Dak Is Dirk: Can Cowboys' Disappointing Star Follow Mavs Iconic Hero?
WHITT'S END 1.19.24:
Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
*During almost 40 years in DFW sports media, I haven’t exactly been the voice of deep breaths, sound reasoning or meditative wait-and-sees.
There was the time(s) I proclaimed the Texas Rangers would never win a World Series. “Patrick Mahomes will be a bust.” I shrugged off the internet as a fad. Yanked the emergency brake on a couple of marriages. And, just last week, made a “guaranteed” prediction: Dallas Cowboys 48, Green Bay Packers 17.
As uncharacteristic as it is for me to utter and as uncomfortable as it may be for you to hear, I’m benching my irrational idiocy to offer a plea for patience:
Let Dak Prescott’s cake bake.
For those “prisoner of the moment,” knee-jerk critics who are ready to dump the Cowboys’ quarterback in the wake of last weekend’s colossal collapse because he’s too soft mentally, an eternal “choker” and a loser that will never ever never lead his team to a championship, allow me a short, sweet retort:
Dak is Dirk.
Here’s hoping that Prescott is grabbing his backpack and heading for the Australian Outback. That he loyally leaves money on the table in his upcoming contract negotiations to help the front office buy/build better players around him. And that he continues being an immaculate leader in the locker room, a sparkling role model away from the game, and a star player on the field that – someday, perhaps when we least expect it – brings a championship to DFW.
It worked for Dirk Nowitzki. Why not Dak Prescott?
After all, we – re: I – wrote off Dirk after a similarly humiliating defeat and at an almost parallel juncture in his career 17 years ago.
In 2007 he was the NBA’s MVP, averaging 25 points per game in leading the Mavericks to a 67-15 record and the No. 1 seed throughout the playoffs.
But then they embarrassingly lost to the No. 8 seed Golden State Warriors in one of the biggest upsets in NBA playoff history. In the clinching Game 6 in Oakland, Dirk missed 11 of 13 shots and scored only eight points as the Mavs were ran out of the gym by 25. (Cue the part about me being impatient.)
In my autopsy of the series for the Dallas Observer, I called Dirk “intimidated,” “a liability,” and complained that he “simply vanished.”
“He (bleeped) his shorts in the spotlight,” I wrote. “We thought he had matured. We were wrong.”
Ring any bells, Dak Denigrators?
At the time, 28-year-old Dirk had played nine seasons and ruined his MVP year with a first-round flameout. Prescott, 30, just finished his eighth season in which he will likely finish Top 3 in MVP voting, but spoiled it with - yup - a first-round flameout.
Dirk, like Dak, was a great player on some really good teams. Perennial All-Star. Scoring records. Individual awards. Everything … except putting a ring on it.
To deal with the depression of her subpar performance, Dirk went to Australia for a month to seek solace in the middle of nowhere. He hiked. He slept under the stars. He drank. He strummed a guitar. He wrang the “why me?!” from his mind and body. Every last drop.
He returned, ready. “There’s no guarantees for any team in any season,” he said during training camp four months later. “But I’m committed to do everything I can to put us in the best situation possible come playoff time … then we’ll see what happens.”
Dak is Dirk.
While Mavs fans canceled him long before the culture was even invented, fortunately team management stuck with him. Without actual proof that he could, Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson and Avery Johnson and Rick Carlisle held onto the faith that Dirk finally would.
After three more playoff failures that seemed to cement his legacy as a loser, in 2011 Dirk led the Mavericks past teams led by Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and LeBron James to a team championship and personal vindication. In his 13th season of trying.
As the final seconds ticked away in the clinching Game 6 in Miami, Dirk began crying on the court. Overcome with emotion, he hopped the press table and scurried into the locker room. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, as he had been on all the countless, sleepless nights when you, me and almost everyone else gave up on him.
“It was just a lot,” Nowitzki has since said of that moment. “The realization that all the stuff you went through had finally paid off … powerful feeling.”
The view from the mountaintop was worth the depths of every valley.
Personal of his personal journey, Dirk’s title remains arguably the most cherished championship in DFW sports history. The Cowboys’ No. 4 can top even the Mavs’ No. 41.
Dak’s got the support of owner Jerry Jones, who will likely sign him to a $300(ish) million contract this offseason. And of coach Mike McCarthy, who sees him as not a problem but rather a “part of the solution.”
In 2007, Dirk had a horrible series. In 2024, Dak endured a nightmare game.
Against the 7th-seeded Packers, he looked stunned. He acted skittish. He made uncharacteristic decisions, compounded by unfathomable throws. He fell to 2-5 in the playoffs, joining a dubious group of quarterbacks with more than 70 regular-season wins and less than three postseason wins that includes only Andy Dalton, Ryan Tannehill and Kirk Cousins.
But he’s also the same quarterback that … became the first Cowboy to lead the NFL in passing touchdowns … has led Dallas to 36 wins since 2021, second only to the Kansas City Chiefs’ 37 … plays in a sport where quarterbacks often take time to, ahem, bake: Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Steve Young won all their MVPs after 30; Matthew Stafford his Super Bowl at 33.
Says former Cowboys quarterback-turned-radio analyst Babe Laufenberg, “If Dak were out there on the open market, you’d see as many as 24 teams clamoring for his services.”
Pause and remember this next time you’re convincing your buddy that the Cowboys should cut Prescott and hand the starting job to Trey Lance:
Insanity may be repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result. But immortality is getting knocked down 12 times and getting up 13. Right, Dirk?
Today’s scorn and scars can become tomorrow’s statue.
“I understand it’s about winning a Super Bowl,” Prescott said after the Green Bay loss. “That’s the standard of this league and damn sure the standard of this place. I get it.”
What should frustrated Cowboys fans do in the wake of another embarrassing end to another disappointing season? I dunno, kick the dog. Burn your jerseys. Have AI write a very terse email or two. But mostly, in the name of Nowitzki, don’t give up.
What should Dak do in this soul-searching offseason?
He should call Dirk. From Australia.
“Yeah … here we gooooooo!”
*I haven’t given up on this season’s Mavs (ah, see what I did there?), but there’s nothing interesting happening on the court. But off it … wow. I’m often in the same workout program as Mark Cuban in Dallas on Saturday mornings. Last week, during a water break, I looked up and he’s having a heated exchange with some guy while a bunch of folks circled around him holding cameras.
Ambush! I don’t know who James O’Keefe is, but I do know he’s a coward and a clown that gives a bad name to the profession of “journalism.” Something about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). Though he leans left, Mark was on the right side of the argument.
*Only 26 days until Rangers pitchers and catchers report to spring training in Surprise, Arizona. A year ago at this time, we had no clue we were on the verge of a championship season. To be honest, we didn’t know it midway through October, either.
*Back in Black? DeMeco Ryans with the Houston Texans. Todd Bowles in Tampa Bay. Mike McDaniel in Miami. The Steelers’ Mike Tomlin. There are four Black head coaches in the NFL this season and they all led their teams to the playoffs. McCarthy is coming back, but it made me wonder: Are Cowboys fans ready for a Black head coach?
With the New England Patriots hiring Jerod Mayo this week, Dallas is among only 12 teams to never have one. DFW was fine and dandy with Ron Washington leading the Rangers to the World Series and Avery Johnson taking the Mavs to the NBA Finals. But something tells me a Black coach in charge of the Cowboys wouldn’t “sit well” with some fans. If you know what I mean. And I know you do.
*I despise the cold. No really, like curl-up-under-a-blanket-and-surrender hate it. Down to around 10 degrees this week and I learned that other folks are even more effected than me: Medical professionals who perform autopsies, and drivers of electric cars. Turns out that frozen pipes prevent necessary running water in morgues, and frigid temps decrease battery life in Teslas.
*As pathetic as the offense played against the Packers, more troubling was how the defense tried to play. As in, after a season of success playing man-to-man coverage, why did Dan Quinn abruptly switch to zone? You’re the No. 2 seed playing at home. You don’t change, you make the underdog chase. Right? Seems like Quinn so feared an ailing Stephon Gilmore and DaRon Bland playing man on Green Bay’s young receivers that he altered Dallas’ defensive DNA.
Not only is that shaky strategy, consider the message it sent to his players: “Guys, we have to drastically change the way we play against this team or we’ll be in big trouble.”
The result was a passive and uncomfortable Cowboys’ secondary messing up coverage responsibilities and allowing open receivers all over the field. Bad planning is even worse than bad playing. In Dallas’ three playoff losses with Quinn in charge of the defense opponents have run the ball 103 times and passed only 73. Secret’s out.
Said ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky: “Matt LaFleur ran circles around Dan Quinn. It was embarrassing.”
*The Cowboys defense voluntarily, unsuccessfully changing its stripes against Green Bay got me to again thinking about the Mavs 2007 playoff loss. Because I’ll be damned if they commit the same crime. In an attempt to match the Warriors’ “small ball,” before Game 1 Johnson tweaked his team’s starting lineup into one never used during the franchise’s most successful 82-game regular season.
What I wrote at the time: “It was Johnson who instilled the doubt, changing his lineup and grasping at a game plan the Mavericks never used en route to a record-setting, impose-our-will, 67-15 regular season. Before the first jump ball the coach sent an emasculating message to players that their normal best wouldn’t be good enough against the quirky, quicker Warriors.
Hence, the No. 1-seeded Mavs played like the hunted.” Eerily familiar.
*Hot.
*Not.
*Color me silly – and, yes, stubborn – but I think if the Cowboys played the Packers 10 times at AT&T Stadium they’d go 7-3, maybe even 8-2.
*I won’t regurgitate every thought and word here, but I’ve written a lot about the Cowboys in recent days. The highlights if you want more:
McCarthy’s first four years in Dallas mirror Andy Reid’s first four in Kansas City with the Chiefs.
Jason Garrett had success in 2014 coaching the Cowboys as a lame duck. Can McCarthy do the same 10 years later?
Not counting Super Bowls or NFC Championship Games, I rank last Sunday’s blowout loss as a Top 5 early playoff exit for the Cowboys.
*I have a friend – these days downgraded to a regular acquaintance – who is thrilled that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is a “real Christian.” Her: “He’s going to help us get back to our roots and run this country based on The Bible.” Me: “Oh, so you’re cool with our ‘border crisis’ being solved by the ‘word of God’?” Her: “Of course! All the answers are in The Bible.” Me: “Leviticus 19:34: The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like your native-born; so you must love him as yourself.” Her: “Well … not that part.”
*I get the feeling the national media isn’t on board with the returns of McCarthy and Prescott and the Cowboys using the same script with the same actors.
NFL Network host Kyle Brandt: “That’s some 100-percent, grass-fed, organic definition of insanity stuff right there.”
ESPN’s Orlovsky: “If you run it back next season with McCarthy and Dak ... don’t tell me you’re serious about winning a Super Bowl in Dallas because you're not.”
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio: “Does Jerry Jones truly want to win a Super Bowl? Or is he just a carnival barker hoping to sell overpriced tickets and beer and popcorn to those who have been duped into thinking he truly wants to win a Super Bowl?”
*Since the Los Angeles Lakers sheepishly hung a banner for winning the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament, maybe the Cowboys should start hoisting them for NFC East titles? They’d have 16 in the rafters since winning their last Super Bowl.
*I’m not real keen on the inner workings of city hall and whatnot, but when Dallas is doing something as important as slicing and dicing its $1.25 billion annual budget shouldn’t the mayor be there? How does Eric Johnson justify missing that vital duty to be in Switzerland for something called the World Economic Forum?
*For those of you that were slobbering over the possibility of Bill Belichick coaching the Cowboys, I ask one question: How much Patriots football have you actually watched since Tom Brady left Foxboro? Because without his quarterback since 2020, Belichick went 29-39 without a single playoff win. In the Pats’ lone postseason game they lost by 30 at Buffalo.
Oh, and this year they lost to McCarthy’s Cowboys 38-3, went 4-13, saw their former first-round quarterback benched and scored the fewest points in the NFL. Really? That’s what you were begging for?
*I hope I’m never so out of ideas that the best I can conjure is stealing a van, finding a chain and going to my local 7-Eleven to attempt to yank an ATM out the window. Mesquite somehow makes it even sadder.
*Though I fundamentally agree that with a 42-25 record, two division titles and a playoff win in four seasons McCarthy has built the Cowboys into a “championship program,” it tiptoes dangerously close to when – after losing a divisional playoff home game in 2007 – Wade Phillips infamously boasted about leading the Cowboys to the “final eight.” Yuck.
*I ranted about fees last week so I’m not going to do it again today.
*Changed my mind. Is it just me or are we being scammed alive with this streaming stuff? The NFL showed last week’s Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game exclusively on NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock. No biggie. Pay the $7, download the app on my TV and there’s the NBC presentation complete with … commercials? If I’m watching a network channel with regular programming interrupted by regular commercials, aren’t I just watching regular TV? Except now I’m paying for it. Twice?
The direction we’re headed with streaming feels akin to paying to eat at the buffet, but then also being charged a la carte at each station of food. How are we letting this happen right in front of our very eyes?!
*This blew me away when I did the math: The legendary NFL announcing duo of Pat Summerall-John Madden worked together 21 years. Troy Aikman-Joe Buck are nearing the end of their 22nd.
*This Weekend? Friday let’s sneak off to Austin for some friends, fun and fellowship. First time in a long time there’s no Cowboys game to craft plans around. As always, don’t be a stranger.
