The tale of two Dak Prescotts

The Dallas Cowboys needed Dak Prescott to be a superstar this season. Unfortunately, that only happened occasionally, showing there is more maturation needed.

It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times. This season, the Dallas Cowboys were able to show the NFL why they are one of the most talented teams in the league and why they are also the most frustrating. After going 13-3 in 2016 and taking the league by storm, the Cowboys will play in a meaningless game in Week 17 as they will not be making the playoffs this season.

There are a lot of reasons we can point to as to why the Cowboys didn’t make the playoffs this season. The receivers took a step backward. The offensive line didn’t play nearly well enough and the defense had too many games in which they didn’t show up. And of course, the coaches didn’t have their best season, either.

However, most of the blame this offseason will be put on the shoulders of Dak Prescott. And quite frankly, that’s fair. The Cowboys put a lot of faith into their young quarterback and ultimately, he didn’t play well enough to get them back into the playoffs.

To start the season, he was fantastic. In the team’s first eight games, Prescott scored 20 touchdowns and the Cowboys’ offense was rolling. They averaged more than 28 points per game in the first half of the season and nearly 32 points per game in those last six contests. Prescott looked like an even better version of the quarterback we saw in 2016.

But then, the Ezekiel Elliott suspension happened. But before we jump to the conclusion that Elliott’s suspension is what caused Prescott to struggle, let’s take a look at the raw stats just to show how big of a gap in his production there was between the first and second half of the season.

Dak Prescott’s Passing Stats Before The Ezekiel Elliott Suspension: 

8 Games (5-3): 163 of 259 (62.9%) for 1,818 yards and 16 TDs and 4 INTs.

Passer Rating of 97.9

Sacked 10 times

Yards Per Attempt of 7.02

Dak Prescott’s Passing Stats During and After Ezekiel Elliott Suspension:

7 Games (3-4): 128 of 201 (63.7%) for 1,328 yards and 5 TDs and 9 INTs.

Passer Rating of 72.3

Sacked 21 times

Yards Per Attempt of 6.61

A passer rating gap of more than 25 in a single season is unheard of. That difference in passer rating is equivalent to the difference between Tom Brady and Mitchell Trubisky in 2017. That is the difference in the quarterback we saw from Dallas in the first half of the season compared to the second half of the year.

What caused this massive drop in production from Prescott? Was it as simple as Elliott not being on the field? Did the receivers all of a sudden get significantly worse?