After injuries, playoff woes and a disappointing 2024, has Cowboys QB Dak Prescott actually become underrated?

Is Dak Prescott the NFL’s Schrödinger’s cat? Can the Cowboys quarterback be simultaneously viewed as overrated and underrated ahead of his 10th NFL season in 2025?

Many think of Prescott and the other Dallas stars as overrated simply because of the team’s postseason failures, something that has been going on in Dallas well before the quarterback’s tenure began in 2016. The Cowboys have the longest streak in NFL history of consecutive playoff appearances (13 since the 1996 season) without reaching the conference championship game. 

When Prescott was fresh off leading the NFL in passing touchdowns (36) and leading the Cowboys to their third consecutive 12-win campaign in 2023, the NFL top 100 — a rankings list voted on solely by other players around the league — ranked him as the league’s 16th-best player. That was probably a little too low of a player who was just named the NFL MVP runner-up and a second team All-Pro quarterback. 

In 2024, Prescott was handed a lame duck head coach in Mike McCarthy after owner/general manager Jerry Jones refused to extend McCarthy and spent an NFL-low $20.47 million in free agency that offseason, per OverTheCap.com. Those events led to Prescott having the following in his offensive supporting cast:

• Rookie left tackle who spent most of his college career at right tackle (2024 first-round pick Tyler Guyton).
• Rookie center who had never taken a snap at the position in college (2024 third-round pick Cooper Beebe).
• Right tackle just over a year removed from tearing his ACL and MCL (Terence Steele).
• Corpse of Ezekiel Elliott as a key component of an early-season running back-by-committee approach.
• Oft-injured Brandin Cooks and 2022 third-round pick Jalen Tolbert rotating back and forth as his No. 2 wide receiver throughout the year.

Naturally, Prescott didn’t survive the year, tearing his hamstring in Week 9 on the road at the Atlanta Falcons. All that instability stunningly didn’t prevent Dallas from having the NFL’s No. 2 passing attack (averaging 254.1 yards per game) in the first half of the season that Prescott played. With longtime backup Cooper Rush filling in at quarterback the vast majority of the second half in 2024, the Cowboys dipped down to the 21st-ranked passing offense (203.2 yards per game). 

Prescott’s reputation took a hit, as his peers knocked him down from No. 16 in the NFL top 100 last offseason to No. 79 in the NFL top 100 this offseason. NFL coaches, executives and scouts responded to the Cowboys’ chaotic 2024 season in kind, voting Prescott into the “others receiving votes” category in ESPN’s annual top 10 QBs survey. That’s obviously outside the top 10 and below the status of “honorable mention.” It’s intriguing to see some of the players voted ahead of Prescott, especially someone like Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. 

Top 10 NFL QBs as voted on by NFL coaches, scouts, execs

via ESPN

1. Patrick Mahomes (KC)
2. Josh Allen (BUF)
3. Joe Burrow (CIN)
4. Lamar Jackson (BAL)
5. Jayden Daniels (WAS)
6. Matthew Stafford (LAR)
7. Justin Herbert (LAC)
8. Jared Goff (DET)
9. Jalen Hurts (PHI)
10. Baker Mayfield (TB)

Honorable mentions: C.J. Stroud (HOU), Jordan Love (GB)

Others receiving votes: Kyler Murray (ARI), Brock Purdy (SF), Dak Prescott (DAL), Aaron Rodgers (PIT), Tua Tagovailoa (MIA), Bo Nix (DEN)

Herbert has a rocket launcher for a right arm, and his 21,093 passing yards are the most in NFL history through a player’s first five seasons. However, he wasn’t dinged for his playoff failures that are also plenty embarrassing. In Herbert’s NFL playoff debut in the 2022 season at the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Chargers blew a 27-0 lead in a 31-30 defeat in the AFC wild card-round. Last year, the Chargers faceplanted in the wild-card round against the AFC South champion once again, losing 32-12 at the Houston Texans. 

Upon examination of Prescott’s career in totality, there’s certainly a case to be made that the Cowboys’ face of the franchise is now underrated instead of overrated.

Prescott’s 243 total touchdowns in his nine-season career, including two years (2020 and 2024) in which he played single digit games because of season-ending injuries, are the eighth-most in NFL history through a player’s first nine seasons. It’s worth noting that Prescott’s 243 total touchdowns in his first nine seasons are eight more than the No. 1 overall pick in his draft class, Jared Goff, another player ranked well above Prescott in ESPN’s survey (235 total touchdowns since entering the NFL in 2016). 

Prescott also enters 2025 with 213 passing touchdowns, just 36 — the amount he threw in 2023 when last healthy — away from surpassing Tony Romo‘s Cowboys career record of 248. Not too bad for a fourth-round pick. 

It’s fair to believe the upcoming season is a “prove-it” year of sorts for Prescott. He has suffered season-ending injuries twice in the 2020s (2020 and 2024), and the Cowboys finally gifted him a legit No. 2 wide receiver opposite All-Pro CeeDee Lamb after acquiring George Pickens from the Pittsburgh Steelers via trade. Pickens’ vertical play style should complement Lamb’s sweet spot over the middle on intermediate routes. That element has been missing from the Dallas offense since the Cowboys traded Pro Bowler Amari Cooper away to the Cleveland Browns for pennies on the dollar in 2022. 

Plus, Cowboys new offensive line coach Conor Riley and NFL offensive line guru Duke Manyweather, who trains all of Dallas’ offensive line starters away from the team’s facility, are on the same page, which should lead to a much-improved front five for Prescott in 2025. 

One thing is for certain: The 2025 campaign will go a long way towards determining Prescott’s perception for the rest of his career.

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Author: Garrett Podell
July 21, 2025 | 1:01 pm