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By Bob McGinn Nov 27, 2019
Editor’s note: This is the 10th installment of The McGinn Files, a weekly series looking back at NFL drafts of the past 35 years. The foundation of the series is Bob McGinn’s transcripts of his annual interviews with general managers, personnel directors and scouts since 1985.
Just about everyone in the scouting fraternity respected what Dak Prescott had accomplished as the quarterback of Mississippi State. Beyond that, there was no consensus in the months leading up to the draft in 2016.
Some viewed Prescott strictly as a career backup in the NFL. Others saw him as having the chance to become a starter, but only after a year or two of apprenticeship.
None of the 10 evaluators who answered my questions regarding Prescott before the draft came close to predicting what he has become with the Dallas Cowboys. That is, a Pro Bowl starter, as a rookie no less, and perhaps one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the NFL.
“We feel we have one of the better young quarterbacks and one of the best leaders,” Will McClay, the Cowboys’ vice president of player personnel, said last week. “He’s got the stuff. He keeps proving it at every opportunity.”
In my poll of 17 evaluators with national orientation regarding the quarterbacks before that draft, Prescott finished sixth. Late in the fourth round, the Cowboys made Prescott the eighth quarterback selected.
“This means everything,” Prescott said shortly after being drafted. “I ran around the house acting like I was a Cowboys quarterback my whole life. So for it all to come true, it’s such a blessing.”
In that poll, Cal’s Jared Goff edged North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz in points, 73 to 71 ½. Goff had eight first-place votes, one more than Wentz.
They were followed by Memphis’ Paxton Lynch (52 points, one first), Michigan State’s Connor Cook (29, one), Penn State’s Christian Hackenberg (11), Prescott (6 ½), North Carolina State’s Jacoby Brissett (four), Louisiana Tech’s Jeff Driskel (3 ½), Stanford’s Kevin Hogan (2 ½) and Ohio State’s Cardale Jones and Indiana’s Nate Sudfeld, each one.
The strongest recommendation of Prescott came from an AFC evaluator, who ranked him third on his ballot.
“I have him in the first round between 21 and 32,” the scout said. “He’s a winner. He was the entire team there. The whole team revolved around him. This was not a good team, but for two years they competed against the best teams.
“He’s got poise, patience, focus, field vision. Makes quick decisions. Stands tall in the pocket under pressure. Good arm strength. Has nice touch. He improved his pocket patience this year. Worst thing about him was his offensive line, which was awful.”
The other end of the spectrum was represented by an NFC executive who has been right many more times than he was wrong when it comes to quarterbacks.
“I don’t see that at all,” the scout said. “He’s got no accuracy, got no vision. I don’t think he’s an NFL quarterback.”
Prescott, from Haughton, La., turned down a late offer from LSU coach Les Miles to play tight end and went to Starkville, where Mississippi State hadn’t won 10 games in a season since 1999. Redshirted in 2011, he backed up Tyler Russell in 2012 and split time with him in 2013 before starting all 26 games in 2014-’15. His record was 23-10, and based on the NFL system his career passer rating was 99.6 (106.3 as a senior).
In 2014, the Bulldogs took a rare turn in the national spotlight by spending about a month as the No. 1 ranked team (a first in school history) following consecutive victories at No. 8 LSU (ending a 14-game losing streak in the series) and at home over No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 2 Auburn.
Coach Dan Mullen’s team later would lose a close game at Alabama, 25-20, but the Bulldogs’ 6-2 mark in the Southeastern Conference was their best finish in 15 years. Mississippi State hadn’t had a quarterback even play in the NFL since Joe Reed made 19 starts for Detroit in the 1970’s.
“He has a charismatic personality, different than other people have,” Tony Hughes, the assistant head coach at Mississippi State, told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. “He’s just born with a gift that’s different. There are some great quarterbacks, some great players have that factor and he’s just one that you run across once in a lifetime.”
By the end of his fifth year at Mississippi State Prescott had an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree.
“Great kid,” said one NFL GM. “Not good. Great.”
Operating a spread option offense, Prescott rushed for 2,521 yards and 41 touchdowns. That appealed to scouts as did the fact that his completion percentage improved from 58.4% in 2013 to 61.6% in 2014 to 66.2% in 2015.
“Like him,” another AFC evaluator said about a month before the draft. “I think he got better in the pocket. His accuracy and pace got better. Great kid. He’ll fight and work and do. He runs like a running back, and sometimes he wears down. He’s a competitive son of a guy. It may take him a year or two to get into Tyrod Taylor.”
Taylor, a sixth-round draft choice by the Baltimore Ravens in 2011, carried a clipboard for four seasons before breaking out as the starter in Buffalo in 2015 with a 99.4 passer rating and 568 rushing yards. At the time, Taylor was regarded as a legitimate starter by some teams.
“He needs to sit like Tyrod Taylor sat and see what you have after that,” an evaluator for a team that needed a quarterback wrote. “Although he would be great for our locker room, unfortunately I don’t see him helping out our on-field situation. Backup only.”
Said an AFC personnel director: “He’s a developmental type, at best. He’s a fifth-rounder.”
Another AFC evaluator referred to Prescott as a terrific mid-round selection.
“He ran that team, he motivated that team, he held guys accountable,” the scout said. “Depending what you do offensively, he could be a backup. I just don’t see the downfield vision. Very streaky thrower. He’ll throw two or three stinkers, get out of it for a while and then go back. There will be a place for him in the league. I’d take him over Tim Tebow, hands down.”
Added an AFC director: “He has second-round talent but will probably go in the third. If you get him in the fourth round you go, ‘Wow.’ Big guy. He can run with the football. He can create on his own. He’s got a good arm.”
Dismissing Prescott, a decision-maker for an NFL team said, “He’s like Logan Thomas. He’s just a big guy that runs and is a product of that system. I don’t like him.”
Even now, Prescott will pat the ball too long and take sacks. His propensity for holding the ball certainly isn’t as pronounced now but it was a common concern among NFL people four years ago.
“He will need to pull the trigger one or two hitches sooner to have a chance against NFL zone coverage,” one quarterbacks coach wrote in March 2016. “His rhythm can be improved with training and repetition.
“More importantly, it will take time for him to become comfortable from under center. He looked mechanical dropping from under center at the combine. He will struggle to make the no-hitch throws until he improves his drop tempo and transition into the top of his drops. With his combination of mobility and passing skills he could develop into a playmaker in the right system.”
Prescott’s accuracy and progression led one scout to downgrade him entirely.
“Most concerning is that I don’t think he reads anything,” he said. “It’s almost as if he knows one or two guys he’s going to look at and then fires when he thinks they’re open regardless of what the coverage is doing. Has made some ill-advised throws. I don’t see the traits to consistently move an offense at the next level.
“I believe that he possesses the intangibles to overcome his shortcomings. However, if taken in a position where he is expected to play within the first year or two, he will struggle.”
In 2016, Prescott was named the most outstanding player at the Senior Bowl, where he played on the South Team. It was there, with Jason Garrett and his staff coaching the North team, where the Cowboys began to compile inside information that led them to Prescott.
Jacksonville’s Gus Bradley and his staff coached the South squad. An unwritten rule enabled the two staffs to talk with players on the other team during the week. The two offensive coordinators, Dallas’ Scott Linehan and Jacksonville’s Greg Olson, were friends.
“Greg and Scott were tight and they shared information,” said McClay. “Greg talked about what a leader Dak was. When we got him in our room we loved him.”
At the combine, Prescott (6-2 ¼, 226) posted a 4.78 40, 32 ½-inch vertical jump, a 9-8 broad jump and a score of 25 on the 12-minute, 50-question Wonderlic intelligence test. His arms measured 32 ¼ inches. His hands were 10 inches.
On March 12, 2016, Prescott was arrested for a DUI. That was one of many reasons the Cowboys used one of their 30 allowable pre-draft visits on Prescott. Ten days after the incident, quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson worked him out in Starkville.
“He owned up to all of it,” McClay recalled. “That was the first insight we had into who he was. He was very sincere about it. All the background work we had done just made us feel better about who he was.”
The Cowboys brought in the top seven quarterbacks in the scouts’ poll. Tony Romo, their starter for a decade, had broken his left collarbone twice during the 2015 season and his backups had gone 1-11. Besides Romo, the only viable option on the roster was Kellen Moore.
Since using the first pick in the 1989 draft on Troy Aikman, the first pick in the 1989 supplemental draft on Steve Walsh and a fourth-round pick on Bill Musgrave in 1991, owner Jerry Jones had drafted a mere two quarterbacks in 24 years. They were Quincy Carter, a second-round pick in 2001, and Stephen McGee, a fourth-round choice in 2009.
Signing Romo as a free agent out of Eastern Illinois immediately after the draft in 2003 alleviated the positional need for a long time.
“But Tony had gone through his injuries so we were looking for a quarterback to back him up,” said McClay. “We knew it was about time we take one.”
As McClay recalled, the Cowboys gave Wentz a slightly higher grade than Goff. With Goff gone to the Rams at No. 1 and Wentz to the Eagles at No. 2, the Cowboys made running back Ezekiel Elliott of Ohio State their selection at No. 4 before turning their attention to quarterbacks and defense.
“We talked about Paxton Lynch, Connor Cook,” McClay said. “We liked him (Brissett) a little bit, too, and (Cody) Kessler. We interviewed and worked out a lot of quarterbacks.”
The Cowboys owned the third pick of the second round (No. 34). According to Peter King, who was then at The MMQB, they spent 67 minutes and talked to nine teams as they tried to get back into the first round and select Lynch. The Cowboys had offered a second-round pick and a fourth-round pick to Seattle in order to move from No. 34 to No. 26, but refused to increase the offer to a second-round and third-round pick. The Seahawks traded the selection to the Denver Broncos for No. 31 and a third-round choice.
Jones second-guessed himself about missing on Lynch just as he did for passing quarterback Johnny Manziel in the 2014 first round.
After getting Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith at No. 34 and Nebraska defensive tackle Maliek Collins early in the third round, the Cowboys zeroed in on Cook to be their choice with the third pick of the fourth round. Weighing offers from Oakland and Dallas, Cleveland traded the second pick of the round to the Raiders. Once again, Jones had been denied the chance to draft the quarterback he wanted.
“Things didn’t fall the way we had wanted them to,” said McClay. “Thank goodness.” Lynch remains in the league as the No. 3 in Pittsburgh but Cook’s career appears to be over.
Dallas ended up selecting defensive end Charles Tapper of Oklahoma at No. 101. With seven quarterbacks already taken, the Cowboys sat patiently until their compensatory pick (No. 135) arrived and they secured Prescott.
“Scott Linehan was one of the main ones standing on the table for him,” said McClay. “Sammy Garza was doing quarterbacks for us at the time. He felt like there was something there, something to develop. Sammy and Scott Lineham graded him the highest.
“The fourth round was because he was coming from that style of offense where he was very rarely under center, very rarely took a drop and went through progressions like playing in an NFL-style offense.
“We thought there was arm strength, athletic ability, football IQ. More than anything, we liked his intangibles. But he needed some time in the pro system. And we were built in a way it wasn’t all on his shoulders initially.”
Many scouts have a story about the draft pick who looked like a different player once he put on their team’s uniform and started to practice.
“Until you get them in your building you don’t know who they truly are,” McClay said. “We saw it early on, from the first minicamp, how he got everybody together. He had that whole leadership thing.”
Prescott’s ascension began when Moore suffered a broken ankle early in training camp. The Cowboys considered trading for an established No. 2 but instead ran with Prescott. Then, in an Aug. 25 exhibition game against Seattle, Romo suffered a compression fracture in his lower back that would all but end his career.
Enter Prescott. All he did was produce what might have been the finest season ever by a rookie quarterback.
Dallas set a club record with an 11-game winning streak and claimed the top seeding in the NFC playoffs with a 13-3 record. In a 34-31 divisional defeat against the Packers, Prescott passed for 302 yards and three touchdowns.
The Cowboys went 9-7 in 2017, missing the playoffs, and 10-6 in 2018 to claim the No. 4 seed. Prescott started every game along the way, turning the ball over too often but making amends with his ability to ad-lib.
“Dak has obviously proved a lot of people wrong,” an executive in personnel said in October 2017. “He’s composed, yet competitive. He doesn’t get rattled. He’s a decent passer. Nothing exceptional.
“He’s probably most dangerous when he has to improvise. If you pressure him and don’t get to him it’s almost like, ‘OK, well, you guys came at me and didn’t get me, so now take this.’ DBs must really plaster when he starts to scramble because he’s looking to make the big play down the field. He’s a lot better when he can get on the move.”
In August, Prescott turned down an offer from the Cowboys that would have paid him a reported $30 million a year. He bet on himself, and after his steady pattern of improvement this season Jones undoubtedly will reward him with one of the richest deals in football.
“I’ll never say I’ve arrived,” Prescott told Bleacher Report’s Tyler Dunne in May 2017. “At the end of my career I’ll say that. It doesn’t matter what awards or accolades I’ve gotten or this team’s gotten. To me, and it’s always been this way in my life, what else can I do?”
Entering play on Thanksgiving Prescott leads the league in passing yards with 3,433. He is proving wrong some that said he couldn’t win when forced to sit in the pocket. His decision-making has picked up, and so has his accuracy downfield.
Prescott’s passer rating of 97.0 from 2016-’19 ranks eighth among quarterbacks that also have played in that span. Ranking ahead of Prescott during that four-year period are Drew Brees (106.4), Matt Ryan (103.3), Russell Wilson (101.2), Aaron Rodgers (100.3), Tom Brady (100.2), Kirk Cousins (99.8) and Jimmy Garoppolo (99.2). Prescott’s winning percentage of .644 (38-21) ranks fifth among the group.
“His pocket presence has improved so much,” said McClay. “It’s allowed him to have the success he’s having this year. But Dak works harder than anybody else. People don’t know how hard he’s working. His maturation is beyond his years.”
Prescott’s immediate task is to arrest the Cowboys’ mildly disappointing season, win the NFC East and do some damage in the playoffs.
Editor’s note: This is the 10th installment of The McGinn Files, a weekly series looking back at NFL drafts of the past 35 years. The foundation of the series is Bob McGinn’s transcripts of his annual interviews with general managers, personnel directors and scouts since 1985.
Just about everyone in the scouting fraternity respected what Dak Prescott had accomplished as the quarterback of Mississippi State. Beyond that, there was no consensus in the months leading up to the draft in 2016.
Some viewed Prescott strictly as a career backup in the NFL. Others saw him as having the chance to become a starter, but only after a year or two of apprenticeship.
None of the 10 evaluators who answered my questions regarding Prescott before the draft came close to predicting what he has become with the Dallas Cowboys. That is, a Pro Bowl starter, as a rookie no less, and perhaps one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the NFL.
“We feel we have one of the better young quarterbacks and one of the best leaders,” Will McClay, the Cowboys’ vice president of player personnel, said last week. “He’s got the stuff. He keeps proving it at every opportunity.”
In my poll of 17 evaluators with national orientation regarding the quarterbacks before that draft, Prescott finished sixth. Late in the fourth round, the Cowboys made Prescott the eighth quarterback selected.
“This means everything,” Prescott said shortly after being drafted. “I ran around the house acting like I was a Cowboys quarterback my whole life. So for it all to come true, it’s such a blessing.”
In that poll, Cal’s Jared Goff edged North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz in points, 73 to 71 ½. Goff had eight first-place votes, one more than Wentz.
They were followed by Memphis’ Paxton Lynch (52 points, one first), Michigan State’s Connor Cook (29, one), Penn State’s Christian Hackenberg (11), Prescott (6 ½), North Carolina State’s Jacoby Brissett (four), Louisiana Tech’s Jeff Driskel (3 ½), Stanford’s Kevin Hogan (2 ½) and Ohio State’s Cardale Jones and Indiana’s Nate Sudfeld, each one.
The strongest recommendation of Prescott came from an AFC evaluator, who ranked him third on his ballot.
“I have him in the first round between 21 and 32,” the scout said. “He’s a winner. He was the entire team there. The whole team revolved around him. This was not a good team, but for two years they competed against the best teams.
“He’s got poise, patience, focus, field vision. Makes quick decisions. Stands tall in the pocket under pressure. Good arm strength. Has nice touch. He improved his pocket patience this year. Worst thing about him was his offensive line, which was awful.”
The other end of the spectrum was represented by an NFC executive who has been right many more times than he was wrong when it comes to quarterbacks.
“I don’t see that at all,” the scout said. “He’s got no accuracy, got no vision. I don’t think he’s an NFL quarterback.”
Prescott, from Haughton, La., turned down a late offer from LSU coach Les Miles to play tight end and went to Starkville, where Mississippi State hadn’t won 10 games in a season since 1999. Redshirted in 2011, he backed up Tyler Russell in 2012 and split time with him in 2013 before starting all 26 games in 2014-’15. His record was 23-10, and based on the NFL system his career passer rating was 99.6 (106.3 as a senior).
In 2014, the Bulldogs took a rare turn in the national spotlight by spending about a month as the No. 1 ranked team (a first in school history) following consecutive victories at No. 8 LSU (ending a 14-game losing streak in the series) and at home over No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 2 Auburn.
Coach Dan Mullen’s team later would lose a close game at Alabama, 25-20, but the Bulldogs’ 6-2 mark in the Southeastern Conference was their best finish in 15 years. Mississippi State hadn’t had a quarterback even play in the NFL since Joe Reed made 19 starts for Detroit in the 1970’s.
“He has a charismatic personality, different than other people have,” Tony Hughes, the assistant head coach at Mississippi State, told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. “He’s just born with a gift that’s different. There are some great quarterbacks, some great players have that factor and he’s just one that you run across once in a lifetime.”
By the end of his fifth year at Mississippi State Prescott had an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree.
“Great kid,” said one NFL GM. “Not good. Great.”
Operating a spread option offense, Prescott rushed for 2,521 yards and 41 touchdowns. That appealed to scouts as did the fact that his completion percentage improved from 58.4% in 2013 to 61.6% in 2014 to 66.2% in 2015.
“Like him,” another AFC evaluator said about a month before the draft. “I think he got better in the pocket. His accuracy and pace got better. Great kid. He’ll fight and work and do. He runs like a running back, and sometimes he wears down. He’s a competitive son of a guy. It may take him a year or two to get into Tyrod Taylor.”
Taylor, a sixth-round draft choice by the Baltimore Ravens in 2011, carried a clipboard for four seasons before breaking out as the starter in Buffalo in 2015 with a 99.4 passer rating and 568 rushing yards. At the time, Taylor was regarded as a legitimate starter by some teams.
“He needs to sit like Tyrod Taylor sat and see what you have after that,” an evaluator for a team that needed a quarterback wrote. “Although he would be great for our locker room, unfortunately I don’t see him helping out our on-field situation. Backup only.”
Said an AFC personnel director: “He’s a developmental type, at best. He’s a fifth-rounder.”
Another AFC evaluator referred to Prescott as a terrific mid-round selection.
“He ran that team, he motivated that team, he held guys accountable,” the scout said. “Depending what you do offensively, he could be a backup. I just don’t see the downfield vision. Very streaky thrower. He’ll throw two or three stinkers, get out of it for a while and then go back. There will be a place for him in the league. I’d take him over Tim Tebow, hands down.”
Added an AFC director: “He has second-round talent but will probably go in the third. If you get him in the fourth round you go, ‘Wow.’ Big guy. He can run with the football. He can create on his own. He’s got a good arm.”
Dismissing Prescott, a decision-maker for an NFL team said, “He’s like Logan Thomas. He’s just a big guy that runs and is a product of that system. I don’t like him.”
Even now, Prescott will pat the ball too long and take sacks. His propensity for holding the ball certainly isn’t as pronounced now but it was a common concern among NFL people four years ago.
“He will need to pull the trigger one or two hitches sooner to have a chance against NFL zone coverage,” one quarterbacks coach wrote in March 2016. “His rhythm can be improved with training and repetition.
“More importantly, it will take time for him to become comfortable from under center. He looked mechanical dropping from under center at the combine. He will struggle to make the no-hitch throws until he improves his drop tempo and transition into the top of his drops. With his combination of mobility and passing skills he could develop into a playmaker in the right system.”
Prescott’s accuracy and progression led one scout to downgrade him entirely.
“Most concerning is that I don’t think he reads anything,” he said. “It’s almost as if he knows one or two guys he’s going to look at and then fires when he thinks they’re open regardless of what the coverage is doing. Has made some ill-advised throws. I don’t see the traits to consistently move an offense at the next level.
“I believe that he possesses the intangibles to overcome his shortcomings. However, if taken in a position where he is expected to play within the first year or two, he will struggle.”
In 2016, Prescott was named the most outstanding player at the Senior Bowl, where he played on the South Team. It was there, with Jason Garrett and his staff coaching the North team, where the Cowboys began to compile inside information that led them to Prescott.
Jacksonville’s Gus Bradley and his staff coached the South squad. An unwritten rule enabled the two staffs to talk with players on the other team during the week. The two offensive coordinators, Dallas’ Scott Linehan and Jacksonville’s Greg Olson, were friends.
“Greg and Scott were tight and they shared information,” said McClay. “Greg talked about what a leader Dak was. When we got him in our room we loved him.”
At the combine, Prescott (6-2 ¼, 226) posted a 4.78 40, 32 ½-inch vertical jump, a 9-8 broad jump and a score of 25 on the 12-minute, 50-question Wonderlic intelligence test. His arms measured 32 ¼ inches. His hands were 10 inches.
On March 12, 2016, Prescott was arrested for a DUI. That was one of many reasons the Cowboys used one of their 30 allowable pre-draft visits on Prescott. Ten days after the incident, quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson worked him out in Starkville.
“He owned up to all of it,” McClay recalled. “That was the first insight we had into who he was. He was very sincere about it. All the background work we had done just made us feel better about who he was.”
The Cowboys brought in the top seven quarterbacks in the scouts’ poll. Tony Romo, their starter for a decade, had broken his left collarbone twice during the 2015 season and his backups had gone 1-11. Besides Romo, the only viable option on the roster was Kellen Moore.
Since using the first pick in the 1989 draft on Troy Aikman, the first pick in the 1989 supplemental draft on Steve Walsh and a fourth-round pick on Bill Musgrave in 1991, owner Jerry Jones had drafted a mere two quarterbacks in 24 years. They were Quincy Carter, a second-round pick in 2001, and Stephen McGee, a fourth-round choice in 2009.
Signing Romo as a free agent out of Eastern Illinois immediately after the draft in 2003 alleviated the positional need for a long time.
“But Tony had gone through his injuries so we were looking for a quarterback to back him up,” said McClay. “We knew it was about time we take one.”
As McClay recalled, the Cowboys gave Wentz a slightly higher grade than Goff. With Goff gone to the Rams at No. 1 and Wentz to the Eagles at No. 2, the Cowboys made running back Ezekiel Elliott of Ohio State their selection at No. 4 before turning their attention to quarterbacks and defense.
“We talked about Paxton Lynch, Connor Cook,” McClay said. “We liked him (Brissett) a little bit, too, and (Cody) Kessler. We interviewed and worked out a lot of quarterbacks.”
The Cowboys owned the third pick of the second round (No. 34). According to Peter King, who was then at The MMQB, they spent 67 minutes and talked to nine teams as they tried to get back into the first round and select Lynch. The Cowboys had offered a second-round pick and a fourth-round pick to Seattle in order to move from No. 34 to No. 26, but refused to increase the offer to a second-round and third-round pick. The Seahawks traded the selection to the Denver Broncos for No. 31 and a third-round choice.
Jones second-guessed himself about missing on Lynch just as he did for passing quarterback Johnny Manziel in the 2014 first round.
After getting Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith at No. 34 and Nebraska defensive tackle Maliek Collins early in the third round, the Cowboys zeroed in on Cook to be their choice with the third pick of the fourth round. Weighing offers from Oakland and Dallas, Cleveland traded the second pick of the round to the Raiders. Once again, Jones had been denied the chance to draft the quarterback he wanted.
“Things didn’t fall the way we had wanted them to,” said McClay. “Thank goodness.” Lynch remains in the league as the No. 3 in Pittsburgh but Cook’s career appears to be over.
Dallas ended up selecting defensive end Charles Tapper of Oklahoma at No. 101. With seven quarterbacks already taken, the Cowboys sat patiently until their compensatory pick (No. 135) arrived and they secured Prescott.
“Scott Linehan was one of the main ones standing on the table for him,” said McClay. “Sammy Garza was doing quarterbacks for us at the time. He felt like there was something there, something to develop. Sammy and Scott Lineham graded him the highest.
“The fourth round was because he was coming from that style of offense where he was very rarely under center, very rarely took a drop and went through progressions like playing in an NFL-style offense.
“We thought there was arm strength, athletic ability, football IQ. More than anything, we liked his intangibles. But he needed some time in the pro system. And we were built in a way it wasn’t all on his shoulders initially.”
Many scouts have a story about the draft pick who looked like a different player once he put on their team’s uniform and started to practice.
“Until you get them in your building you don’t know who they truly are,” McClay said. “We saw it early on, from the first minicamp, how he got everybody together. He had that whole leadership thing.”
Prescott’s ascension began when Moore suffered a broken ankle early in training camp. The Cowboys considered trading for an established No. 2 but instead ran with Prescott. Then, in an Aug. 25 exhibition game against Seattle, Romo suffered a compression fracture in his lower back that would all but end his career.
Enter Prescott. All he did was produce what might have been the finest season ever by a rookie quarterback.
Dallas set a club record with an 11-game winning streak and claimed the top seeding in the NFC playoffs with a 13-3 record. In a 34-31 divisional defeat against the Packers, Prescott passed for 302 yards and three touchdowns.
The Cowboys went 9-7 in 2017, missing the playoffs, and 10-6 in 2018 to claim the No. 4 seed. Prescott started every game along the way, turning the ball over too often but making amends with his ability to ad-lib.
“Dak has obviously proved a lot of people wrong,” an executive in personnel said in October 2017. “He’s composed, yet competitive. He doesn’t get rattled. He’s a decent passer. Nothing exceptional.
“He’s probably most dangerous when he has to improvise. If you pressure him and don’t get to him it’s almost like, ‘OK, well, you guys came at me and didn’t get me, so now take this.’ DBs must really plaster when he starts to scramble because he’s looking to make the big play down the field. He’s a lot better when he can get on the move.”
In August, Prescott turned down an offer from the Cowboys that would have paid him a reported $30 million a year. He bet on himself, and after his steady pattern of improvement this season Jones undoubtedly will reward him with one of the richest deals in football.
“I’ll never say I’ve arrived,” Prescott told Bleacher Report’s Tyler Dunne in May 2017. “At the end of my career I’ll say that. It doesn’t matter what awards or accolades I’ve gotten or this team’s gotten. To me, and it’s always been this way in my life, what else can I do?”
Entering play on Thanksgiving Prescott leads the league in passing yards with 3,433. He is proving wrong some that said he couldn’t win when forced to sit in the pocket. His decision-making has picked up, and so has his accuracy downfield.
Prescott’s passer rating of 97.0 from 2016-’19 ranks eighth among quarterbacks that also have played in that span. Ranking ahead of Prescott during that four-year period are Drew Brees (106.4), Matt Ryan (103.3), Russell Wilson (101.2), Aaron Rodgers (100.3), Tom Brady (100.2), Kirk Cousins (99.8) and Jimmy Garoppolo (99.2). Prescott’s winning percentage of .644 (38-21) ranks fifth among the group.
“His pocket presence has improved so much,” said McClay. “It’s allowed him to have the success he’s having this year. But Dak works harder than anybody else. People don’t know how hard he’s working. His maturation is beyond his years.”
Prescott’s immediate task is to arrest the Cowboys’ mildly disappointing season, win the NFC East and do some damage in the playoffs.
