Dak's Birthday as Cowboys Camp Begins: 'Unbelievable' Prescott In MVP Race?
In two of his last three seasons, Dak has been in the MVP discussion, but is 2026 the year he wins it?
Video Transcript
There is no player in the history of the NFL during my 40 years covering the league, 36 years in Dallas, who is more of a lightning rod, thermometer, barroom argument centerpiece than your quarterback, Dak Prescott.
But now we have some definitive, not really, some definitive, semi-definitive list where Dak Prescott ranks and what it all means.
You, sir or madam, have come to the right place.
I'm Mike Fisher, your trusty and first reporter.
This is the Fishbowl.
That is the star driven by Honda cars of McKinney and Hendrick BMW of McKinney.
Hello, Johnny.
Hello, Scott.
If you're looking for a vehicle of any sort, Honda, BMW, or any sort, go find Johnny.
Go find Scott.
Trust me.
That's what the Fisher family has done.
I think we've done it seven times now over the course of the last couple of years.
Dak's top 10.
Dak's almost the best.
Dak's 26th.
Dak's no good at all.
There's been over here and over there and in between a pendulum in trying to judge Dak Prescott.
And it's been that way probably not in his freshman year, his first year.
His first year, it was just so shocking how good he was in contributing to wins that we didn't worry about it too much.
Fourth or sixth or eighth or 12th, what difference does it make?
They're winning double-digit games in a row with this rookie fourth-round draft pick.
Tony Romo's over there going, what about me?
So that was a very special time.
And it's gone.
Dak Prescott and the Cowboys in the Dak Prescott era.
What is it?
Is it a 2-5 record in the playoffs?
And that's where a lot of people draw the line on excellence.
You can't not win playoff games and be excellent.
Can't be done.
And we can go through a long list of really good quarterbacks in my time covering and watching the NFL.
You know, we're talking about 60 years now, and many of you are in the same boat.
Boy, he was good, but last year under Shoddy.
And this quarterback did it under McCarthy.
He did it with Kellen Moore as the coordinator.
He did it with Jason Garrett.
It's a lot of it's him in a good way.
Dak Prescott last year, 4,500 yards, 30 touchdowns, 10 interceptions.
A 30-10 TD to interception ratio.
That's really good.
In the MVP race until the Cowboys were clearly not going to be a good team at 7-9-1.
In the MVP race.
Year before, finished second in the MVP race.
So where do you rank him?
Here goes ESPN with its survey of executives, coaches, and whatnot.
And they've got their top 10 list of quarterbacks.
And Dak, now this is where you young people are going to have to help me out.
Who brought up, whoever created the idea of he needs to get his flowers.
He got his flowers.
He deserves his flowers.
What is flowers?
I'm of a generation where the only time that anybody gets flowers is on Marsha's birthday, on our anniversary, or when I really screwed up.
When did a man ever get flowers?
I don't know.
But that's what the kids do nowadays.
Dak gets his flowers.
Okay, so fine.
Here's the top six.
According to ESPN coaches, scouts, executives.
Josh Allen, number one.
We can debate it, but that sounds good.
Patrick Mahomes, number two.
We can debate it, but that sounds good.
Josh Jones.
Fish, you forgot Valentine's Day.
You're going to be in the doghouse.
Matthew Stafford, number three.
Okay.
And Joe Burrow, number four.
Okay.
Again, this is not a classroom.
This is a barroom.
So Josh Allen's not better than Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow hasn't done it.
But Allen, Mahomes, Stafford, Burrow.
That's good.
Lamar Jackson, number five.
Here's what's fun about Lamar Jackson.
He's got the two MVPs.
But in terms of the postseason, in terms of winning when he just had to, he hadn't done it that much more than Dak Prescott has.
One of the NFL people surveyed, a coordinator of a team, said Dak is a true acute progression passer.
There's only so many of those types.
He can read the whole field from pre to post snap.
He's really a good commander of the offense.
This is fascinating because that's not been the scouting report on Dak Prescott, that he's a great reader of the field.
That's not what his critics say, but that's what one opposing coordinator says.
Rusty Chestnut, Uncle Fish Premium.
Wish my name was Rusty Chestnut.
Actually, I used to date a stripper named Rusty Chestnut, but that's a whole other story.
And now I owe Marsha some more flowers.
Fish, in 2026, Dak was not remotely as good as Tony.
I know you were there, Rusty.
One of the most controversial decisions ever made in Cowboy history.
And had Jason Garrett gone the other way and given the job back to Tony, it would have been easy.
That would have been the easy decision.
Jason Garrett made the ballsy decision.
Dak had won the locker room.
You're right.
Had there been a Dak versus Romo tryout, and I was told Tony asked for one.
Let's go have a quarterback off.
On the field, Dak would have, Tony would have won.
Would have won going away.
Easily.
Romo's, Romo's, in addition to his skills, Romo's intellect as a quarterback was on another planet compared to rookie Dak.
But the locker room would have, like, rebelled.
They won seven straight games.
Oh, and by the way, as Rick Charlton points out, as much as Romo wanted to come back, and as much as Garrett weighed the idea, the first guy that put a helmet on Romo's shoulder, that might have been the end of that.
So it was, I mean, give Jason Garrett, you can criticize Garrett for the decision you want.
That was gutsy, man.
I'm going to take Jerry's favorite player of all time and keep him on the bench for a rookie fourth round pick?
Then they don't win the Super Bowl and then, you know, it's stupid.
It was way more ballsy than it was stupid.
That's how it should be remembered.
Prescott on this list, named ahead of Justin Herbert, which I'm fine with.
He's never done anything good.
Drake May, he just got here.
No way.
Jared Goff, he's got more skins on the wall, but okay.
Caleb Williams, Caleb Williams, not yet.
Caleb Williams has done one thing one time in the playoffs.
So this ain't bad.
It seems about right to me.
Until, if and until the Cowboys go 7-9-1.
Because one of the things about, again, because one of the things about these lists and these rankings, if you're the sixth best quarterback in football, you got to lift your guys.
And that means don't go 7-9-1.
AV and XX, I'm going to settle your debate because it's a good one.
AV says Romo had poor locker room manner.
XX says, AV, were you in the locker room?
No, but I was.
You know where AV's getting his information?
From me.
Tony Romo was a leader of a clique.
Dak Prescott was the leader of a team and still is.
And it's, I mean, you can be Tony Romo's brother and you can't, Jason Witten wouldn't disagree with me on that.
Tony Romo had a very small circle of guys that were his guys.
This is a fact, by the way.
XX, I'm not trying to diss your thoughts or anybody else's on Tony Romo's sometimes excellence.
The fact is, Romo's circle of guys in the locker room over the course of years, Witten, Zach Martin, disagree.
DeMarco Murray, Miles Austin.
Romo's circle of guys, there's like 52 of them.
I'm sorry, Dak's circle of guys, like 52 of them.
Romo's circle of guys, like two of them.
And so Romo's locker room manner, not that he wasn't a jerk to guys, but he was not, he did not, he was not their friends.
He was not friends with the other 50 guys.
He was friends with Witten.
He was friends with Bobby Carpenter.
That made a difference.
So now the big thing for Dak Prescott is, okay, great.
Congratulations.
You're the sixth best quarterback in football.
But I must say, flowers and rankings and all the rest, and of course training camp is in two weeks and I'll be there.
I must say, and I think I speak for all of us, 80,000 fish heads in Cowboy Nation, 500,000 people who follow us on social media and at cowboysroundtable.com.
I'm about done with the lists.
I'm about done.
Go win two playoff games, not one, two.
Go win two playoff games.
And now it'll be inarguable you're a top blank quarterback.
And I will give you your flowers, even though you're not my wife, you're not my girlfriend.
And by the way, if I ever have a wife and a girlfriend, please don't tell each of them about the other.
Fish out.
