We’re five weeks into the 2025 NFL season, and the MVP race is already taking an unexpected turn. For once, it’s not about the usual suspects: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Lamar Jackson. Instead, two battle-tested veterans, Dak Prescott and Baker Mayfield, are rewriting the narrative and making strong cases of their own.
Advertisement
Prescott, despite the Cowboys’ uneven 2-2-1 start, has been exceptional on an individual level. He has completed over 71% of his passes for 1,356 yards, 10 touchdowns, and just three interceptions … all while playing behind a decimated O-line and without his top two receivers, CeeDee Lamb and KaVontae Turpin.
Mayfield, meanwhile, has powered the Buccaneers to a 4-1 record, leading four fourth-quarter comebacks while continuing to etch his name as one of the league’s most consistent playmakers.
Yet as the numbers pile up, so do the narratives. And if analyst and NFL commentator Greg Olsen is to be believed, it’s Prescott who deserves far more credit than he’s getting right now.
Speaking on the latest edition of Bussin’ With The Boys alongside Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, Olsen made an impassioned case for Prescott as a legitimate MVP candidate.
“Is he in the conversation? Without question. He’s in the two or three,” Olsen said, before raving about the chaos Prescott has gracefully managed to overcome so far.
“He went into that game [against the Jets] on the road with the worst defense in football — statistically 32nd — missing four starting offensive linemen and CeeDee Lamb… and it was 30–3 in the fourth quarter. That’s pretty impressive,” Olsen noted.
In all fairness, the ex-Bears TE’s point is hard to argue against. In that 37–22 win over the Jets, Prescott threw four touchdowns, no interceptions, and posted a 127.4 passer rating, extending his franchise record with his 12th career four-TD game.
And as Olsen emphasized, the QB did it while surrounded by backups across the offensive line with only one regular starter in Tyler Smith, who, despite being suited up, didn’t take a snap.
“He’s done it almost every single game [despite] everything around him not being perfect,” Olsen concluded.
Podcast host and former Titans star Taylor Lewan also echoed Olsen’s sentiment, noting how extraordinary it was for Prescott to keep the Cowboys competitive under such fragile circumstances.
“You keep maybe nine linemen on your roster, so you’re plucking guys from practice squads and telling them, ‘You’ve got to figure it out,’… To have your quarterback play that well? I’m blown away by him,” Lewan said.
Lewan also praised HC Brian Schottenheimer, whom many were skeptical about, for maximizing Prescott’s efficiency despite the team’s defensive collapse. “A lot of times people say, ‘Statistically they’re bad, but…’ There’s no ‘but,’” the analyst said bluntly. “The Cowboys’ defense is actually just bad. And yet Dak plays them into games,” he added.
To sum it up, both Olsen and Lewan agreed that the Dallas Cowboys’ success (for now, at least) depends entirely on Prescott’s consistency, and that very dependency could actually strengthen his MVP case.
But at the same time, as the analysts acknowledged, the moment Dak slips, this injury-riddled Cowboys team likely will too. The narrative that follows him after any Cowboys loss will certainly be one to watch.
Regardless, in a year where Mahomes and Jackson have looked human, Dak Prescott’s resilience and performance stand apart because he’s winning despite everything falling apart.
