In his usual attempt to go viral, Stephen A. Smith recently questioned whether Dak Prescott commands true respect in the Dallas Cowboys locker room.
“Do people respect the man who doesn’t show up in January?” he said, with that patented smirk and manufactured conviction.
But the better question — the one more people should be asking — is this:
Do people respect analysts who are allergic to context?
Because that’s exactly what’s happening here.
What ESPN loudmouth Stephen A. didn’t mention — maybe because he didn’t know, or maybe because it doesn’t sell as well — is that over the Cowboys’ last three playoff losses, they’ve averaged just 3.5 yards per carry. That’s not some stat to brush aside. That’s everything.
When defenses can sit back in seven-man coverage, without stacking the box, and still completely shut down your run game, the quarterback has no chance. You become one-dimensional. Predictable. Easy to sit on. And your margin for error gets cut in half.
Dak Prescott hasn’t been perfect. He’ll be the first to tell you that. But this is the ultimate team sport. And if the guys up front don’t win their matchups, if the ground game doesn’t do its part, and if the system breaks down under pressure — the quarterback pays the price for everybody.
That’s the part Stephen A. refuses to say. Or maybe just doesn’t understand. And that’s why this whole “he doesn’t show up in January” take falls completely flat and is a wild but empty accusation.
The suggestion that the locker room doesn’t respect Dak is an inane one; I remember no less an authority that Troy Aikman once telling our Mike Fisher that Prescott is a fine a leader as Troy has ever encountered – as high a praise as one can imagine.
So Stephen A. doesn’t get the “person part” of this.
And we’ve known for a long time that he doesn’t get the “football part” of anything.
Stephen A. Smith isn’t a football analyst. He’s an actor. A brand. A performance. Paid to polarize. Paid to say something loud — not necessarily something accurate.
The people who really know this sport? They can fairly debate the merits of Dak the player. But they don’t respect noise. They respect nuance. … and we trust that you join us in that category.
