Cowboys Fans Misunderstand What a Franchise Quarterback Is

There is one thing about the Dak Prescott argument that’s never made much sense to me. Call Dak a franchise quarterback and somebody will bring up Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach and Super Bowl rings almost instantly.

I get it, Aikman and Staubach were better at winning in the playoffs. Both are Hall of Famers, won championships, and neither one needs to be dragged down to Dak Prescott’s level, right?

I feel like that’s the ideology of some fans.

I have watched from the peanut gallery as fans started treating “franchise quarterback” like it means “quarterback who won us a Super Bowl.” That’s high bar, especially in Dallas, where two guys every quarterback gets compared to are all-time greats.

Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl and had an 8-10 playoff record. Jim Kelly, Frank Tarkenton, and Warren Moon never won a Super Bowl

Nobody looks back at Marino and says Miami never had a franchise quarterback. Buffalo didn’t spend all those years with Kelly wondering if he was the guy because he couldn’t bring home the ring after all those Super Bowl trips.

We all know they were franchise quarterbacks because their teams were built around them. These guys were the unquestioned starter, the offense ran through them, the teams invested in them and the expectation was for them to compete at a high level.

Does that sound familiar?

Dallas has been doing that with Dak Prescott since 2016. We know not everything has gone well. As a matter of fact, it has been far from it.

Dak’s Playoff Record Brings the Heat

The 2-5 playoff record is bad.

I’m not going to pretend it isn’t just to make a case for Dak Prescott being a franchise quarterback.

There has been a playoff loss or two where Dallas didn’t help him much, but there was a less than needed version of Dak in one of those games. I’m talking about the divisional round loss to the 49ers in 2022.

When you’re a quarterback, especially one making the kind of money Dak makes, you’re going to take a huge piece of the blame. That’s just the nature of the beast.

San Francisco twice was bad enough, but the Green Bay loss at home was worse.

Dallas had home field advantage, was favored, and spent most of the regular season looking like a team that was going to make a run. Then the Cowboys got punched in the mouth.

Dak was a part of that mess, and he doesn’t get a pass for it, but I also don’t understand how a bad playoff record suddenly changes what he has been to this franchise for a decade.

Dak Prescott has been Dallas’ starting quarterback since his rookie season. The Cowboys have built the offense around him, paid him twice, and kept coming back to the same conclusion: they believe they can win with Dak Prescott.

At some point, doesn’t that tell you what the team thinks he is.

Danny White Should End This Argument

Danny White is probably the easiest Cowboys example.

In case you didn’t know, he had the wonderful assignment of replacing the legendary Roger Staubach, which was pretty much impossible from the start.

White still took Dallas to three straight NFC Championship Games from 1980 through 1982. He finished his Cowboys career with 21,959 yards and 155 touchdowns, but he never won a Super Bowl as the starting quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

Nobody argues Danny White wasn’t the franchise quarterback of Dallas during that stretch. He just wasn’t Staubach.

Why does this matter? Because Dallas has been doing this to quarterbacks for decades. The guy playing now isn’t compared to a normal NFL standard. He’s compared to Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman.

That is one hell of a standard to live under.

Dak Doesn’t Need Aikman’s Resume

As we all know, Roger Staubach won two Super Bowls and Troy Aikman won three.

How can we legitimately say these two players are the baseline for being a franchise quarterback? They’re Cowboy royalty.

If that is the minimum requirement, then Dallas has had two franchise quarterbacks in more than 60 years. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Dak Prescott hasn’t reached their level. His playoff record isn’t anywhere close to those standards, and if his career ended without a deep playoff run, that would follow him forever in Dallas.

And it should.

But that is different than saying he was never a franchise quarterback.

You don’t have to like every throw, or defend the playoff record, you don’t even have to believe he’s ever going to win a Super Bowl. But after a decade of Dallas building around him and paying him like he is the man, I think the label is obvious.

Dak Prescott is the Cowboys’ franchise quarterback.

The only part still hanging over him is whether he can ever turn that into something in January.