Through the Quarterback's Eyes: Dak Prescott
Breaking down Prescott's 74-yard TD pass to CeeDee Lamb vs. the Commanders
The Cowboys embarrassed the Commanders 44-22 on Sunday, improving their record to 3-3-1. The offense continues to roll, averaging over 31 points per game. And Dak Prescott has been lights out to start the season. He’s completing over 71% of his passes for 1,881 yards, with 16 touchdowns, just 3 interceptions, and a 107.6 passer rating.
Considering how bad their defense has been and how the performance of the offense is the only thing giving Dallas a chance week to week, Prescott should absolutely be in the early-season MVP discussion.
He’s seeing the field with clarity, processing quickly, and consistently making accurate throws. His 74-yard touchdown pass to CeeDee Lamb against the Commanders, which started to open the game up on Sunday, was a great example of this.
On this play, the Cowboys used a quick count to try and catch the Commanders off guard. Meaning they broke the huddle, got up to the line, and tried to snap it as quickly as possible:
This was a play-action shot play, with George Pickens knocking the top off the coverage and Lamb running a deep crosser to his side.
You can see the route combination illustrated below:
Washington would counter by rotating to a Non-Traditional Tampa-2 coverage after the snap, or what Prescott called, a “Tricky-2.”
After the game, Prescott described what he saw as he worked through his progressions:
“So…[I] go through read one, George [Pickens].”
With Pickens not open, Prescott then moved on to Lamb.
“And then I see the big window […] where if [Lamb] had [run] that route (the crosser), he probably would have had a good play, not a touchdown.”
As Prescott said, had Lamb run the play as designed, they likely would have still had a good completion since Pickens was clearing his defender out of the area. But Prescott didn’t see Lamb entering that open window.
Instead, Dak said that the route Lamb ran “wasn’t the route that we were expecting.” He ran upfield instead of across the field when he saw the coverage.
Prescott continued:
“So then I kind of just looked to find CeeDee, and he’s got his hands up saying, like, I’m here!”
“And so at that point, I saw the safety or the corner to the right, they were in their tricky 2, and I just put about everything I had on it on a line, understanding that I couldn’t just lob it up [because] both guys would be able to make a play.”
So Prescott threw an absolute seed 45 yards through the air to Lamb, who adjusted to the ball and hauled it in:
“He did a good job taking, what, 2 steps back I think, catching the ball, and walked into the end zone.”
That’s a great job by Lamb of finding the soft spot in the coverage, and it was a tremendous job by Prescott of seeing the field and adjusting on the fly.
As Prescott said afterwards:
“Once again, [that’s] a play that’s not made unless you have confidence in the guy that you’re throwing to. And then the guy that you’re throwing to is smart, understands the defense, understands the look, and understood he could take that opportunity. And we were able to capitalize on it.”
The Cowboys have been capitalizing on a lot of opportunities offensively. If their defense could start doing the same, which they showed signs of in this one, Dallas has a chance to make a little noise in the second half of the season.