Despite elite efficiency and high-leverage production, Dallas continues wasting Dak Prescott’s prime by fielding porous defenses, mirroring the structural failures that defined Tony Romo’s misunderstood career legacy.
The Dallas Cowboys shouldn't need another decade of hindsight to appreciate their quarterback.
They already did that with Tony Romo, and there are starting to be an uncomfortable number of signs that history could be repeating itself.
Romo finished 2-4 in six playoff starts and never reached an NFC Championship Game. Eventually, the lack of postseason success became inseparable from how his career was discussed — even though the numbers, especially the ones we understand better now, tell a much different story.
Among qualifying quarterbacks in a play-by-play database covering the NFL since 2000, Romo ranks sixth in career EPA per play at +0.172 with a 49.6% success rate. The only quarterbacks currently ahead of him in EPA per play are Brock Purdy, Peyton Manning, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and Drew Brees.
Dallas had an elite quarterback. Too often, it needed him to play like one just to survive.
In 2011, Romo threw 31 touchdowns against 10 interceptions with a 102.5 passer rating. Dallas went 8-8. A year later, he threw for 4,903 yards and the Cowboys went 8-8 again.
Eventually, here came Dak Prescott.
He threw for 4,902 yards in 2019 — one yard fewer than Romo's 2012 total — and Dallas finished 8-8.
At what point to the parallels stop being cute?
They go deeper than records, too. Romo threw 31 touchdowns against 10 interceptions in 2013 while Dallas scored 439 points, fifth-most in the NFL. The Cowboys also allowed 6,645 yards, dead last in the league, and 432 points.
Another 8-8 season.
Last season, Prescott threw for 4,552 yards with 30 touchdowns against 10 interceptions. Dallas scored 471 points, seventh-most in football, while allowing an NFL-worst 511.
The Cowboys finished 7-9-1.
Prescott's individual performance wasn't hiding in the box score, either. PFF had his 85.4 passing grade fourth among qualified quarterbacks in 2025 and rated him first in clutch situations with an 87.8 grade across 145 high-leverage dropbacks.
Now he's doing it again.
Prescott has opened 2026 with 730 yards, seven touchdowns, one interception and a 107.2 passer rating through three games. PFF has him at an 87.0 offensive grade, third among quarterbacks with at least 75 dropbacks.
Dallas is 1-2.
Even Brock Purdy's ridiculous start somehow circles back to Prescott. Purdy's 93.7 QBR is the highest through a team's first three games since ESPN introduced the metric in 2006. Three of the other four quarterbacks to start that hot eventually won MVP: Josh Allen, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
The lone exception … Prescott in 2019.
There are legitimate reasons Prescott isn't universally viewed as one of the NFL's elite quarterbacks. His playoff résumé includes failures he owns, particularly against San Francisco and Green Bay.
Dallas owns part of that reputation, too.
@Datzookman on X pointed out that Prescott has won just once in the past 1,385 days when finishing a game with negative EPA. The same breakdown had Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow already winning games with negative EPA ... this season.
It isn't an official league statistic, and it doesn't absolve Prescott when he plays poorly. It does help illustrate something Dallas has made painfully familiar: its quarterback is afforded very little room to have a bad day.
Sometimes a good one isn't enough, either.
Prescott helped erase an 11-point deficit against Baltimore on Sunday, led a 96-yard fourth-quarter touchdown drive and helped get Dallas into position for Brandon Aubrey to tie the game with seven seconds remaining.
Dallas still lost in regulation.
Romo had his own extreme version of that against Denver in 2013. He threw for a franchise-record 506 yards and five touchdowns in a 51-48 loss, then watched his lone interception — thrown late in the fourth quarter — become one of the defining images of the afternoon.
Five touchdowns. More than 500 yards. One mistake.
Guess which part everyone remembered?
A year later, Romo produced the season people probably should remember more. In 2014, he posted a 113.2 passer rating and 79.2 QBR, earned second-team All-Pro honors and received two AP MVP votes, tied for the third-most.
The advanced numbers now reinforce what Dallas should have understood then: Romo was better than the legacy the Cowboys' shortcomings helped create.
Prescott passed him on the Cowboys' career touchdown list against Washington just under two weeks ago, and once again Dallas has a quarterback producing numbers that belong among the league's best.
The Cowboys cannot spend another career asking their quarterback to overcome everything around him, then use what he couldn't overcome as proof he was never elite in the first place. Prescott has his own failures, and those don't disappear because the defense gives up 500 points or Baltimore finds field-goal range in seven seconds.
That isn't the point.
The point is Dallas already spent years learning too late just how good Tony Romo was.
It has Dak Prescott playing like one of the best quarterbacks in football right now.
Maybe this time, figure it out while he's still here.
