Dak Prescott ranks fifth among NFL quarterbacks, and the Cowboys’ defense ranks 31st
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As Dak Prescott walked off the field after Thursday's 24-16 home loss to Tampa Bay, a man near the players' exit said "embarrassing." Prescott looked straight at him and had him removed. Reporters on site described the man as a driver for a third-party car service, not a Cowboys employee, and video of the exchange had spread across X and YouTube by Friday morning.
The argument has not stopped since. Prescott told reporters, "When he said it, I just happened to look at him, and at that point, he looked away." Coach Brian Schottenheimer said, "People are allowed to say what they want to say." Fox Sports Radio's Rob Parker called Prescott "a rat" for having the man removed. A man in a TikTok video says he was the heckler and lost his job over it, but no outlet has confirmed who he is or that anyone was fired.
So was it embarrassing? Five weeks of play-by-play data give a split answer. Thursday was Prescott's worst game of the season by a wide margin. The rest of his season puts him among the best quarterbacks in the league, playing in front of one of its worst defenses.
The chart shows Prescott's expected points added in each game, a measure of how much his plays raised or lowered Dallas's expected score. Thursday was his only negative game, at −3.2. He threw two interceptions, and his completion rate was about 10 percentage points below what the difficulty of his throws predicted. In the first four weeks he added between 13.7 and 17.5 points a game, and Dallas still lost two of those games, 28-20 to the Giants and 34-31 to the Ravens.
Across five weeks Prescott has added 0.267 expected points per play, fifth among 26 quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks. ESPN's QBR, which also counts runs and sacks, ranks him second at 79.2.
Each dot is a team, with offense across and defense up the side. Dallas's offense ranks 4th in EPA per play, while its defense allows 0.182 points per play, 31st of 32, ahead of only Detroit. The Cowboys score 27.6 points a game and allow 27.2.
Prescott's contract pays $60 million a year, second to Patrick Mahomes's $63.1 million. Among the 13 quarterbacks paid at least $50 million a year, he ranks fifth in EPA per play, ahead of Mahomes. His cap hit is $43.5 million this season and rises to $76 million in 2027 and $86 million in 2028, which leaves less room to rebuild the defense.
This is the fifth time in ten ranked seasons that Prescott has finished in the top six in EPA per play. He was 2nd in 2023 and 6th in 2025, and his low point, 22nd in 2024, came in a season cut short by injury after eight games.
What's next
Five games is a small sample, and one strong month from the defense or one bad month from Prescott could move these ranks a long way. We'll update the charts after Week 8, when each team will be about halfway through its season.
How we counted: expected points added (EPA) and completion percentage over expected come from nflverse play-by-play data through Week 5 of the 2026 season, for quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks. QBR and passer rating are from Pro-Football-Reference (updated Oct. 10). Contract figures are from Spotrac, OverTheCap and Sports Illustrated. Sources on the tunnel exchange and reaction: PFT, Bleacher Report, USA Today via Yahoo, OutKick, Pro Football Network and TotalProSports.