Dak Watch Thread...

[ravidubey]

I agree but the problem is, what's the alternative?

The irony of this statement being made in response to Schmitty who used it for years regarding Garrett

 

[ravidubey]

Frankly I’m just glad we have a QB who can make most of the throws most of the time. At least he has so far.

We. Could. Be. Washington.

I don’t think any of Wentz, Goff, or Prescott are special.

But their success reminds us that football is a team game, and it really takes everything to win the Superbowl.

 

[NoDak]

I think Lance has a long way to go as a passer to be a legitimate top 5-10 type prospect. He threw the ball less than 20 times a game last year, ran the ball almost as much as he passed it, and when he did pass it was almost always off of play-action, some sort of RPO-type action or a schemed up throw designed to simplify reads.

I think you need to watch a little more of the actual NDSU games and not just go off the stat sheet and a few highlights. Yeah, Lance didn't throw the ball a ton. But to say almost all of his throws were rpo/schemed up throws is nonsense. NDSU plays a pro style offense, which is why guys like Carson Wentz and Easton Stick drew interest from pro scouts. And the same reason Trey Lance is drawing that same interest.

 

[L.T. Fan]

I think you need to watch a little more of the actual NDSU games and not just go off the stat sheet and a few highlights. Yeah, Lance didn't throw the ball a ton. But to say almost all of his throws were rpo/schemed up throws is nonsense. NDSU plays a pro style offense, which is why guys like Carson Wentz and Easton Stick drew interest from pro scouts. And the same reason Trey Lance is drawing that same interest.

I watch the Bisons When they are televised and they show up year after year in my back yard for the division National Championship game. The team has had some pretty good programs and they are well coached.

 

[Rev]

I watch the Bisons When they are televised and they show up year after year in my back yard for the division National Championship game. The team has had some pretty good programs and they are well coached.

You have a big backyard.

 

[Simpleton]

I think you need to watch a little more of the actual NDSU games and not just go off the stat sheet and a few highlights. Yeah, Lance didn't throw the ball a ton. But to say almost all of his throws were rpo/schemed up throws is nonsense. NDSU plays a pro style offense, which is why guys like Carson Wentz and Easton Stick drew interest from pro scouts. And the same reason Trey Lance is drawing that same interest.

I watched their games against James Madison and Southern Illinois in full. Just because there might be a handful of pro style throws a game doesn't wash away the fact that the vast majority of their passing game is built off play-action/RPO's, and when he does throw the ball it's almost always under near-ideal circumstances.

Combine that with their absolutely dominant running game and defense, and the fact that he throws the ball about 15 times a game, and I need to see way more from him as a passer before stamping him as a top 5-10 pick.

 

[NoDak]

Vast majority. Oh. Well, then. I'll defer to the board's NDSU expert. My bad.

 

[Simpleton]

Vast majority. Oh. Well, then. I'll defer to the board's NDSU expert. My bad.

Why don't you give me a game where the passing game was more pro style then? Or where he was forced to make difficult throws in high pressure situations that weren't built off simplifying things for him with play action/RPO's and the dominance of their running game?

I'd be shocked if their offense was substantially different from what I saw in a random midseason game and a high stakes championship game.

Why does it upset you that I'm saying a guy with one year of starting experience who clearly did not rely on his arm much needs to improve as a passer?

 

[NoDak]

Why does it upset you that I'm saying a guy with one year of starting experience who clearly did not rely on his arm much needs to improve as a passer?

Doesn't upset me at all. Just think it's funny that a guy that has maybe watched a tiny example of what NDSU does offensively has such an in depth knowledge of the program and it's players.

 

[Simpleton]

Doesn't upset me at all. Just think it's funny that a guy that has maybe watched a tiny example of what NDSU does offensively has such an in depth knowledge of the program and it's players.

You can get a pretty good handle on what a team does just from watching 2 full games. Add in the fact that he barely ever threw the ball more than 20 times a game, that their running game is generally dominant, and that in the games I did watch the passing game was heavily built off that running game with simplified reads and it's not that difficult a conclusion to come to.

Players his age, and with that amount of experience (inexperience), can improve drastically in a short period of time. Perhaps the coaches didn't want to overwhelm him in his first year and plan on asking him to do more in his second year, and perhaps he was ready for it last year but just wasn't given the chance to show it.

I have no idea what the case is exactly, but whatever it is I need to see more from him as a passer before automatically elevating him to the top 5-10 because he has a big arm and runs well.

 

[NoDak]

I have no idea what the case is exactly

So, we're in agreement then.

Good talk.

 

[Simpleton]

So, we're in agreement then.

Good talk.

Which is why I said I need to see more out of him as a passer. Thanks for the chat.

 

[bbgun]

Which is why I said I need to see more out of him as a passer. Thanks for the chat.

give up. he's the only one in the country who watches ND football.

 

[Simpleton]

give up. he's the only one in the country who watches ND football.

There are full NDSU games on YouTube, I've seen enough of Lance to have an informed opinion.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

So, we're in agreement then.

Good talk.

I haven't watched him but I will next year.

 

[p1_]

Doesn't upset me at all. Just think it's funny that a guy that has maybe watched a tiny example of what NDSU does offensively has such an in depth knowledge of the program and it's players.

how much do you think one needs to see of NDSU to form an reasonably accurate opinion of the QB's strengths and weaknesses?

 

[lostxn]

Pro Football Focus has Dak Prescott 11th in latest ranking - which may be better than you realize

Context is everything when speaking of Dak Prescott.
By Tom Ryle@TomRyleBTB Jun 5, 2020, 12:00pm CDT

New wave and old guard share a moment. Photo by Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
With the Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott still at an apparent standstill in the negotiations for a new contract, fans and media alike have a fascination with trying to gauge just what the quarterback is worth. Statistics and rankings are parsed and contrasted. That alone can lead to some widely different conclusions. Add in trying to project those to figure out to how he might perform next season, especially compared to other starting quarterbacks, just adds a new layer of complexity and confusion. Is Prescott a top 5 QB? Top 10? Top half of the league?
Another attempt to do just that is out, from Pro Football Focus. They try to figure out the likelihood of where all the projected starting quarterbacks will stack up this season, with a couple of possible challengers for starting jobs thrown in to be complete. While there are some possible flaws, such as leaving out the Philadelphia Eagles’ new starter Jalen Hurts, it is overall an impressive effort. It also uses a lot of stuff that may be a bit mystifying to all but hardcore statisticians and math experts, such as Bayesian Updating (which as it turns out has nothing to do with aspirin) and standard deviations. The jargon takes some sorting out as well, such as the reference to “career posterior.” It’s a nice way of saying “back side of a career.”
But for now, let’s just assume they are on to something. The list is based on probabilities and not meant to be a hard and fast ranking, but it worth considering. For Cowboys fans, it may be disappointing, although it probably will reinforce the feelings of those who are not as high on Prescott as others. It has him 11th on the list.
That would seem to not be so bad, with him just outside the top 10, and in a near tie with the player ahead of him, Philip Rivers. But adding in another pertinent bit of data provides something else that shows how, if Dallas is looking to the future of the position for the Cowboys, they probably need to bite the bullet and pay the man.
Here are the first 15 quarterbacks on the list with that one extra element, their age, added. The top 15 were chosen because that includes the two quarterbacks forever linked to Prescott in the 2016 draft class.
PFF 2020 QB ranking

Rank	Player	Age
1	Patrick Mahomes	24
2	Russell Wilson	31
3	Drew Brees	41
4	Aaron Rodgers	36
5	Matt Ryan	35
6	Lamar Jackson	23
7	Tom Brady	42
8	Deshaun Watson	24
9	Ben Roethlisberger	38
10	Philip Rivers	38
11	Dak Prescott	26
12	Jimmy Garoppolo	28
13	Carson Wentz	27
14	Matthew Stafford	32
15	Jared Goff	25

Why is the age relevant here? PFF explains.

We find that quarterbacks tend to underperform their career performance in the next season once they’ve been in the league for roughly 10 years, and the effect grows stronger the older the quarterback becomes.
This doesn’t necessarily stem from a smooth decay of a quarterback’s skill, but more from the increasing probability that an older quarterback “falls off a cliff.” Nevertheless, it’s an effect we have to acknowledge in our projections.

That means that older quarterbacks tend to be on their way down in this ranking, while younger ones are likely to move up. When you add that in, you see that six of the quarterbacks ahead of Prescott are in that aging category, and Russell Wilson is nearing it.
That puts Prescott in the top five “young guns,” the quarterbacks you expect to see ascending to the cream of the crop in the next few seasons. And as PFF also notes, younger quarterbacks tend to have even greater variance from season to season than more established ones, so he has a real shot at passing some of those.

When so many of the top rated quarterbacks in the league are in their late 30s and early 40s, changes in these ratings are inevitable. Some of them will doubtless retire over the next four years or so.
In essence, the Cowboys can lock up a very likely top 5 quarterback by the end of his next deal by signing Prescott.
Another argument for the validity of this ranking is how close Prescott and Carson Wentz are. Who will wind up with the best career is a toss-up, which matches nicely with the sometimes heated arguments over which is better already.
Another point PFF makes is year-to-year variance.

To understand that, note that Tom Brady is the highest-graded quarterback in the PFF era, but even he has ranked outside the top 10 three times in his career since 2006. Over the last four years, Derek Carr ranked sixth, 27th, 25th and 11th in passing grade, further illustrating that quarterbacks tend to fluctuate from season to season.

A four- or five-year contract, which is reported to be the main sticking point in the Prescott negotiations, is more about overall performance than next year’s. So it is just one more reason to justify getting a deal completed.
Prescott has already provided a body of work that puts him clearly in the upper half of all quarterbacks, and should only move closer to the top relative to other starters. This PFF analysis is more good news than bad for the future of the Cowboys.

 

[lostxn]

Personally I think Prescott is better than Rivers, Roethlisberger and Watson. The last could be argued and I suspect most would disagree. Watson is certainly more physically talented. However, Dak is smarter and makes better decisions. Watson too often just ad libs where Dak will tend to follow the script a lot more. But with way, Dak is clearly a top 10 QB at this point in his career.

 

[ravidubey]

Watson too often just ad libs where Dak will tend to follow the script a lot more.

That's a clear difference between Prescott and Watson.

For one, Dak makes smarter decisions regarding his own health, as Watson will takes chances with his body diving for the endzone or first downs taking hits that might rob his team of their starting QB. Dak is built stouter and looks more durable than Watson, though I don't have evidence. Dak is still effective running when the team needs it, and I think he does this perfectly.

Watson's agility though really makes him unique. He can make accurate throws across his body even while running.

Watson is streakier than Dak, and during those streaks he's just insane. He seems to always escape pressure and still lead his WR's perfectly. Even outside these streaks, he still throws a really nice ball.

I think it's harder to build an offense around a dual-threat QB, but what do you tell him? Don't be a total beast today, just a normal really good QB.

I do get the impression Watson makes his non-superstar WRs, especially his TEs, better than they would be without him.

Would love to see Watson and Dak coached by better coaches. At least we should get that chance with Dak.

 

[L.T. Fan]

That’s about where I would have Prescott. I guess the next thing is what does this do about contract negotiations? Probably nothing but it does show how flawed the pricing system is when you see Wentz and Goff being near the bottom and getting paid near the top. It is indeed a flawed system for contract negotiations.