entire reason why Beasley is empowered to change his route. Prescott, on the other hand, even acknowledges that Beasley has changed his route, but fails to recognize once the ball is snapped that the quick out to Beasley is the correct read.

It continues to happen again and again later. Plays were the play actually works as designed, and Prescott misses it.

Kollman definitely identifies the playcaller's flaws here, but saying that Prescott isn't "saving Linehan" by calling audibles is missing the forest for the trees. In a modern NFL offense, killing and adjusting at the line of scrimmage is a way of life, and Prescott isn't doing it effectively.

These struggles are NO WORSE than equally to blame. I suspect they are more to blame, frankly.

Dak has not been anywhere near good enough, that much is obvious, but to expect him to adjust plays like a 12th year Romo, who was by all accounts one of the brightest QB's in the league to boot, is ridiculous. Dak deserves plenty of blame for it but to me its more an indictment of the coaches, and its probably because they grew lazy just relying on Romo to clean up their mess.

Well, the Kollman analysis does not support that conclusion. Dak, as he points out, is a third year pro. He is missing things that no competent QB should be missing. He's not missing things that only grizzled 12 year veterans see. If that were the case, you'd have an argument that Romo's unique insight was bailing us out, but that's not what Kollman says. He says a third year QB should be able to see these things, and he's not.

Dak has been dreadful, obviously, but there is nothing that will convince me that the number one issue is the offensive design.

Well, my larger point is, the flow chart ranking is not accurate when you have Dak's play all the way down at the bottom of the list. The offensive design is plenty bad right now.

But Dak's performance is right there with it. He couldn't execute anything right now, certainly not MORE COMPLEX systems. I mean, come on. We are giving Prescott easy, simple stuff and he's missing it. You think the answer is more complicated stuff? How does that make sense? Prescott is missing the simple stuff, he's not gonna master the more complex stuff of a McVay. If anything, Prescott needs to have playcalls tailored to the simple things he's shown he's mastered.