Getty Dak Prescott, Tom Brady
While one Cowboys legend sees a non-Super Bowl-caliber quarterback in Dak Prescott, another sees a replica of the Greatest of All-Time.
“We have the closest thing in the National Football League to Tom Brady at quarterback now. That’s what we have. Because Dak Prescott has the ability to do what Tom does, and he has the leadership like Tom,” NFL Network analyst Michael Irvin said Wednesday on ESPN’s Stephen A’s World, via 105.3 The Fan. “Dak Prescott, his leadership, and how these guys follow him, was well worth him becoming the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history. You got to make sure and measure, and account for these things. These are important things. You saw what they were like without him last year. I’m talking about the leadership he gives – that’s where he’s most-like Tom Brady. Very rarely in this National Football League do you have quarterbacks being the heart and soul of a football team.”
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There’s an Echo …
Technically, the closest thing the NFL has to Tom Brady is … Tom Brady, who on Friday signed a one-year extension with the Buccaneers, keeping the GOAT on the playing field through his age-45 (!) campaign. “In pursuit of 8,” Brady wrote on social media in announcing the news.
Take away his seven Super Bowl titles; Brady has more league MVP trophies (3) than Prescott has career playoff wins (1). There is literally nobody, alive or dead, who belongs in the same stratosphere — let alone Prescott, as talented as he is. And he is talented, let it be known. Talented enough to warrant a $40 million annual salary and $75 million single-season payout, two feats the mighty Brady has yet to achieve (nor will he).
But, as strange as it sounds, Irvin wasn’t the first to group Brady and Prescott in the same breath, relative to the Cowboys. The Hall-of-Fame wide receiver in fact echoed the team’s executive vice president, Stephen Jones, who did the dot-connecting in a Wednesday radio interview.
“Well, you want him in your foxhole, number one. The right guy has the biggest piece of the pie, as I said earlier today. He just checks every box in these key categories of leadership, (he has) this insatiable appetite to want to be the best, to outwork everybody. He’s got that Michael Irvin quality to him, in terms of outworking (somebody) and competing,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “It’s totally unfair to compare him to somebody like this, but, obviously, Tom Brady has that. He’s just a fiery competitor… a winner and a leader. (He has) an insatiable appetite to be great.”
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