Cowboys Dak Prescott Vs. Daniel Jones: Giants QB Ranked Higher?
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If Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott needed a fire lit under him ahead of the 2023 season, he probably just got it.
Former NFL quarterback and current NBC analyst Chris Simms is in the process of unveiling his ranking of the best signal callers. Thursday, Simms released 13-9 on his countdown of the 40 best quarterbacks in the sport. The most notable part was that Prescott checked in at No. 13, two spots below Daniel Jones of the New York Giants.
While Simms generally remained positive when speaking about Prescott, he did offer some constructive criticism after evaluating the 29-year-old's play from a season ago.
“He is good at everything but not elite at anything," Simms said. "More missed throws this past year than ever before. He played not his best football in some of the biggest moments. The Buccaneers playoff game was good, but the 49ers playoff game was horrible. That’s where Dak Prescott fell off just a little bit this year. They’re paying him like a superstar, and he has not come through in some of the superstar moments.
"A positive is that he’s a tremendous leader for their franchise. He’s one of the better leaders in football. His arm is good but it’s not in the upper crust of the NFL, same with his athleticism and his variety of releases. He’s a polarizing player and he gets more hate than he should, and I think that can lead to analysts giving him more love to squash that, but the truth is somewhere in between that.”
2023 will be a relatively crucial year for Prescott, who was picked off a career-high 15 times last regular season. Head coach Mike McCarthy will take over playcalling for the Cowboys, with former offensive coordinator Kellen Moore gone and Brian Schottenheimer now filling that position. Prescott's performance in 2023 may very well decide whether McCarthy returns for a fifth season, and how the Cowboys proceed contractually with the two-time Pro Bowler, who is currently slated to have a $59.5 million cap hit in 2024.
Meanwhile, Simms -- whose father, of course, was a star quarterback for the Giants -- had this to say of Jones.
“He made more with less as much as anybody in football," Simms said. "Daniel Jones is in a small class of quarterbacks in the NFL where he can throw over the line of scrimmage. It keeps a variety of throws still available to him that are not available to most quarterbacks. It’s a short list – him, Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence, (Tom) Brady could kind of do that. It’s that kind of guy.
"He’s a high-level thrower of the football. Incredible control and accuracy. (The Giants) could not have won and played the way they did without Daniel Jones’ skillset last year. His running is in the upper echelon of runners in football. He’s right there with Josh Allen…He rarely put the team in bad situations. His ability to read coverages, like Kirk Cousins, is high-level.”
From here, Jones took too much of the blame throughout his first three NFL seasons when the Giants were a dumpster fire around him, but the pendulum has probably swung too far in the other direction after he guided New York to a playoff win last year. Is Jones a top-half-of-the-league quarterback? Probably. Should he be ranked ahead of Prescott? Probably not.
In case you're wondering, it was Cousins who was ranked No. 12, with the Minnesota Vikings quarterback sandwiched in between Prescott and Jones.
Elsewhere in the NFC East, Sam Howell of the Washington Commanders came in at No. 39, as Simms doesn't just rank all 32 starters, but what he deems to be the best players at the position in the sport. Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles hasn't yet appeared on the countdown, which means he's in one of the top eight spots.
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