One could argue that it feels strange to be talking about any levels of greatness when it comes to Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott. One of them lost his college job to Tua Tagovailoa, a move that looks silly only through the gift of NFL-driven hindsight. The other was drafted 109 picks after Paxton Lynch.
How good could these guys really be?
Sunday’s matchup between the two isn’t exactly a battle for first place. A Cowboys victory would only get Dallas within 2 1/2 games of the front-running Eagles. Philadelphia, currently 8-2, would have to lose three more games while the Cowboys are running the table for this contest to matter in terms of the NFC East title pursuit. Even the Cowboys’ hopes as a wild-card contender can only be viewed as modest until this team crawls above the .500 mark for the first time this season. And that won’t happen Sunday.
But it feels like a game Dak needs to win, in the larger sense, just to show he can win this game. In the 40 years I have been writing about the NFL, the debate as to how much credit/blame quarterbacks should receive has been ongoing. It won’t end any time soon. Fair or not, it has a decided impact on how the two talented and highly similar quarterbacks in this game are celebrated. Or not.
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In Hurts’ case, he might drive Eagles’ fans mad with every ball bounced in the direction of A.J. Brown. It doesn’t change the fact that since the beginning of the 2022 season, Hurts’ team is 45-12. That’s a winning number over an extensive stretch of games that only Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes (on deck for the Cowboys) can touch. Hurts does not do everything by the book, but he has learned to stay almost mistake-free. His 22-3 touchdowns to turnovers ratio (a figure that incorporates rushing TD’s and fumbles lost) is best in the league. His passing TD’s-to-interceptions ratio of 16-1 is best in the league.
Those things matter.
Dak Prescott will pass for more yards and make more beautiful long-distance throws to George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb, the Cowboys’ receiving combination that is the equal to Brown and DeVonta Smith. But to find winning numbers like Hurts for Dak, they come only in qualified form.
You want great totals? Dak is 21-2. That’s against NFC East teams and at home. And he has managed that because he and Hurts have (weirdly) played each other just four times, even though Hurts got the starting job in Philly near the end of the 2020 season. Dak is 45-19-1 at home overall. And he’s 40-15 against teams with losing records.
What’s missing, of course, is success in big games, both in the regular season and especially the playoffs. Dak is 24-25-1 against teams with winning records. He can climb to .500 (same as the Cowboys’ record this season) with a win, but, like many quarterbacks, he has mostly feasted on bad teams through the years. And his 2-5 playoff record with seven interceptions in seven games does not stand up at all alongside Hurts’ 6-3 record, two Super Bowl trips, one Super Bowl win and MVP award, and just one interception thrown in his last eight playoff games.
Dak can’t do anything about January numbers this Sunday afternoon. But beating the Eagles when they are the defending Super Bowl champs, when they share the NFC’s best record (and pursuit of a first-round bye) with the Los Angeles Rams feels like the major stepping stone his career still needs. Ten years into it, he’s about to own most of the Cowboys’ record book. He should pass Tony Romo for most passing yards by a Dallas quarterback sometime in the third quarter Sunday (160 yards).
But his slightly superior career passing numbers don’t help him in any discussion with Hurts. Both are viewed among the very best of leaders in the NFL. With Dak it’s as much off the field (recently consoling Raiders quarterback Geno Smith, dealing publicly with a teammate’s death) as on it. With Hurts, it’s most about his immense power that has allowed the Eagles to invent a play that — until the league goes back to disallowing teammates from pushing runners forward — is nearly unstoppable. But more important is the winning, and that’s where the 45-12 and the Super Bowl trips come in.
Dak’s five years older than Hurts, so it’s safe to say these two are not going to travel the same career paths. In the end, they won’t have nearly as many games played against each other as one would imagine for division rivals. But if Dak could just raise that particular record to 3-2 against Hurts Sunday, it would feel like the biggest win he’s going to achieve in 2025. Probably even help the Cowboys for 2026.
X: @TimCowlishaw
Dallas hosts Philadelphia for a key division matchup ahead of Thanksgiving.
Kneeland’s family attended Sunday’s game against the Eagles, watching from an AT&T Stadium suite.
Also, both defensive tackle Solomon Thomas and defensive end Jadeveon Clowney are active for Dallas.
Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
