Dak Prescott Drops Telling Quote About 'Frustrating' Season With Cowboys

Dak Prescott spoke about the Cowboys’ ‘frustrating’ season after their loss to the Giants.
Dak Prescott had an honest take on the Cowboys’ disappointing season.
Dak Prescott had an honest take on the Cowboys’ disappointing season. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Despite Dak Prescott putting in one of the best seasons of his career and leading a Cowboys offense that ranked No. 2 in total yards and passing yards per game, Dallas is missing out on the postseason for the second straight year.

Prescott was phenomenal for much of the 2025 campaign—finishing top-four in both passing yards and touchdowns—but the Cowboys were eliminated from playoff contention well before the end of the regular season. After Dallas finished out the year with a 34-17 loss to the Giants—which Prescott played in for the first half—the veteran quarterback acknowledged his frustrations with how the season went despite his strong play.

"One of the first seasons—if not the first of my career—I can’t directly correlate my play to the wins or losses, or the end of the season, or overall success of the season,” Prescott told reporters. “So that makes it frustrating. One of the best offenses in the league, explosive. Now, sure, not always to our standard. Didn’t play like that every week, week in and week out, but put up a lot of points. Unfortunately, just didn’t win all the games that we should have. Didn’t finish out some of those one-score close games on our end, and ultimately leads us to an 8-9-1 record. It sucks but it’s the reality.”

Of course, the Cowboys failed to win more largely due to their defense, which allowed a league-worst 30.1 points per game. Prescott did not comment much specifically on the defense on Sunday, but he did indicate he felt the result of the season did not fall on his or the offense’s shoulders.

“There’s been enough times being up here talking to you guys and saying, ‘I need to fix this. I need to get better at this,’” Prescott added. “And to have a season where it wasn’t on my play, where I can’t say I should have fixed that or I should have fixed that. I take accountability, don’t get me wrong, and in so many ways. The leader I am, I’m always frustrated trying to figure out what could I have done better. ... I do still put some of it on myself, but unfortunately we just didn’t get it done.”

Heading into the offseason, it’s pivotal that the Cowboys prioritize making the moves to build up their defense. After spending the bulk of last offseason in a contract standoff with star Micah Parsons, Jerry Jones & Co. must actually use this spring and summer to improve their defense if they truly want to compete for a title. Jones has acknowledged the defense must be better, but unless they act to improve it, they’ll simply be allowing another prime year of Prescott’s career to go to waste.


More NFL on Sports Illustrated

FREE NEWSLETTER. SI BTN Newsletter. Start off your day with SI:CYMI. dark

feed


Published
Eva Geitheim
EVA GEITHEIM

Eva Geitheim is a contributor to the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Prior to joining SI in December 2024, she wrote for Newsweek, Gymnastics Now and Dodgers Nation. A Bay Area native, she has a bachelor's in communications from UCLA. When not writing, she can be found baking or re-watching Gilmore Girls.