The Dallas Cowboys haven’t been to the NFC Championship Game and Super Bowl since the 1995-97 season. Over that 28-year time frame the team is just 5-12 in the postseason, and during the Dak Prescott era, (2016-present) they’re just 2-4, with season-ending losses to the San Francisco 49ers occurring the past two seasons.
Despite having one of the most complete rosters in the NFL since 2016, the Cowboys have continually come up small when it matters most. While the sport is the ultimate team game, the play of $40M-per-season quarterback Dak Prescott hasn’t been good enough to elevate his team further in the postseason.
That has many, including FS1 personality and Philadelphia Eagles all-time leading rusher LeSean “Shady” McCoy, believing the Cowboys can’t win a Super Bowl with the aforementioned Prescott under center. During a recent segment on “Speak” on FS1, Shady was adamant that he has no belief in Dak to take the Cowboys to the promised land:
“Absolutely — not! [laughs] Are you kidding me? Listen, when I watch the Cowboys play, and I’m always like, ‘What is their real issue? Why can’t they win big games? And I automatically go to the quarterback. When I watch the Cowboys they have a top-five defense, right?
“They have a player that’s the closest to LT [Lawrence Taylor], right? Micah Parsons. They go out and get a guy like Stephon Gilmore, top-five cornerback, in my opinion. Trevon Diggs, you already have him over there to hold things down.”
McCoy makes some valid points, although we haven’t seen the Cowboys defense just yet with the newly acquired Gilmore, who won NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2019. He’s also reaching a bit by saying Parsons, who’s extremely talented, is the closest thing we’ve seen to the great LT. That’s not true, as Parsons is more comparable to former Denver Broncos great and future Hall of Famer Von Miller.
LT was one of one.
For good measure, the 2022 Cowboys defense finished tied for third in the league with 54 sacks.
McCoy Talks About Talented Cowboys Offense
On the offensive side of the ball, the Cowboys also don’t have a shortage of talent. McCoy, being a former offensive player himself, talked at length about their weaponry.
“Then we go to the offensive side. Let me think about it. So, they have All-Pro wide receivers. Cee Dee Lamb, and then they go acquire Brandin Cooks. He’s a thousand-yard receiver, a speed burner. The backfield, you got Tony Pollard, Pro Bowl running back.
“What else do you need? Because every time I watch the Cowboys when they lose, it’s the quarterback’s fault. You can’t replace him. Owe him so much money. He’s the guy there. So, if I try to pick a position, it has to be Dak Prescott.”
Once again Shady makes some valid points as they pertain to the offense. It’s not all on Dak; others haven’t held up their end of the deal as well. But when you’re paid like an elite QB you need to play like one when it matters most, and Prescott has never done that in the playoffs, outside of last season’s wild card win at Tampa, when he was outstanding. He followed that performance up with a dud of one in the divisional round loss to the Niners.
Coming off of his career-best 37 touchdowns and just ten interceptions in 2021, it was believed that Dak would be even better in 2022. But Dak broke his thumb in Week 1 of the season missing the next four games, and when he returned he wasn’t anywhere near the efficient QB he’d been throughout his career. He set a career-high for interceptions with 15 and, even threw two costly ones in the playoff loss to the Niners.
While the thumb was still not all the way healed, it doesn’t change the fact that in his team’s biggest moments he once again failed to come through.
With the majority of the top QBs in the AFC, this is as good a year as ever for Prescott to lead the Cowboys to places they haven’t been in nearly 30 years.
Is he capable? We’ll soon find out.
