But even more than just the latest in a long line of Dallas Cowboys’ quarterbacks who impressively win regular-season games and individual awards only to fail spectacularly in the playoffs, Prescott potentially is …
Dirk Nowitzki.
I know, but hear me out.
In the wake of Prescott’s pitiful performance in yet another Cowboys’ postseason pratfall, long-frustrated fans are assessing the quarterback’s future. Will he remain an elite player who led the NFL in touchdown passes this season and someone who could eventually lead the Cowboys to a Super Bowl? Or is he stuck as merely a mediocre talent destined to disappoint in the playoffs and be eternally linked to good-but-never-great quarterbacks like Meredith (two NFL Championship Games, zero Super Bowls in the 1960s), White (three NFC Championship Games, zero Super Bowls in the 1980s) and Romo (four Pro Bowls, one Top 3 MVP and zero Super Bowls in the 2000s)?
What if he’s both? Next week Prescott will be among the NFL’s Top 5 in Most Valuable Player voting. That honor, however, comes fresh on the heels of a dismal game in which he threw two first-half interceptions, including a back-breaking Pick Six, in a stunning upset loss to the Green Bay Packers in the first round of the playoffs.
Admitted Prescott, “I sucked. It’s all about winning in the playoffs, and I haven’t done that yet.”
When looking at the Dak Dilemma, we need to zoom out past even the 30,000-foot view. Because irrational, knee-jerking critics writing him off as a “loser” and a “choker” who is “mentally soft” and will “never take us to a championship” are ringing a hauntingly familiar bell.
Take a deep breath, and hold off torching your No. 4 jersey. Expand your perspective, all the way back to 2007.
Irrational Impatience
Almost 20 years ago we — meaning I — wrote off Dirk after a similarly humiliating playoff defeat and at a juncture in his career almost parallel to where Dak is today.In 2007 Nowitzki was the NBA’s MVP, averaging 25 points per game in leading the Dallas Mavericks to a league-best and franchise-record 67-15 record and the No. 1 seed throughout the playoffs.
But then the Mavs embarrassingly lost in the first round to the No. 8 seed Golden State Warriors in one of the biggest upsets in NBA playoff history. In the clinching Game 6 in Oakland, Dirk missed 11 of 13 shots and scored only 8 points as the Mavs were run out of the gym by 25 points.
Cue the irrational impatience.
In my autopsy of the series for the Dallas Observer, I called Dirk “intimidated,” “a liability,” and complained that he “simply vanished.”Immortality starts with getting knocked down 12 times and getting up 13. Right, Dirk? Right, Troy Aikman?
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“He shit his shorts in the spotlight,” I wrote. “We thought he had matured. We were wrong.”
Sound familiar, Dak Denigrators?
At the time, 28-year-old Dirk had played nine seasons. Prescott, 30, just finished his eighth. Dirk, like Dak, was a great player on some really good teams. Perennial All-Star. Scoring records. Individual awards. Everything … except putting a ring on it.
To deal with the depression of his subpar performance, Dirk disappeared to Australia for a month to seek solace in the middle of nowhere and the bottom of a bottle. He hiked. He slept under the stars. He drank. He strummed a guitar. He wrung the “Why me?!” from his mind and body. Every last drop.
Then he returned, ready.
“There’s no guarantees for any team in any season,” Dirk said during the start of Mavs’ training camp four months later. “But I’m committed to do everything I can to put us in the best situation possible come playoff time … then we’ll see what happens.”
Said Prescott after his No. 2 seed team’s loss to the seventh-seeded Packers two weeks ago, “All I can do — all we can do — is try to come back stronger next season and take another swing at it in the playoffs. That’s the plan.”
Dak is Dirk.
Lucky No. 13
Like Nowitzki, Prescott continues to be an immaculate leader in the locker room, a sparkling role model away from the game and a star player on the field who may someday, perhaps when we least expect it, bring a championship to North Texas.While Mavs fans canceled Nowitzki long before the culture was even invented, team management fortunately stuck with him. Without actual proof that he could, owner Mark Cuban and general manager Donnie Nelson and coaches Avery Johnson and Rick Carlisle held onto the faith that Dirk one day would. After three more playoff failures that seemed to cement his legacy as a lovable loser, in 2011 Dirk led the Mavericks past teams led by Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and LeBron James to win a team championship and personal vindication.
In his 13th season of trying.
As the final seconds ticked away in the clinching Game 6 in Miami, Dirk began crying on the court. Overcome with emotion, he hopped the press table and scurried into the locker room. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, as he had been on all the countless, sleepless nights when you, I and almost everyone else had given up on him.
“It was just a lot,” Nowitzki has since said of that moment. “The realization that all the stuff you went through had finally paid off … powerful feeling.”
Ultimately, the view from the mountaintop was worth the depths of every valley.
Because of his personal journey, Dirk’s title remains arguably the most cherished championship in DFW sports history. But Dak winning a ring might eclipse it.
Prescott has the support of owner Jerry Jones, who will likely sign him to a $300(ish) million contract this offseason. And of coach Mike McCarthy, who sees him as not a problem but rather a “part of the solution.”
In 2007, Dirk had a horrible series. In 2024, Dak endured a nightmare game.
Against the Packers, he looked stunned. He acted skittish. He made uncharacteristic decisions, compounded by unfathomable throws. He fell to 2–5 in the playoffs, joining a dubious group of three NFL quarterbacks with more than 70 regular-season wins and fewer than three postseason wins: Andy Dalton, Ryan Tannehill and Kirk Cousins.
But he’s also the same quarterback who … became the first Cowboy to lead the NFL in passing touchdowns … has led Dallas to 36 wins since 2021, second only to the Kansas City Chiefs’ 38 … plays in a sport in which quarterbacks often take time to bake. Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Steve Young won all their MVPs after 30; Matthew Stafford his Super Bowl at 33.
Says former Cowboys quarterback-turned-radio analyst Babe Laufenberg, “If Dak were out there on the open market, you’d see as many as 24 teams clamoring for his services.”
Cumulative Diss
The dissing of Dak is part cumulative: The Cowboys haven’t been close to a Super Bowl since winning it in 1996. And it’s part prisoner of the moment: They are the first team in NFL history to have three consecutive 12-win regular seasons without making a Super Bowl.“Let’s face it, Dak has regressed progressively from his first playoff game in 2016 to his seventh one,” said former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky. “It’s a big concern. It has to make you pause about his future in Dallas.”
Remember this next time before you blurt out that the Cowboys should cut Prescott and hand the starting job to Trey Lance: Insanity may be repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result, but immortality starts with getting knocked down 12 times and getting up 13. Right, Dirk? Right, Troy Aikman?
Today’s scorn can become tomorrow’s scar-strengthened statue.
“I am a big fan of Dak,” said Aikman, who overcame a 1-15 rookie season and his share of doubters to win three Super Bowls during a Hall-of-Fame career. “I still believe his best days are ahead of him.
“Until you do it, there’s always those criticisms. I know Peyton Manning went through that his first three years: he didn’t win a playoff game. When you look back on it now, you can’t imagine that anybody questioned whether or not he could win a playoff game.”
And what does Aikman think Prescott should do to block out the haters?
“Get away!” he said. “Get away from everybody and regroup.”
I hear Australia is nice this time of year.
Dirk Nowitzki will never be a champion.
The Texas Rangers will never win a World Series.
Dak Prescott will never …
