'Beautiful Deep Ball Thrower, But...' Where's Dak Prescott in Chris Simms' Top 40 QBs?

The Cowboys' franchise quarterback places well on Simms' annual countdown.

No. 4 is, perhaps ironically, No. 9. 

Dak Prescott's position in Chris Simms' annual quarterback rankings was revealed this week. The former NFL quarterback and current NBC Sports analyst placed him in the ninth spot, matching the jersey number of Tony Romo, his predecessor in the Dallas Cowboys' franchise quarterback role. 

Prescott, set to enter his seventh season as the Cowboys' primary thrower, is coming off an 11-win season under center, one that saw him throw a career-best 37 touchdown passes. He also placed ninth on last year's Simms list, which was topped by Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City. 

In his analysis, Simms referred to Prescott as "a son of a bitch to deal with", praising his mobility (a skillset partly handicapped by a calf strain sustained in October) and ability to work under pressure. 

"Dak Prescott is up there in the discussion as far as being the best ... I'm under pressure, the pockets collapsing, quarterbacks in all of football," Simms said. "He can stand there with people hitting them and grabbing him, still make throws down the field because he's such a big strong human being. It doesn't affect his decision-making when the pockets closing."

That toughness was further on display in Prescott's ability to recover from a more painful injury, an ankle fracture that cost him all but five games of the 2020 season.

Simms further goes on to call Prescott a "franchise quarterback difference-maker" and a "beautiful deep ball thrower"...but he and co-host Ahmed Fareed quickly add some disclaimers. For example, the two were slightly perturbed by Prescott's performance after the most recent injury, To their points, Prescott averaged over 302 yards per game over the first five contests (during which Dallas went 5-1) but followed that up with a tally of 264 over his final ten (a 6-4 stretch that led to a loss in the NFC Wild Card round). 

Some of those results, they claimed, were boosted as it was thanks to facing subpar competition like the Washington Football Team (victims of 330 yards and four touchdowns from Prescott in a 56-14 shellacking in December). 

"You just take away the Washington, Eagles games at the end of the year and you're missing 10 touchdowns and like 1000 yards against teams (to whom) the game didn't matter. So the stats are a little misleading that way," Simms said. "They just got a little lucky to play some lesser teams down the stretch that, you know, helped them get in the playoffs and maybe look make their offense a little better than it was."

Simms isn't convinced that Prescott and the Cowboys are capable of becoming the first NFC East team to repeat as division champions since 2004. He was, however, comfortable with placing Prescott ahead of similarly skilled Baltimore counterpart Lamar Jackson, who rounds out Simms' top 10 ahead of Derek Carr and Kyler Murray. 

"Dak makes, when you watch them, a ton of plays in the pocket," the former Tampa Bay Buccaneer said. "We might not go 'Oh, wow', but I might go 'damn most quarterbacks here just wouldn't have hung in there and made that play or that throw'. That's where he does separate himself: his toughness and pure man strength and that ability to push the ball down the field in some of those situations."

Prescott is far and away the top NFC East quarterback in Simms' rankings: Washington's Carson Wentz rang in at No. 19 while fellow starters Daniel Jones and Jalen Hurts respectively rank 21st and 25th. New York Giants backup Tyrod Taylor is also one of the first backups ranked, appearing in the 36th slot. 

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