“Hey, was that easier than Philly?” Dak Prescott asked as he high-fived Amari Cooper, moments after the two connected on a comfortable touchdown pass against the New York Giants. After Dak’s scorching performance against a Giants defense (in particular a backfield) comprised of eleven lucky fans who won a Twitter contest to play on an NFL team for one game, fans and pundits alike around the league asked the question, for the millionth time, “Is Dak Prescott a top quarterback?”

To get right to the point, uh, no. Where to even begin?

First, let’s address the anthems people sing in support of him. “He’s a proven winner – two playoff appearances in three years!” “He knows how to stage a comeback victory!” “His completion percentage is so high!”

There’s certainly merit to a guy who has made the playoffs twice in two of his first three seasons. The way the league is now, you don’t see many newcomers at the most important position in football find themselves in so many big games, so early in their careers. However, everything – and I mean everything – suggests that the Cowboys took Dak to the playoffs, much more than Dak took the Cowboys to the playoffs.

With the 4th overall pick in the 2016 draft, the Cowboys took (new $90 million man) Ezekiel Elliott. Since then, they have squeezed every last drop of usage out of him. In the three years Dak has been in the league, here are the Cowboys’ league ranks by year in percentage of plays being a pass:

2016 – 32nd
2017 – 30th
2018 – 23rd
(Credit to Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) for publishing these)

Let’s dig in to that. The Cowboys, whose head coach is a former QUARTERBACK, have never opted to throw the ball at an even league-average rate.

But year-by-year it gets even more noticeable.

In 2016, Dak and Zeke’s rookie year, it made a little bit of sense. Dak wasn’t even supposed to be the starter, and runningbacks can step in with far less seasoning and experience to be impactful. Dak could be a safe vanilla game manager and watch Zeke take the league by storm.

Then 2017 happened. Remember how Zeke couldn’t (and still can’t) keep his hands to himself, and as a result the league hit him with a 6-game suspension? Look at that stat above. The Cowboys, whose coach is a former QUARTERBACK, still would’ve preferred to give the ball to the backup runningback than put the ball in Dak’s hands. It should also be noted there that without Zeke for over a third of the season, the Cowboys floundered to a 9-7 record, capped off by a meaningless Week 17 win against the Eagles.

Finally in 2018, it took the Cowboys adding an objective top-10 wide receiver in Cooper to even crack the top-25 in passing play rate. Clearly, this is not a team that wants to (or thinks they are able to) rely on the quarterback to win ballgames.

As for “comeback victories” and Skip Bayless’ favorite stat, “4th-Qtr comebacks,” that’s a glass half-full/empty idea. Sure, it’s great to have a guy with that “clutch” gene. Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are a couple of guys who just always seem to at least push their opponent until the clocks hit zero.

But it can be a deceiving stat.

You know what it means if you’ve got a lot of 4th-Qtr comebacks? It means you were losing at some point in the 4th quarter. And the Cowboys since 2016 have eight 4QC’s.

They have thirty-two wins.

That means that a literal quarter of their victories since 2016 have been 4QC’s. That’s clutch in the same sense that a closer who loads the bases every time but still gets saves is clutch. It is not a stat you want to be in a position to pad.

“But look at his completion percentage! He’s efficient when he gets the ball!” To quote Shannon Sharpe, ‘Deekin’ and Dakin’, ain’t nothin’ happenin’.” Here are Dak’s league rankings for completion percentage, passing yards, and yards per attempt, year-by-year.

C% Yds Y/A
2016: 4th / 19th / 4th
2017: 13th / 16th / 20th
2018: 10th / 15th / 18th

Where exactly is the secret stat that suggests he’s a lot better than people give him credit for? It’s certainly not his touchdown totals; the man has yet to surpass his rookie-season total of 23 TDs.

Now, how about how he compares to Carson Wentz? In short, Dak doesn’t even come close.

While Dak had objectively a better rookie season in 2016, the two players have taken completely different trajectories.

Below are the stats for both players, year-by-year.

2016 Yards TDs INTs Comp% QBR Y/A TD% INT%
Wentz: 3782 / 16 / 14 / 62.4 / 79.3 / 6.2 / 2.6 / 2.3
Prescott: 3667 / 23 / 4 / 67.8 / 104.9 / 8.0 / 5.0 / 0.9

2017
Wentz: 3296 / 33 / 7 / 60.2 / 101.9 / 7.5 / 7.5 / 1.6
Prescott: 3324 / 22 / 13 / 62.9 / 86.6 / 6.8 / 4.5 / 2.7

2018
Wentz: 3074 / 21 / 7 / 69.6 / 102.2 / 7.7 / 5.2 / 1.7
Prescott: 3885 / 22 / 8 / 67.7 / 96.9 / 7.4 / 4.2 / 1.5

I simply don’t know what more I can show here. There’s not a single stat there that Dak has improved from 2016 to 2018. Also worth noting is how Wentz missed the last three-plus games of 2017 and five games in 2018, dealt with a shattered vertebrae in his back for much of last year, and he has still played at a higher level.

Let’s give Dak his due.

He is, without question, better at moving the ball with his legs than Wentz. His 18 rushing touchdowns and 956 rushing yards far exceed Wentz’s 2 rushing TDs and 547 rushing yards. I think Philadelphia fans can agree, that’s an area of Wentz’s game that they wouldn’t mind decreasing anyway.

The other top thing he has going for him over Wentz is his health. Despite being a guy who likes to run, and by extension gets hit more, he stays on the field. Wentz may have practically wrapped up the #1 seed before he even tore his ACL back in 2017, but no skillset helps you when you can’t stay on the field.

Dallas fans better pray though that Wentz’s health remains an issue. If he can stay off the trainer’s table and get back to his would-be MVP form, the NFC East, – hell – the whole NFC belongs to Philly. There’s nothing to suggest otherwise.

Actually, scratch all that. Dak is the best QB this league has seen for a generation, and he should be paid as such. Make it happen, Jerry.