Why’s everybody always pickin’ on Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys?
Sure, Prescott may be the highest-paid player in NFL history, with the QB signing a four-year deal that includes at least $231 million in guaranteed money and up to $240 million, as ESPN first reported.
Sure, Prescott is 2-5 in the playoffs, and the Cowboys — despite their reputation as “America’s Team” — haven’t been to the NFC Championship Game since after the 1995 season, when they won Super Bowl XXX against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
That makes him the latest in a line of Cowboys starters — Tony Romo and Drew Bledsoe included — that haven’t even sniffed Super Bowl glory, much less tasted it. And sure, they lost to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday to fall to 1-2, in a 28-25 game where the final score was deceptively close. (It was only a flurry of 19 points in the final quarter that saved it from being an embarrassment for Dallas, but for much of the contest, the Ravens, playing at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, were up by numerous scores.)
But don’t pick on Dak — or, as Prescott put it in the moments after the defeat, feel free to take this opportunity to exit whatever Cowboys “bandwagon” may still remain.
He had this angry five-word message for fans after the 1-2 start: “Jump off if you want.”
Dak Prescott walking back to the #Cowboys locker room
“Jump off if you want.”@CBSNewsTexas | #DallasCowboys pic.twitter.com/dOq8UXojBu
— Jett Beachum (@JetthroTV) September 22, 2024
Prescott made the remarks as the team returned to the locker room after the loss.
Are the Cowboys an overrated team?
“It,” of course, is calling Dallas fans bandwagoneers. That’s probably an unwise thing to do, considering the fact that as of Jan. 29, 2017, there were actually Dallas fans who were born after their last Super Bowl triumph who are old enough to drink.
Dak and the Cowboys were predicted by many this year to stop that slide. Consider that, before the season, The Athletic had projected Dallas as a 10-7 team with a 75 percent chance of making the playoffs, a 45 percent chance of winning their division, a 13 percent chance of a first-round bye and a 6 percent chance of making the Super Bowl.
Their chance of making the big game was tied for third in the NFC with the Philadelphia Eagles, who are in the same division and had the same projected record. In fact, the only thing holding them back was their division, in which the Eagles were presumed to have a slight upper hand on them.
The current modeling from The Athletic, after the Ravens loss, gives them only a 42 percent chance of even making the playoffs, with a 3 percent chance of going to the Super Bowl.
And the loss against the Ravens came with plays like this one from Prescott, which drew withering disdain from color commentator Tom Brady, who could only say, “Oh geez.”
Brutally honest Tom Brady was back today, this time about Dak Prescott.
This was comedy. 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/HyJ0ZdThEv
— Pats Buzz (@PatsBuzz) September 22, 2024
Whether or not it “didn’t slip out of” Tom Brady’s “hands much” depends on how you interpret the Tuck Rule™, of course, but at least that was in the snow, and it least it wasn’t that absent-minded. (Now, how much of a role deflated footballs played in this is a matter for debate, too, but still …)
The point is that the Cowboys are in real trouble. Their only win came against the Cleveland Browns, who look similarly unmoored after a loss to the pitiful New York Giants on Sunday. In addition to the Ravens loss, the Boys were mauled by the New Orleans Saints, 44-19.
At least the Cowboys get the Giants this coming Thursday. After that comes a brutal six game stretch where they play the Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons, Eagles and Houston Texans.
Simply going by who’ll be favored going into those contests judging by each team’s performance as of Week 3, if the Cowboys continue forward in the same slipshod manner, they’ll be 2-4 in those contests at best. That would leave them 3-6 going into a stretch with plenty of winnable games, including the Washington Commanders, the Giants again, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Carolina Panthers.
And he’s unhappy with the fans?
That being said, how many of these games will go depends on how much each team has given up by that point — or, conversely, how many upsets they score. Dallas could easily right their ship and be ahead in the NFC East by the time their annual Thanksgiving Day contest rolls around (the Giants game, just in case you were wondering, giving them ample opportunity to run up the score). Or, they could have simply packed it all in and begun implicitly telling the fans, “Wait for next year, folks. Again.”
Whichever one it is depends, in large part, on how Dak Prescott plays — but, after that performance on Sunday, he’s the last person who should be lamenting “bandwagon” fans right now.
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