It’s May 10, 2019.
The newly drafted Dallas Cowboys are filing into The Star for their very first time. They’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and they’ll never be as happy or willing to speak with reporters as they are on this day. The locker room is empty save for the media, rookies and Cowboys staffers.
In walks Dak Prescott sweating profusely.
When Troy Aikman retired this franchise navigated a barren wasteland of quarterbacks. Then, they found Tony Romo who, despite an absurd level of production, became the most polarizing QB in franchise history. Since Aikman retired, all we’ve done is fret and argue and bemoan its QB play. In 2018 that cacophony reached a fever pitch around Dak Prescott.
Despite the noise, Dak set a single-season career record for yardage in 2018 with 3,885. He’s just 665 yards shy of surpassing that total...in ten games. He has more yards through the air than any other Cowboys QB ever through the first ten games. In his rookie season, Dak set his career mark for touchdown passes with twenty-three. He’s currently at twenty-one. Dak is not just redefining his own success, he’s currently at or near the top of every single statistical category for a QB in the NFL.
“He’s playing lights out,” Amari Cooper told 105.3 The Fan this week. “The biggest thing is he seems a lot more confident. That’s not to say he wasn’t confident when I got here, but it’s just different when you are playing lights out, it’s a different confidence you carry.”
A few weeks ago, before the Cowboys hosted the Vikings on Sunday Night Football, NBC cameras caught Dak Prescott doing his pregame warmup. #DakDancesToAnything broke the internet. This was the first time many had been exposed to a routine Dak implemented last season, after he started training with world-renowned performance coach and former MLB pitcher, Tom House.
“Look where my weight is,” Dak told reporters in September in reference to his footwork. “In the past [the weight] was on my front foot. You saw my back foot leave the ground the majority of the time. Now, it still does every now and then, depending on which throw it is, but there’s more balance throughout the throw.”
The improved footwork is only part of the story. The Dak dancing meme is an exercise rooted in improved flexibility. “It’s torque,” Dak said. “Just to allow my body to free-flow easily, to be able to have that torque and be able to twist.”
After teaching a thorough lesson in performance training to the assembled reporters, Dak joked that if he had known about this type of training at Mississippi State he would have been a first-round pick.
Dak’s comment might have been tongue-in-cheek, but he’s absolutely correct. Working with just an offensive coordinator and QB coach at Mississippi State, Dak thrived on his own athletic ability. His raw talent could only take him so far. Coaches implement game strategy and schemes. They’re trying to win games, and with limited time during the season, core training and flexibility aren’t exactly a priority. That’s an important distinction between collegiate and professional athletes...or at least it was.
In sports, the talent level is fairly even amongst players, therefore true transcendence is borne through work ethic. The greatest athletes the world has ever known are also tireless workers. Perhaps this is not noteworthy because of its obviousness, or perhaps it serves as another reminder that in sports, like life, success is not a coincidence.
Dak Prescott says he plays with a chip on his shoulder, because of course, he does. “I’ll never forget that there were seven quarterbacks taken in front of me,” Dak said this week. Professional athletes make up the top 1-percent of the top 1-percent. Statistically speaking they shouldn’t be where they are, so every professional athlete in history plays with a chip on their shoulder. They couldn’t have made it this far if they didn’t. So attributing the underdog mentality to Dak’s sudden success this season is not only cliched, but disingenuous.
Before the 2019 season began, even the most optimistic Cowboys fans ranked Dak Prescott somewhere between twelfth and sixteenth in the hierarchy of NFL QBs. Maybe even lower. Without the fifth-year option afforded to first-round picks, Dak was facing a contract year with significant uncertainty.
Dak’s leadership qualities have always been off the charts. It’s easily his greatest and most important strength. On the field though, there were legitimate questions.
Could Dak Prescott prove to be a franchise QB in 2019?
Remember, this is the Dallas Cowboys. There is no franchise in all of football with a better, more storied QB history than the Cowboys. The lens through which Cowboys fans gauge quarterback play is skewed because of this history.
The Cowboys are currently 6-4, a record that belies their true strength. There remains a lot of noise surrounding the team and yet for the first time since winning their last Super Bowl, none of it pertains to their QB.
Sunday, the Cowboys will play in New England against a Patriots team that has won twenty straight at home. Despite overwhelming data that suggests the Cowboys have no shot on Sunday, there remains a quiet confidence emanating from Dak Prescott. A confidence level of which we’ve never seen before from Dak Prescott. A confidence level that is the byproduct of an absurd amount of work during the quietness of the offseason. A confidence and an ease amidst a storm that can unveil true greatness. This is Dak Prescott’s moment. After all, there is no risk for the prepared.