MMQB - Dallas Draft: Looking Back

Jiggyfly

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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/11/23/dallas-cowboys-draft-nfl-ezekiel-elliott-dak-prescott

Dak Prescott, No. 135, Round 4

For 69 minutes and at least 19 phone calls, COO Stephen Jones, who’d been all-in on the Elliott pick, worked to try to move from high in the second round to somewhere in the first round. He wanted to enable Dallas to choose the quarterback they loved in this draft: Paxton Lynch of Memphis. At one point around pick No. 20 in the first round, Jerry Jones debated with Garrett the wisdom of trading second- and third-round picks instead of the current second- and fourth-rounders they currently had on the table with several teams to try to trade up in order to get a choice to use for Lynch. “The question is, can we really afford to lose two good players—good players—and take a guy as a hedge for the future? I think I’d rather give this two and three and have Lynch … or have [Mississippi State quarterback] Dak [Prescott] in the fourth.”

That was classic Jones hedging his bets. But they decided as a group to not give the three, and they lost Lynch to Denver. There was a pall over the room when the Denver trade-up to get Lynch was announced. But here’s what lots of people don’t know: On day three of the draft, at the start of the fourth round, Cleveland had the first two—99 and 100 overall. Dallas had 101. The Cowboys favored Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook marginally over Prescott. Cleveland wasn’t going to take a quarterback, having just picked USC passer Cody Kessler near the end of round three. So the Cowboys offered Cleveland next year’s sixth-round pick to move up from 101 to 100. The Browns said no. Then the Cowboys offered this year’s sixth-round pick. The Browns said no. Cleveland took picks 114 and 154 from Oakland, and the Raiders jumped Dallas and picked Cook. Dallas people were shocked. Why Oakland? Oakland had a star quarterback of the future, Derek Carr; this made no sense. But there was nothing they could do.
 

Cotton

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And, I'm so glad they did.
 

lostxn

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Aside from Wentz, no other QB was as ready to play day one as Dak. Damn we are lucky...
 

data

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But to have a Cook 'feed' Zeke would've been pun too much for Boberts to to resist a return.
 

Smitty

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Jones wanted Lynch, Garrett wanted Prescott more, interesting. I was with Jones.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Aside from Wentz, no other QB was as ready to play day one as Dak. Damn we are lucky...
I've said it before the two things that surprise me most about Dak are his accuracy and how NFL ready he was. I know he misses the mark sometimes but damn when he is on the run that guy can throw strikes. That throw to Dez to set us up near the goal line was a perfect example. Dak was running outside the pocket and threw the ball perfectly so an outstretch Bryant was the only one who could catch it.

And then obviously the NFL ready thing is something none of us saw. I mean the offense they run at Mississippi State gave me now indication that it would translate this well to the NFL. I know Dak has said it prepared him but it basically looked like Tim Tebow's offense half the time.
 

Smitty

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Maybe I'm missing it, but where did you see that?
Article says Jones was debating Garrett whether to get Lynch now by giving up the picks or wait to go after Prescott in the fourth. Implying Jerry wanted the former approach whereas Jason wanted the latter.
 

midswat

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But then we tried to trade up for Cook in the fourth, and when that failed we passed on Prescott altogether and didn't take him until he fell to us with the final pick in the fourth. So these guys can't spin it that we were targeting Dak in the fourth all along.
 

Genghis Khan

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http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2672393-why-everyone-missed-on-dak-prescott


The fear many shared was it would take time for Prescott to transition to the pro game. "The biggest thing with these quarterbacks for us is, Can he change and adapt quickly?" a longtime college scouting director said. "We had questions about it with him."

Cowboys offensive coordinator Scott Linehan did, too. But he saw enough potential in Prescott to believe that even if he took time, he would be worth the wait. According to Jones, Linehan was "on the table" for the Cowboys to draft Prescott. Linehan had him rated with the top quarterbacks in the draft, Wentz and Goff, and he pushed for the team to rate him higher than it did.

Linehan studied the Mississippi State offense as well as the quarterback. His impression was that Prescott was making more whole-field reads than most spread quarterbacks. But he knew three elements would be transitional for him: Playing under center, running a huddle and learning/making more expansive play calls.

Prescott said he went from four words to describe a play in college to eight words in the NFL. He scored an impressive 25 on the Wonderlic test, but that wasn't a reliable predictor of how he would understand and process football concepts.

Jason Garrett's boyish good looks and Princeton diploma can be deceiving. He spent 16 years as a professional backup quarterback and is in his 12th year as an NFL coach. He has answered to Jimmy Johnson, Sean Payton, Jon Gruden and Nick Saban. At 50, the head coach of the Cowboys has an edge to him.

Garrett wanted to see how much Prescott could handle when the Cowboys brought him to their old facility in Irving, Texas, eight days before the draft. Prescott was led into the offensive staff room, where Garrett, Linehan, quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson, wide receivers coach Derek Dooley and assistant head coach/special teams coach Rich Bisaccia were ready.

Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Garrett took a marker and went to the grease board. In an installation that took about 10 minutes, he drew four vertical concepts three different ways and against two coverages—single safety high and two safeties high. Then he took an eraser and wiped his plays off the board.

"Now," he told Prescott, "Get up and draw the formation, call the play and put the defense up there. Then tell me what you do in different scenarios."

Prescott took the marker, calmly drew the plays as Garrett had drawn them and answered questions about defensive adjustments.

Prescott had this.

"I'm fortunate I have good visual recall," Prescott said. "If we are drawing it out, I can give it back to you two days from now. I could see it in my head."

Garrett wasn't done, though. He erased what Prescott had drawn and took the marker again.

He started with another installation, with two concepts and two protections. On one of them, he drew the No. 3 receiver running a vertical route through a defender.

When it was Prescott's turn to draw the same play, he drew the receiver "staircasing," or going around the defender, because that's the way he always drew it.

Garrett didn't like that. Or he acted as if he didn't like that.

"I don't think that's the way I drew it," he barked.

So Prescott erased the route and had the receiver going around the defender a different way.

Garrett turned to the other coaches in the room. "Does that look like what I drew?" he asked. They all shook their heads no.

"That's the only time I got nervous," Prescott said. "What the hell? I'm almost shaking."

Prescott drew it a third time, again with the receiver avoiding the defender.

Garrett shot a dagger at him.

"I know this is where he goes," Prescott said to Garrett.

Garrett stood up, took the marker, erased the route and drew it himself again, with the receiver running through the defender.

They all chuckled. Prescott had passed the test.

Wentz, Goff, Lynch, Cook, Brissett and Hackenberg also visited the Cowboys and went through similar drills. Prescott, the coaches agreed, was more composed than any of them.

"There was a perception about him because of the offense he came from," Garrett said. "We never felt there was anything negative about it. In fact, we thought it was a positive, because you could see him make NFL throws."
 

Smitty

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But then we tried to trade up for Cook in the fourth, and when that failed we passed on Prescott altogether and didn't take him until he fell to us with the final pick in the fourth. So these guys can't spin it that we were targeting Dak in the fourth all along.
Sure, I take it more like they were using Dak as an example of a fourth round QB to target. Not like they knew they were gonna get an instant starter in the fourth.

But give credit where credit is due, clearly they did identify him as a guy worth drafting.
 

L.T. Fan

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But then we tried to trade up for Cook in the fourth, and when that failed we passed on Prescott altogether and didn't take him until he fell to us with the final pick in the fourth. So these guys can't spin it that we were targeting Dak in the fourth all along.
That's right. Prescott was the last piece of dessert left on the table in the fourth so he was a default selection. To my knowledge he wasn't in the mix until he was all that was left. Fate touched the Cowboys organization and gave them a plumb.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Sure, I take it more like they were using Dak as an example of a fourth round QB to target. Not like they knew they were gonna get an instant starter in the fourth.

But give credit where credit is due, clearly they did identify him as a guy worth drafting.
It's sort of like the Pats with Brady in the sixth. They were smart enough to get an absolute steal where no one else did. So you have to give them credit for that. But at the same time the Patriots missed the scouting on Brady too otherwise they would have taken him much higher in the draft.

Same thing with the Cowboys and Prescott. They obviously really liked him throughout the process. But if they had any idea he would be this good they wouldn't have even thought about another QB. I was just as bummed out as Jerry when we missed on Lynch but what impressed me most was the recognition that we absolutely needed a QB given Romo.
 

BipolarFuk

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I can't believe we drafted a guy with a broken back before Dak.

Oh, we missed out on Cook........Prescott?.....Nah.....Let's get Tapper.
 

junk

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Article says Jones was debating Garrett whether to get Lynch now by giving up the picks or wait to go after Prescott in the fourth. Implying Jerry wanted the former approach whereas Jason wanted the latter.
OK. I think the blurb is poorly written or maybe it is just standard Jerry speak, which is terrible, because that didn't come across clearly to me. It implied they debated, but I didn't see anything saying Garrett was a strong proponent of Dak, just that he (and the room apparently) were against giving up a 2 and a 3 for Lynch.

Either way, glad it has worked out the way that it has. Sometimes a franchise needs a run of luck and they've certainly had that with Dak as well as essentially getting "stuck" with Zack Martin once all the guys they wanted were gone, they couldn't trade down and they talked Jerry out of Manziel.
 

Genghis Khan

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Sounds to me like it was Linehan fighting for Dak the most, and even pushed for him to be rated up with Goff and Wentz.
 

Jiggyfly

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Who was driving force that brought Dak Prescott to Cowboys and why did it take so long?

Yahoo Sports US Charles Robinson
NFL columnist
Yahoo Sports US Nov 28, 2016, 7:39 PM

Seven months later, there is still some dispute about why so many NFL teams missed on Dak Prescott. Surveying general managers, coaches and personnel evaluators delivers a wide swath of answers. From the obvious – like Prescott’s DUI charge before the draft – to the less discernable, like teams overestimating the Mississippi State talent surrounding Prescott.

Even with the Dallas Cowboys – who took four rounds and a scuttled trade effort to make the right call – there is a lack of clarity concerning where exactly Prescott fit into the draft plans. One team source told Yahoo Sports four quarterbacks drew a better collective grade from the organization – Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Paxton Lynch and Connor Cook. But another says that six quarterbacks were higher than Prescott on the Dallas draft board – the aforementioned quartet, plus Jacoby Brissett and Jeff Driskel.

So before team owner Jerry Jones can deliver a wink and tell it differently, it’s worth shining a light on how everyone else got this wrong before Dallas finally got it right.


“It was a coaching staff pick,” one Cowboys source said. “[The personnel staff] can be honest about that. If anyone is most responsible for him being taken, the coaches liked him maybe a little more than the scouts did. [The scouts] thought they already had a Dak on the roster in Jameill Showers.”

It turns out, much to the Cowboys’ delight and surprise, they didn’t have a Dak on the roster. And that they do now has been a well-chronicled bit of good fortune. But it wasn’t all luck. It turns out Dallas did far more homework on Prescott than any other team in the NFL draft. And that’s ultimately why the Cowboys eventually made the selection that everyone else missed.

“Of all the players I’ve coached in my entire career, the Cowboys inquired with me personally more about Dak than any team – and more than any player ever,” Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen said. “I talked to the position coach. I talked to the coordinator. I talked to the head coach.”

So how did Dak Prescott end up falling to the fourth round, and how exactly did Dallas end up making the pick that others didn’t? After talking to Mullen and more than a dozen coaching, scouting and executive sources, here were the most interesting tidbits involving the many ups and downs of Dak …

Prescott on the field

The overriding thread about Prescott that might have hurt him most was the Mississippi State offense. Unless a quarterback is elite in several areas, the spread offense and lack of huddle time becomes an instant downward pressure on prospects. Conversely, proficient pro-style quarterbacks get lifted in evaluations. Prescott versus Cook of Michigan State was a prime example of this.

Just from the translation of tape standpoint, it was universal that Cook’s evaluation became what he likely could do on the field in the NFL vs. what Prescott might not be able to do. One scout even related a story about sitting in a press box watching Prescott in college and having a Tim Tebow debate with another evaluator – despite Prescott’s game being tangibly different than Tebow’s.

“It’s really on the top shelf of every report,” an evaluator said of Prescott running a no-huddle spread offense. “For us, the way we break guys down, you get past the measurable things – does he have the size for we’re looking for and things like that – and it’s right into, ‘What offense is he running and what can we translate easily?’ If the answer is, ‘It looks nothing like what we do,’ then that is a project player and the conversation goes into that direction, which at quarterback is not a good direction.”

A number of evaluators provided a wide array of things they might have underestimated about Prescott. Three reasons resonated:

• Several scouts said that it wasn’t until they viewed this year’s Mississippi State draft class (which is very shallow) that they realized Prescott likely wasn’t given enough credit for elevating parts of the program. Some scouts didn’t realize there was far less NFL talent surrounding Prescott than they initially believed. And knowing that last year might have raised his profile.

• Several evaluators said Prescott’s ability to retain new information and adapt himself to an NFL system is hard to accurately measure based on a handful of workouts. Basically, a player can display this kind of thing on a whiteboard or in classroom sessions, but a team may never fully know the depth of this until a player is in its system. Mullen said the Cowboys likely had a better handle on this than most, but even Dallas couldn’t have known that Prescott would translate so well, and so quickly, to a full-fledged pro-style offense.


• Across the board, sources who saw Prescott said he had solid workouts but didn’t blow away onlookers. Interestingly, this appeared to be something that carried over after the draft. As one Cowboys source noted, Prescott had bright moments in offseason camps and the OTAs, but it wasn’t until he started playing in games that he began to take large strides. Even Mullen admitted that workouts weren’t Prescott’s strengths. The same Mullen who went as far as to tell a Dallas scout that Prescott was worthy of being the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

“He’s never going to have the strongest arm,” Mullen said. “As I’ve told people when he went to the draft, I’m sure if you go to a pro workout, there are guys that are going to look better within that workout. I don’t know if you put 10 other guys on offense and 11 out there on defense against him, there’s going to be anybody better. But there [are] guys if you go put them in shorts and have them throw routes, their release might look prettier. Their arm might look stronger. But as far as managing the game and doing what you need to do to win games as a quarterback, I don’t know if you’ll find somebody better.

“He won at Mississippi State. He led us to No. 1 and that’s never happened in 118 years before. He knows how to win.”

Prescott off the field

A handful of personnel evaluators said they were aware of the video that came out when Prescott was jumped while on spring break in March of 2015. In it, Prescott appears to stumble to his feet in a parking lot after a group of men kicked him in the head and hit him in the face with a bottle. While Prescott and his teammates appeared to be the victims in the attack, it was the kind of thing that raised concerns and made its way into the character portions of scouting reports.

That video also caused at least some teams to do more advanced homework on Prescott’s social life at Mississippi State, including how often he was in campus bars, whether he was typically a handful when he was out at night and whether there were other fights or incidents in Starkville that never made it into the public eye. At the end of their work, some teams walked away believing Prescott’s social life was lively enough that his spring break run-in, even if it wasn’t his fault, was an example of him occasionally opening himself up to problems. That evaluation was further accentuated when Prescott was arrested for DUI and speeding in March, less than two months before the draft. Prescott was ultimately found not guilty in the case, but in some minds, the incidents cemented negative outlooks. One NFC executive joked that if a college quarterback is on TMZ more than once for something negative, he gets moved to an ancillary “high risk” draft board – and Prescott was on there twice.

“It was a little bit like, OK, is this a Johnny Manziel thing again?” the executive said. “A lot of people at [Mississippi State] came to his defense, but for me the off-field concern was a solid part of [Dak’s] evaluation. There were other guys who looked a little better in that respect and some who probably looked a lot worse. But it was there. I’ll just leave it at that.”


Why Dallas took him

The Cowboys’ selection of Prescott has a lot of layers. Yes, they attempted to trade up in the draft for Lynch. And yes, by all accounts they would have taken Cook (and maybe Brissett) instead of Prescott if either had still been on the draft board in the fourth round. In that context, they got lucky.

That said, Dallas didn’t just grab Prescott because he was the only guy available. Again, a source said that Louisiana Tech’s Jeff Driskel was ahead of Prescott on the board, but that it ultimately came down to what player the coaching staff wanted as a quarterback project. And the staff overwhelmingly agreed that Prescott was that guy. While the scouts saw him as another iteration of Showers, the coaches thought he had some hybrid qualities that placed him somewhere on the continuum between Showers and Tony Romo. And thus far, that assessment appears to be dead-on.

So who was most responsible on the Dallas coaching staff? There are varying opinions. What’s clear is that head coach Jason Garrett, offensive coordinator Scott Linehan and quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson all liked Prescott and thought he was a worthwhile project. But Garrett had some concerns about Prescott’s off-field incidents and made a point to drill into him about it in their personal meetings. And Linehan? He remained a big Kellen Moore backer behind Romo, but believed Prescott had the skills to develop down the line.

Ultimately, the driving force that tipped the scales seems to have been Wilson, who went all over the map looking at Prescott. In terms of overall assessment and scouting, Wilson’s work on Prescott’s on-field abilities might have had the most depth. So there is merit in saying that Wilson may have planted the seed that was ultimately fed and cultivated by Garrett and Linehan.

If not Dallas, where?


The “where else?” question is interesting because nobody really knows. In the personnel world, everyone is guessing everyone else’s poker hand when it comes to the NFL draft. But a number of evaluators believe if they were reading the landscape correctly that the Denver Broncos ultimately would have taken Prescott if they hadn’t pulled off the trade to land Lynch in the first round. Prescott spent time with the Broncos, who also did a fair amount of work on him at Mississippi State. All of which is an amazing twist in hindsight since it was Denver’s trade with the Seattle Seahawks (and the Cowboys refusing to pull trigger on it first) that ultimately began a chain of events that delivered Lynch to the Broncos and then ultimately finished with Prescott landing in Dallas.

In essence, the two quarterback situations could easily be reversed right now, with Lynch starting in Dallas and Prescott on the bench (or even starting) with the Broncos.

“I know [Broncos head coach] Gary Kubiak liked Dak,” one personnel evaluator said. “I know [Broncos general manager] John Elway also liked Dak. … He fit right into what they were looking for. Maybe they don’t take him until later [in the draft], but I don’t think Dak Prescott would have ever made it to the fourth round if Denver didn’t get Paxton first. … I’m convinced he was somewhere in [Denver’s] backup plan.”

Alas, it didn’t work out that way. Much to the delight of the Cowboys and their faithful, circumstance (and some homework) gifted Dak Prescott to Dallas. But it took everyone missing – even Dallas a few times – to make that happen.

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Looks like Wade is the guy who pushed the hardest for Dak.:unsure
 

Cotton

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JiggyFly said:
[The scouts] thought they already had a Dak on the roster in Jameill Showers.
:picard
 

Jiggyfly

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Greg Gabriel: How did NFL teams miss on Dak Prescott, and why has he performed so well for the Dallas Cowboys?
Cowboys rookie QB has been fantastic this season with a good support system in Dallas
By GREG GABRIEL — @greggabe
Published: Nov. 28, 2016 — 1:00 p.m.

Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett and quarterback Dak Prescott (4) celebrate their overtime 29-23 overtime win against the Philadelphia Eagles in an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Ron Jenkins)
Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett and quarterback Dak Prescott (4) celebrate their overtime 29-23 overtime win against the Philadelphia Eagles in an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Ron Jenkins) — Ron Jenkins
The Bears' former director of college scouting, Greg Gabriel has over 30 years of experience in NFL scouting and he'll be breaking down the top NFL prospects to watch this college season and other NFL news each week here at Pro Football Weekly. You can follow Greg on Twitter @greggabe

The best rookie quarterback in the NFL to date has been the Dallas Cowboys' Dak Prescott. He has outplayed both Jared Goff, who went first overall, and Carson Wentz, who was the second overall selection. How can this be, since Prescott didn’t get selected until the fourth round?

Not only did he get selected at the bottom of the fourth round, but he was the eighth quarterback drafted. Goff, Wentz, Paxton Lynch, Christian Hackenberg, Jacoby Brissett, Cody Kessler and Connor Cook all went ahead of him. Of those seven, only Wentz has looked like he can become a top starter in the NFL. As for the others, time will tell. The truth is every evaluator in the league missed on Prescott, including me.

In the Pro Football Weekly Draft Guide, I had Prescott rated as the sixth best quarterback in the NFL Draft and I felt he would get selected in the third or fourth round. In my final rankings that were posted right before the draft, I had him as the No. 5 quarterback with a solid third-round grade.

We can’t say it was good scouting on the Cowboys' part because the truth is, the quarterback they were targeting was Michigan State’s Connor Cook, who was selected by the Oakland Raiders earlier in the fourth round. Prescott was the door prize for Dallas.

When we look at how well Prescott has performed, where did everyone go wrong? There are a variety of reasons.

Prescott almost entered the draft following the 2014 season but decided to stay in school. That was a smart decision on his part because while Mississippi State had a very good 10-3 record, Prescott’s play was inconsistent.

On paper, his numbers were good, completing 244 of 396 throws for 3,449 yards, 27 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. The problem was he played in a simple spread offense and was erratic at time with his play. While his completion percentage was good (61.6), his ball placement was just above average. Remember, the window to complete a pass in college is much larger than the windows in the NFL. He had throws in college that would easily have been interceptions in the NFL.

Prescott showed vast improvement in 2015, completing 316 of 477 throws for 3,793 yards, 39 touchdowns and only five interceptions. His completion percentage increased to 66.2 and his overall decision-making was improved. He didn’t force anywhere near the number of throws that he forced in 2014.

After the season, he had a strong week at the Senior Bowl, but still, not many NFL people were excited. The word on the street was he may develop into a very good backup, but there were doubts he would ever be a winning starter.

At the Combine, Dak measured only 6-foot-2, which is a bit shorter than most clubs want at the position. He did show excellent athleticism, running a 4.79 in the 40 and he timed 7.11 in the 3-cone drill.

While his athletic numbers were excellent, teams still didn’t get all excited. At Prescott’s Pro Day only a handful of teams showed up.

Where Dallas had some advantage in the scouting process was they had coached Prescott in the Senior Bowl. They worked with him in practice and meetings and Dallas quarterback coach Wade Wilson felt strong about Prescott’s traits and work ethic. He was the one who went to bat for Prescott in the Dallas draft meetings.

Where everyone missed on Prescott was his football character. Not only was he a great and very likeable person, he had a very strong will to succeed. He wanted to become a great player more than anyone else gave him credit for.

Prescott is an intelligent player who takes well to coaching and was quick to learn and retain. He never made the same mistakes twice. On top of that, Prescott had people around him in the Dallas organization that know and understand the quarterback position.

The Dallas head coach is Jason Garrett, who not only is a former quarterback coach and offensive coordinator, but he played quarterback in the NFL for a number of years. Wilson, the Dallas quarterback coach, played quarterback as a professional for 19 years. He has been coaching quarterbacks for 16 years in the NFL with excellent results.

Offensive coordinator Scott Linehan was a college quarterback and has coached quarterbacks in both college and the NFL and has developed some very good quarterbacks over the years. That kind of support system is invaluable to a rookie quarterback. The only team in the NFL that rivals Dallas with that kind of support system for a young quarterback is Philadelphia with Doug Pederson and Frank Reich, who have helped Carson Wentz play so well as a rookie. Both Pederson and Reich played the position in the NFL.

Don’t kid yourself, the coaching and support system a rookie quarterback has can make a huge difference in his development.

Add to the strong support system the best offensive line in football, one of the best running backs in the game and a Pro Bowl tight end and receiver, and it makes the learning curve for a rookie quarterback that much easier.

Dallas has done an outstanding job in developing Prescott. They didn’t give him too much too soon. Early on, they kept the offense simple, it’s only been recently that he has had a full plate so to speak in regards to running the complete offense.

Yes, Dallas got lucky when they made the Prescott selection, but it’s because of the support system they had in place that Dak has played as well as he has. Had he gone to another club, chances are he wouldn’t be playing nearly as well.
 
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