It’s been an incredible 12-month journey for Dak Prescott.
A year ago, he was in Mobile, Alabama, at the Senior Bowl, kind of an afterthought at quarterback behind Carson Wentz and others.
The Dallas staff coached the North team in the Senior Bowl last year, and that’s where the team’s relationship with Prescott started.
Because of the schedules, the Dallas coaches never saw Prescott in practice. However, they shared notes with the Jacksonville Jaguars’ coaches, who worked with the South team.
“We got such great feedback from the coaches who had worked with him all week long at the Senior Bowl, and that’s really what we felt when we had a chance to visit with him,” Dallas head coach Jason Garrett said early in the 2016 season.
Their evaluation of Prescott was an assertive and confident player who seemed to have the ‘it’.
The next day, Prescott was named the Most Valuable Player of the Senior Bowl, completing 7-of-10 passes for 61 yards and a touchdown in the South’s win against the Cowboys’ coaches.
From that 60-minute session came another meeting between Prescott and Dallas coaches at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis a month later. That turned into quarterback coach Wade Wilson flying to Starkville for a visit to Mississippi State and a private workout. Next, Prescott visited Dallas’ practice facility before the draft.
Today, the former Mississippi State standout is in Orlando, Florida, for the NFL Pro Bowl.
Prescott led the Dallas Cowboys to a 13-4 record after losing to Green Bay in the playoffs. He threw for 302 yards while becoming the first rookie in the Super Bowl era with three TD passes in a playoff game as he nearly led the Cowboys back from an 18-point deficit.
It is easy now for the Cowboys to say they always loved Prescott. The fourth-round pick (135th overall) threw for 3,667 yards, 23 touchdown passes and just four interceptions and ran for six more scores.
Connor Cook was Dallas’ fourth-rated quarterback, and the Cowboys attempted to trade up in the fourth round to take him only to be thwarted by the Oakland Raiders.
The Cowboys had Louisiana Tech’s Jeff Driskel sixth, just ahead of Prescott on their draft board, but not by much. Their time invested in Prescott was the tiebreaker in selecting him ahead of Driskel, who went in the sixth round to the San Francisco 49ers, was released, and then spent the season on the Cincinnati Bengals’ practice squad.
Without that meeting a year ago in Mobile, Prescott might have slid further in the draft, and both sides would have missed out on a great opportunity.
I see where Bill Reiter of CBSSports.com has posed the question I know many more are thinking: Is Prescott a stunning young-gun quarterback who continues to grow into one of the game’s best? Or is he an overachiever, Christian Ponder-style, who turns some promise in his first couple of seasons into a slow disappearing act? Or the next Robert Griffin III — a bright, exciting light that crashes and burns in a blaze of overhyped glory?
I say he is a star in the making.
I say the entire NFL misjudged his skill set because nobody truly understood how much Dak was having to do by himself his senior year with such a weak supporting cast.
Even though history says more guys flame out than hang in there, I believe Prescott has the desire, the will and the character to keep on pushing himself to get better.
Obviously, he has to stay healthy, but the biggest thing is to stay on that grind and outwork everyone.
That’s how Dak can show everyone 2016 was the start of something special instead of just a flash in the pan.
