It’s finally over. The two-year contract saga between the Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott ended on Monday when both sides agreed to a four-year, $160 million dollar deal with $126 million in guaranteed money and a record $66 million dollar signing bonus.
One of Prescott’s biggest supporters, Cowboys legend and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, didn’t waste any time continuing his praise of the former fourth-round pick. In an appearance on Stephen A’s World on ESPN, Irvin stated the Cowboys franchise signal-caller is the closest thing to Tom Brady in the NFL today.
“We have the closest thing in the National Football League to Tom Brady at quarterback now,” Irvin said Wednesday. “That’s what we have. Because Dak Prescott has the ability to do what Tom does, and he has the leadership like Tom. Dak Prescott, his leadership, and how these guys follow him, was well worth him becoming the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history. You got to make sure and measure, and account for these things. These are important things. You saw what they were like without him last year. I’m talking about the leadership he gives – that’s where he’s most-like Tom Brady. Very rarely in this National Football League do you have quarterbacks being the heart and soul of a football team.”
These comments by Irvin echoed a similar sentiment by the Cowboys COO Stephen Jones earlier in the week.
“Well, you want him in your foxhole, number one. The right guy has the biggest piece of the pie, as I said earlier today,” Jones said. “He just checks every box in these key categories of leadership, he has this insatiable appetite to want to be the best, to outwork everybody. He’s got that Michael Irvin quality to him, in terms of outworking somebody and competing. It’s totally unfair to compare him to somebody like this, but, obviously, Tom Brady has that. He’s just a fiery competitor… a winner and a leader. He has an insatiable appetite to be great.”
While Irvin and Jones mentioned how Prescott’s intangibles measure up to Brady, he’s also been on an even playing field in terms of production. Only Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, and Ben Roethlisberger have won more games than Prescott since he entered the NFL. He’s one of only three quarterbacks over that span that have 15,000 yards, 100 touchdowns, and fewer than 100 interceptions. Also, his 321.8 yards per game since 2019 is the best in the league.
The playoffs are where Prescott still has a lot of work to do to be in the same sentence as Brady. Although he went almost point for point and yard for yard with Rodgers in a loss in 2016 and beat Wilson in 2018, his teams are just 1-2 in the postseason. Brady’s troops are 34-11 with seven Super Bowl wins (most by any player) and he’s earned five Super Bowl MVPs (most by any player).
Now that Prescott is signed for the foreseeable future and nearly back to full health he can work on reaching Brady’s level where it matters the most.