The 2025 season was one of the best of Dak's career, but it was overshadowed by how bad the defense was.
The 2025 season for the Dallas Cowboys is one we look back on and wonder, "What if?"
What if the defense was a little better? What if Dak Prescott and the offense didn't have to be perfect every week? Would that have changed the outlook? Maybe.
With Dak earning his fourth Pro Bowl nod after a superb season that saw him throw for 4,552 yards and 30 TDs while leading one of the NFL's best offenses, it was all for nothing.
Why? Because Matt Eberflus' defense was so bad, Dak had to be perfect just to keep the team in games.
So the 7-9-1 record doesn't look good on Prescott's resume, but you can make the case that he and the offense held up their end of the bargain. The defense didn't.
105.3 The Fan's Bobby Belt asked Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith how long the Cowboys can win with Dak as quarterback, and he dropped some knowledge on what went wrong last season.
"I think as long as he stays healthy, he can play just as long as any other quarterback that you have out there right now," Smith said on 105.3 The Fan. "I think he can be as effective as he's always been. Last year, the guy was a top-five quarterback. Nobody wants to talk about that, but everybody wants to talk about, well, he's a top-five quarterback, but he hasn't made the playoffs. All of that is not on him.
"When you have a sorry [expletive] defense like we had last year, and you have Dak putting up the numbers that he put up, a running back here running the way he ran and you got kicker. You don't have a defense. Defense wins championships. Defense get you into the playoff. If the defense improves 20 percent of what they were last year, we win a little bit more games and we make the playoff, I believe and we might be able to make a difference in the playoffs.”
Smith isn't wrong.
But again, football is a team sport, and you are only as good as your weakest link, which for Dallas was its defense ... one of the NFL's worst.
You could make the case that the Cowboys had everything needed to make the playoffs and go on a deep run, except a competent defense.
Dak is going through some personal strife right now as he and fiancee Sarah Jane Ramos have broken up and called off their wedding. But the Cowboys are confident he'll remain on top of his game.
The hope with Christian Parker coming in to replace Matt Eberflus is that the defense will be better.
Not by much, but even 20 percent, as Smith suggests, then the Cowboys could be in business. Prescott is playing the best football of his career, and it was wasted last year.
Dallas can't afford to do the same in 2026.