Three times on Sunday night, a Green Bay Packers receiver dropped a touchdown pass against the Dallas Cowboys. The Packers’ defense also took the field without Micah Parsons, Edgerrin Cooper, and Javon Hargrave. None of it mattered. The Packers led 17-0 at halftime and won 23-13 at Lambeau Field, dropping the Cowboys to 2-4. Dak Prescott completed 34 of 54 passes for 258 yards, and both of his interceptions killed drives in Packers territory. The loss came a week after Dallas fell to a Buccaneers team that entered the game winless.
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On ESPN’s First Take, Stephen A. Smith could not believe the Cowboys lost a game the Packers kept trying to give away. He blasted the run defense, calling it “the worst in the National Football League,” and was utterly shocked that the Cowboys still managed to lose despite the drops. From there, he turned to Prescott.
“Time and time and time again, [Jerry Jones] he puts the ball in Dak Prescott’s hands in key moments. And time and time and time again, they have come up short,” Stephen A. Smith asserted on First Take.
“There’s only two playoff victories in ten years as a starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Danny White has a better playoff record than Dak Prescott… Tony Romo’s got a better playoff record than Dak Prescott. Tony Romo, who, by the way, got two; his record is two and four. Why do we know that? Cause Dak is two and five. I give you $60 million, and you still can’t find a way to win damn playoff games.”
Prescott is 2-5 as a playoff starter, and both wins came in wild-card games, against the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers respectively. Romo finished his Dallas career 2-4 in the postseason, never advancing beyond the Divisional Round.
Danny White, who replaced the retired Roger Staubach in 1980, went 5-5 and led Dallas to three straight NFC Championship Games from 1980 to 1982. Yet both of the quarterbacks’ legacies became debatable due to postgame failures.
Prescott seems to be following the same pattern, but worse. He hasn’t even reached the NFC Championship Game, let alone the Super Bowl. Jerry Jones still made him the NFL’s first $60 million-a-year player in September 2024. That four-year, $240 million deal included $231 million guaranteed.
Sunday’s box score fits the rest of Smith’s rant. CeeDee Lamb caught nine of 18 targets, and George Pickens caught six of 11, which accounts for the 14 incompletions Smith flagged. Jones pays Lamb $34 million a year, while Pickens is playing on a $27.3 million franchise tag.
Smith believes the Cowboys billionaire owner wants the ball in the air to justify all that money, and Sunday’s play-calling gave him plenty of ammunition. Dallas threw 54 passes and ran 15 times, gaining just 48 rushing yards. Rushing leader Javonte Williams never carried again after his touchdown with 9:19 left in the third quarter.
Following the game, Prescott did take responsibility and refused to hide behind the defense.
“Defense, to me, played a good enough game for us to go out there and win this, and we didn’t hold our own on offense,” he said.
However, accountability alone wouldn’t fix a lot. The “worst in the league” tag doesn’t feel like much of an exaggeration. Dallas entered Week 6 dead last in rush defense, allowing 168.4 rushing yards per game. The next test comes on October 26, when they visit the Philadelphia Eagles, whose star quarterback has been declared out for the season.