Dallas Cowboys defensive end Tyrone Crawford used part of his media availability Monday to defend his quarterback from what he considers unwarranted vitriol.
Crawford conveyed after the team’s first padded practice of training camp that Dak Prescott’s detractors — many just amongst the fan base — are of the imbecilic variety.
“The man’s a beast. If you can’t see it, who cares,” he said, via beat reporter Brianna Dix. “He does exactly what he’s told to do, and he does it at a very high level. I’m a huge fan of Dak. Not a lot of QBs that I can say that about, but Dak is one of my favorites. He is a professional on and off the field, and he does his thing. Anybody talking about him, I don’t really think they know football. The guy gets the job done. I can’t really say much more.”
Prescott got the job done in 2019, throwing for a career-high 4,902 yards and 30 touchdowns. He added a personal-best 388 completions, 8.2 yards-per-average, and 68 hookups of 20-plus yards. His 65.1-percent completion rate and 99.7 passer rating were the second-highest of his four-year starting tenure.
Prescott’s second option in the passing game, wide receiver Michael Gallup, topped the NFL with five of his six touchdowns coming when his QB was under pressure. Prescott himself tied for first among his counterparts with 10 scores under duress. In this same category, his 1,259 air yards and 79.5 percent passer rating ranked third and eighth, respectively.
He’s one of just two signal-callers since 2018 to throw at least 20 touchdown passes outside the red zone, according to Pro Football Focus. The other? Reigning Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, the first half-billion-dollar player in North American sports history.
Yet, peruse any Facebook page or Twitter comment section and they’re littered with the same tripe: “He’s inaccurate!” “He can’t win a playoff game!” “He’s greedy!”
Prescott’s reputation is vastly different inside The Star than outside of it. No teammate, past or present, has a bad word to say about the 27-year-old, who has also earned the respect of his superiors — the czars whose feet he held to the fire in failed contract negotiations.
“I’ve never seen anything shake Dak. Certainly that’s why we think so much of him,” Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones said Monday, via The Athletic. “He’s totally focused on the task at hand, which is trying to win a championship for the Cowboys. I have no concerns that this contract is a distraction to him.”
Feeding the trolls, as Crawford did, is only going to fuel the Prescott condemnation. It won’t stop until there’s absolutely no way to pick apart his game, perhaps until he reaches Mahomesian heights. The uninformed will not and cannot help themselves from grabbing the low-hanging fruit.
But the important distinction here is that those in the know, those who’ve forgotten more football than the aforementioned will ever learn, represent the not-so-silent majority.
That sound you now hear is the bubble being burst.
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Cowboys Veteran Explains Why Dak Prescott Critics ‘Don’t Know Football’