A lot of people are saying Dak Prescott is the new Russell Wilson. For the love of all that is holy, you can stop saying that now.
There have been a lot of comparisons between Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott ever since Prescott roared onto the field in 2015. It’s ramped up even more with them facing each other in the playoffs tonight. Those comparisons underestimate Wilson and are unfair to Prescott.
As I said, Prescott had a terrific rookie season. He threw for over 3600 yards, had 23 touchdown passes and a ridiculously low four interceptions. That all turned into a passer rating of 104.9. He also ran for 282 yards and six more touchdowns. It was a phenomenal rookie season.
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His sophomore season was less than stellar. Despite throwing 31 more passes, he threw for one less touchdown and his completion rate dropped by nearly five percent. Far worse, his interceptions more than tripled to 13. His passer rating fell to 86.6. He still could run, though, as he added 357 yards rushing and another six touchdowns. Not terrible, but a far cry from his spectacular debut.
Prescott bounced back from that subpar 2017 performance to rank among the better quarterbacks again this season. His completion percentage climbed back to over 67 percent and his interceptions dropped to eight, a solid improvement overall. Prescott’s passer rating for 2018 is 96.9, which puts him at 14th in the league. It was a fine comeback year for Prescott. But the new Russell Wilson? That’s ridiculous.
Russell Wilson: more consistent at a higher level than Prescott
For one thing, Mr. Wilson is doing just fine this year. Whenever someone says Player B is the new Player A, there’s a connotation that Player A is past their prime. That the world needs a new version. I assure you, the original Russell Wilson is just fine. In fact, he’s better than ever in some respects.
Let’s take a look at Wilson’s first three seasons to be fair to the Cowboys signal-caller. As a rookie, Wilson threw 393 passes, 66 fewer than Prescott. He averaged 12.4 yards per catch, while Prescott averaged 11.8 yards. Wilson connected on 26 touchdowns, Prescott 23. Wilson did throw 10 interceptions, though, so Prescott clearly had the better of it there. Overall, the Seahawks rookie had a passer rating of exactly 100.0. Prescott passed him there, but we’ve just started.
Russell Wilson avoided the sophomore slump that saw Prescott drop to the ranks of the ordinary. In 2013, Wilson threw for a couple hundred more yards, the same number of touchdowns, cut his interceptions to nine and upped his yards per catch to 13.1. All of this gave Wilson a passer rating of 101.2. That’s 14.6 points higher than Prescott’s second year.
Wilson did drop off a bit in his third year. Despite throwing more passes than ever, his touchdowns dropped to 20, and his yards per catch fell to 12.2. Happily, his interceptions fell as well to just seven. Wilson’s passer rating fell to 95.0, which is the second lowest of his career so far. It’s worth noting that while his passing game dropped off, his running game soared. In 2014, DangeRuss ran 118 times for 849 yards and six scores.
By the way, Wilson’s 7.2 yard average is tied for eighth best in NFL history. For those of you who were wondering but not curious enough to click the link, Michael Vick is the all-time king. In 2006, he averaged 8.45 yards per carry on his way to picking up 1,039 yards. However, his passer rating that year was a dismal 75.7. I’ll take the guy who’s an excellent quarterback and runner, thanks.
Going beyond year three, Russell Wilson gets better and better
We can only speculate what Dak Prescott’s career will look like over the next four seasons. I don’t see much that points to him progressing like Russell Wilson. After three seasons, Prescott had one passer rating over 100, and a career average of 96.0. Wilson had two such seasons and his average was 98.7. Prescott ranked third, 18th and 14th in his first three years. Wilson ranked fourth, seventh, and 10th. Prescott made the top ten once, while Wilson never missed it.
Of course, when comparing Prescott to Wilson most people aren’t putting on blinders and thinking only of the Seahawks quarterback’s first three seasons. They’re thinking of the Russell Wilson we see on the field now. The comparison is bad enough over the first three seasons, but this is when we get into really dangerous waters.
In 2015 Wilson had a great season. He threw for over 4,000 yards and had 34 touchdowns and just eight interceptions. His passer rating hit a new high, 110.1, which lead the league. Wilson’s stats fell off in 2016, but he still posted a passer rating of 92.6 and helped the Seahawks back to the playoffs. 2017 was Wilson’s biggest challenge as Seattle’s running game disappeared. Let’s take a closer look at that.
Prescott had his toughest year in 2017 as well. There’s no way around it, and no excusing it. The first person that says, “But he didn’t have a supporting cast” is going to get slapped with a herring. It’s true, Ezekiel Elliott was suspended for six games that year. It’s also true that Alfred Morris started five of those games. Check their stats.
Elliott averaged 98.3 yards per game in his 10 starts. Morris had five starts, and another game with 17 carries. In those six games Zeke missed, Morris had 99 runs for 432 yards. Elliot averaged 4.06 yards per carry on the season, while Morris averaged 4.36 yards in his absence. The Cowboys running backs had 1,813 yards on the ground. I’d say that’s a strong supporting cast.
Russell Wilson was at his best when he had to be
Wilson had no running game in 2017. Everyone knew the Seahawks had to pass, and yet DangeRuss#3 had a great season. Seattle only had 1,629 rushing yards that year. As you’ll recall, Number 3 was the leading rusher with 586 of those yards. The Hawks only had 1,043 yards on the ground from people without “Wilson” on their jersey. Of course, that was the season the Seahawks quarterback set an NFL record by creating over 80 percent of their offense. Seattle only scored one touchdown all year that number 3 didn’t contribute to directly.
That’s how superstars play with no supporting cast. The Seahawks didn’t have a single running back with over 240 yards rushing in 2017. Prescott had nearly twice the support in the ground game as Wilson, but played far worse. For the record, Dallas went just 6-4 in the games Elliott started, including a 21-12 loss to the Seahawks on Christmas Eve.
As I wrote earlier, this year Prescott did bounce back. Zeke led the league in rushing, and Prescott benefited from that considerably. His passer rating puts him 14th in the NFL; not terrific, but better than Ben Rothlisberger and Cam Newton. It also puts him just behind two all-time greats, Tom Brady and Aaron Dawson. Note that for them, a passer rating out of the top ten is a rarity, not the norm.
Russell Wilson “only” had a passer rating of 110.9 this season, the best of his career. That was third in the league, by the way. He threw for 35 touchdowns, another career high. That resulted in a touchdown percentage of 8.2, second best in the league. Wilson’s passer rating rankings over his career going back from this season are third, 10th, 14th, first, 10th, seventh, and fourth.
Russell Wilson is better than Prescott here, too
We haven’t even touched on Wilson’s legendary fourth quarter performance. We’ve looked at it before so I’ll just touch on it briefly here. In the fourth quarter, Mr. Unlimited really shows his stuff. His passer rating jumps to 109.7, and his touchdowns climb to 8.3 percent. Those are 9.4 points and 2.3 percent higher than his career averages. He comes through in crunch time.
Compare that to Prescott. He’s good in the fourth quarter but doesn’t elevate his game like Wilson. Prescott’s passer rating in the fourth is 96.3, barely over his career average. His touchdown percentage is 5.0, just a bit above his career average of 4.5 percent. He doesn’t fall apart by any means. Neither does he rise to the occasion as well as Wilson.
As for those similarities, there are some. Prescott was drafted in the fourth round, Wilson in the third. Wilson is 5’11” and 215 pounds. Prescott is 6’2″ and 238 pounds. Okay, maybe not so close there. Dak runs the ball, so does Russ. Although this season Prescott ran more than ever, and it was only seven times more than Wilson, who ran the least ever. Prescott averages 63 carries a year, while Wilson averages 92. So what exactly are the similarities?
Here’s the funny thing. Andrew Luck averages 62 carries a season. He’s 6’4″ and weighs 240. He runs almost exactly as often as Prescott and is much closer in size to Prescott. He threw 23 touchdowns in each of his first two seasons, while Prescott had 23 and 22. Why isn’t Prescott the new Andrew Luck?
Or what about that guy in Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers? Rodgers is 6’2″ and 225 pounds. Again, he’s a much better physical match to Prescott. Once he finally escaped the bench, Rodgers averaged 61 carries in his first three seasons. He threw for more touchdowns than the Dallas QB, but so did Wilson. Why isn’t Prescott the new Aaron Rodgers?
Could there be some other reason people insist Prescott is the new Wilson, instead of someone else? I can’t quite put my finger on it, but maybe it will come to me eventually. No, it couldn’t be… they’re both black? Somehow I don’t see that melanin levels should be considered when comparing football players, or doctors, or people in any walk of life.
I know that having said all this, Prescott will now throw for five touchdowns and run for two more tonight. Such is karma. But for now, let’s just let Dak Prescott be the best player he can be, without saying he’s the new anyone else. Especially not a player who is clearly better, like Russell Wilson.