After signing the first-ever NFL contract worth $60 million a year on the day the 2024 NFL season kicked off last year, Dak Prescott disappointed and then suffered a season-ending injury. The injury isn’t his fault, but it is the third time in five years that he’s missed 5+ games. He was just 3-5 when he was healthy anyway.
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Nonetheless, he and new head coach Brian Schottenheimer have been positive and ambitious this offseason. Schottenheimer recently said that the Cowboys would be so good and his staff would be so good that they’d be “raided” next offseason. Dak Prescott also expressed his desperation to win the big one for his “sanity”.
While First Take host Molly Qerim was impressed with Prescott’s words, it’s safe to say Stephen A. Smith was not. In the type of rant we don’t usually see until October or November when the season is in full swing, Smith laid into Prescott, calling him the “biggest wasted quote” in the league because of his repeated assertion that he wants to win a Super Bowl despite just two playoff wins in 10 season.
“Well, what was he supposed to say, Molly? That he wants to lose? … It’s the same old stuff with this guy. Listen, he’s the biggest wasted quote in professional sports. He is the one quarterback, if I could petition the NFL to say, don’t let a quarterback talk, because you get nothing from him, it would be Dak Prescott. All you have to do is rewind the clock, two years ago, four years ago, six years ago. He says the same thing every year!”
Qerim, a Giants fan, was audibly annoyed with Smith’s rant. Whether you thought he went too far or it was warranted is up to each of us. But there’s no doubt he can throw a funny phrase together. For a bit of context, here’s the extended quote from Prescott that Smith was reacting to:
“Yeah I wanna win a championship. The legacy, the things, whatever comes after I finish playing will take care of itself. I wanna win a championship. I’ll be damned if it’s just for my legacy, or for this team, or for my personal well-being, for my sanity. Yeah, the legacy will take care of itself I have to stay where my feet are.”
While Qerim appreciated the desperation, Smith viewed it as the same old story he’s been hearing for years. It can be true that what Prescott is saying is pretty standard quarterback-talk and media training. But it can also be true that Prescott parroting that line every year without progress on the field can be frustrating. Even for Cowboys haters like Stephen A.
“It’s a matter of the fact that this is a man who’s been in the league for 10 years. He has two playoff wins. Two. And he never really addresses, ‘Damn, I gotta do better, I haven’t been good enough. I folded come postseason time. There’s a lot I’ve done to contribute to the demise of this organization. Oh, by the way, I made sure I got my bag. And that limits the ability of Jerry Jones to get additional assets.”
At the end of the day, pundits like Stephen A. Smith are going to continue lampooning Prescott for a few reasons. One, he plays for the Cowboys, the biggest draw in the sport. And two—and this is the one he can change—the on-field criticisms about him are correct. Two playoff wins in 10 years are simply not good enough. And it’s not like he’s played well in defeat very often either.
If Dak Prescott wants to escape rants like these, he needs to finally back up those ambitious words with ambitious acts in the 2025 postseason. Whether he and his team can even get there, however, might be the bigger question.
