While everyone was busy last week talking about Patrick Mahomes’ no-look passes and Ryan Tannehill’s last pass to beat the Patriots, Dak Prescott’s near-NFL record went unnoticed.
Stop if you’ve heard this. . . .
Prescott had 42 completions last week against the Eagles. That’s more than Mahomes, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers or any other quarterback in the NFL has completed in a game this season.
What’s more, it set a team record and nearly an NFL record.
This is how under the radar it was: The NFL and Cowboys even overlooked it.
“It doesn’t necessarily boggle my mind from our end,” Prescott said. “Just saying how that game turned out, how that ending was going back and forth, both offenses caught fire, and we needed to throw the ball, and we needed to do that to win. To say it’s a NFL high [this season] is surprising. To see the yards and the stats I see out there every week from these guys, that’s kind of mind boggling.”
Prescott’s 42 completions bettered Tony Romo’s team record of 41 completions against the Giants on Dec. 6, 2009. Only six quarterbacks in NFL history have completed more passes in a game than Prescott, led by the 45 completions Drew Bledsoe had for the Patriots in a Nov. 13, 1994, game against the Vikings.
Yet, Prescott’s teammate, Amari Cooper, won NFC Offensive Player of the Week after catching 10 of Prescott’s passes for 217 yards and three touchdowns.
While Cooper, Ezekiel Elliott and the Cowboys defense have gotten most of the credit during the Cowboys’ five-game winning streak, Prescott quietly has played MVP-esque. His 75.1 completion percentage over the past five weeks leads the league, and he has passed for 1,471 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions for a passer rating of 106.8.
“Just a whole lot more comfortable,” Prescott said. “It’s as simple as that. Trusting everything that I am seeing. If I see it, I like it, letting it rip, not hesitating on anything. That is something I put in my head earlier in the season when I realized I wasn’t as comfortable as I wanted to be. Just trying to get back to that. It started in practice.”