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Dak Prescott isn’t shying away from the criticism that has come his way ahead of the 2023 season after tying for the NFL lead with 15 interceptions last year.
Speaking to USA Today’s Jarrett Bell, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback said he’s “embracing everything that’s coming my way—negativity, criticism, whatever it may be.”
There has been no shortage of criticism for Prescott coming out of last season. The Cowboys’ official Twitter account even had a post that was critical of him following the 19-12 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional Round.
Former NFL wide receiver Plaxico Burress said on FS1’s The Carton Show earlier this summer the Cowboys “won’t win a championship” with Prescott as their quarterback.
The Carton Show @TheCartonShow
“Dak Prescott has reached his ceiling as a QB with the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys won’t win a championship with him.”
— @plaxicoburress pic.twitter.com/KfK6blvv0d
The Cowboys didn’t do their quarterback any favors last season.
It started when they traded Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns in March 2022 in part because they couldn’t afford to keep him and Ezekiel Elliott, but Elliott’s contract made it more difficult to move on from him at that time.
Dallas’ receiving corps without Cooper consisted of CeeDee Lamb, Michael Gallup coming off a torn ACL, Noah Brown and T.Y. Hilton when he signed in December after spending nine months as a free agent.
Lamb lived up to his billing with 1,359 receiving yards and nine touchdowns. Gallup and Brown ranked 80th and 84th, respectively, among all qualified receivers in average yards of separation.
Prescott threw into tight windows 19.8 percent of the time last season, his highest rate since he was a rookie in 2016. Tight windows are defined as a defender being within one yard of the intended target.
This isn’t to suggest that all of the turnovers were the fault of other players. Prescott certainly deserves his share of the blame for what happened last season, but it’s also a huge statistical outlier from the rest of his career.
The two-time Pro Bowler’s interception rate in 2022 was 3.8 percent. The rate was nearly double the mark for this entire career (2.0) and marked just the second time in seven seasons it was over 2.0 percent (2.7 in 2017).
The Cowboys have done a better job to help Prescott this offseason. They acquired Brandin Cooks from the Houston Texans in March to give them a speed receiver on the outside.
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