ESPN Insider: Cowboys' Dak Prescott Better QB Than Rodgers

Getty Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers

To the surprise of absolutely no one, ESPN’s list of the top 100 NFL players for the 2020 season, released Tuesday, is shrouded in controversy.

Quarterback controversy.

The list initially is fine — Patrick Mahomes as the league’s best player, Lamar Jackson at No. 3 overall, and Russell Wilson at No. 4 — but it devolves into a hot take by the twenties, where Cowboys QB Dak Prescott (No. 20) is ranked ahead of future Packers Hall-of-Famer Aaron Rodgers (No. 23).

“He is coming off a season with career highs in passing yards (4,902) and touchdown passes (30) and is being paired with a coach, Mike McCarthy, who has succeeded with quarterbacks at every stop in his career as an assistant or head coach,” ESPN Cowboys reporter Todd Archer reasoned. “With another 3,000-yard, 20-touchdown pass season, Prescott would join Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson as the only QBs with five straight such seasons to open a career.”

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ESPN Insider Doubles Down on Dak > Rodgers [WATCH]

The top 100 collection made its way to the airwaves Tuesday morning, as the Worldwide Leader’s NFL roundtable debated the QB rankings — most notably, Prescott versus Rodgers.

“To tell me there are six QBs in the world better than Aaron Rodgers is absolutely laughable,” Dan Orlovsky said. “I love the upside of the guys who are listed ahead of them, but Dak Prescott being ahead of Aaron Rodgers? Come on, man! We act like Aaron Rodgers just got through playing a season in which he threw for 3,100 yards and had more interceptions than touchdowns. No, the guy went 26:4 touchdown-to-interception [ratio], threw for over 4,000 [yards], and went 13-3. What else do we want from this guy?”

ESPN insider Dan Graziano wasn’t laughing. In all seriousness, he would take the two-time Pro Bowler over the Super Bowl champion.

“I like Dak Prescott at No. 20,” Graziano said. “I think he has outperformed Aaron Rodgers over the last two or three years, and he deserves that spot. … This is a guy who has accomplished an awful lot in his first four years and I think is often underrated. But in this particular list, seeing Dak Prescott at No. 20 overall was encouraging. There are people out there paying attention to the right stuff, and Dak Prescott has done a lot of the right stuff over his career.”