34,184: On cusp of gaudy record, the digit Dak Prescott is chasing is simply ‘1’
When the Dallas Cowboys take the field at AT&T Stadium on Sunday afternoon against the Philadelphia Eagles, there will be a handful of intriguing storylines to watch.
It will be the first home game the team has played since the tragic death of defensive lineman Marshawn Kneeland. The defense will look to build on its season-best performance against the Las Vegas Raiders behind new additions such as Quinnen Williams, Shavon Revel Jr. and DeMarvion Overshown. The Cowboys will play their first of three games in an 11-day stretch that will dictate the direction of their season.
But in the context of the franchise’s 66 years, one storyline stands out. Dak Prescott will have the opportunity on Sunday to reach a passing yardage total that none of the franchise’s 45 starting quarterbacks has reached: 34,184, surpassing Tony Romo.
His 10-year career has had its fair share of ups and downs. From a captivating rookie season and an MVP runner-up campaign in 2023 to two season-ending injuries and multiple playoff disappointments, Prescott has been one of the more polarizing athletes in sports during his decade of prominence in Dallas.
His journey appears to be far from over. Although his career has had many pundits and fans rightfully question if he will ever reach the ultimate pinnacle, his achievements along the way have still been worth his name forever being entrenched in the franchise’s lore.
But 50 years from now, will he be a quarterback kids in Dallas-Fort Worth grow up to know like Super Bowl winners Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach? Or will he be in the lower-tier status that Danny White, Don Meredith and eventually Romo hold after they fell short of a title?
The number that will matter is one, as in at least one Super Bowl victory.
Started from the bottom (of the depth chart)
Since 1979, there have only been three quarterback tandems that have started games for the same franchise over the course of 20 or more years with both players having at least 10 seasons of at least one start:
— Joe Montana (1979-1990) and Steve Young (1987-1999) for the San Francisco 49ers
— Brett Favre (1992-2007) and Aaron Rodgers (2008-2022) for the Green Bay Packers
— Tony Romo (2006-2015) and Dak Prescott (2016-present) for the Dallas Cowboys
“This is incredible,” Romo said of the stat during the CBS broadcast of Dallas’ game in Denver on Oct. 26. “I mean, you got the best of the best. I think Dak has done an incredible job. Proud of what he has done.”
One difference Cowboys fans might be quick to point out: Montana, Young, Favre and Rodgers all won Super Bowls. Romo didn’t reach the NFC championship game, and Prescott hasn’t yet.
Still, if you talk to anybody who has ever played the quarterback position in the NFL, they will tell you that some of the hardest things to accomplish are longevity and consistency. The idea that a franchise can have two back-to-back is an even more difficult realm to fall into. While the vast majority of a quarterback’s career life span derives from skill, all six quarterbacks on that list could reasonably tell you luck came along with it as well.
For Prescott, that has rung true.
Heading into his rookie season, Prescott wasn’t competing to be the starter. He wasn’t even swinging for a shot at being the backup. With Romo and Kellen Moore being established veterans ahead of him, he found himself in an early dogfight with undrafted second-year signal-caller Jameill Showers to be the team’s third quarterback.
But just a couple of weeks into training camp, Moore’s season was over after he fractured his fibula in practice. A week later, Romo went down with a fracture in his back. Instead of going after veteran options such as Nick Foles or Josh McCown, the team decided to ride the rising hot right hand from the preseason that was attached to Prescott’s arm.
From there, history. Literally.
As Prescott starts his 133rd regular-season game with the franchise on Sunday — the second-most in team history behind Troy Aikman’s 165 — he will already hold multiple organization career records by quarterbacks with at least five starts: most completions (3,033), highest completion percentage (67.1%), passing yards per game (257.8), QB rating (98.5), most games with three-plus passing touchdowns (41). The list goes on.
Even a Dak Prescott pessimist would tell you that he’s etched his name among the top five to ever play the position in Dallas after a bizarre start to his career. But for a player who twice earned a starting job by the quarterback in front of him getting hurt, at Haughton High School in Louisiana and Mississippi State, maybe that 2016 year was what destiny had written for him all along.
Bumping a concrete ceiling
For all intents and purposes, Prescott is in the third act of his career.
The first act was full of excitement with his rapid rise and the potential he showed through the end of his rookie contract. While playoff berths in 2016 and 2018 were halted in the divisional round, the idea of Prescott being the man to lead the team to its first conference championship appearance since the 1995 season seemed like a foregone conclusion. All he needed was time.
Well, as time came, that expectation didn’t. While the second act, starting in the 2021 season, saw him establish himself as one of the top quarterbacks in the league, the playoff success just never happened. Three more disappointments arrived in the form of back-to-back losses to the San Francisco 49ers in 2021 and 2022 before arguably the biggest letdown in franchise history in 2023 when Green Bay steamrolled the Cowboys in front of a sold-out AT&T Stadium.
At the start of his third act in 2025, 10 years is a significant mark. And at 32 years old, Prescott has played some of his best football this season, even if his defense hasn’t given him much to work with. But reality would tell you that he’s most likely on the back half of his career.
Just the idea of having been in the NFL for 10 years gives Prescott pause. With two daughters and a fiancée at home, he has become the family man veteran that he used to tease his teammates about being early in his career.
“That’s what says 10 years more than anything,” he joked in training camp.
He’s mentioned multiple times this season about how he wants to play into his 40s if his body allows it. To maybe even psych out his body, he decided to shave his beard down in training camp to “feel young” heading into Year 10.
“It’s a blessing,” Prescott said about playing this long. “It doesn’t seem real at times. I’m healthy, I’m young. I’m super, super thankful. I don’t take any of it lightly.”
That mindset has translated to the field this season. Through 11 weeks, he sits fifth in the league in passing yards (2,587) and second in passing touchdowns (21) on his way to powering the third-ranked offense in the NFL.
“I think he’s playing his best football,” Aikman said on 105.3 The Fan. “One, he’s being decisive. He’s being accurate with the football. He’s doing a lot of good things. I think the biggest thing that I’ve noticed is the confidence in which he’s playing. What I see is someone who’s 100 percent on the same page with the play-caller.
“Having been there as the quarterback, it’s amazing how confident you can go out and play when you really trust the people that call the plays and putting you in favorable positions. And then, of course, he has good players around him. He’s in his 10th year, and he’s played great for a lot of years, but I do think this is the best he’s played.”
Aikman can say it, and it holds a lot of weight. But more importantly, Prescott believes it, too.
“[I’m] as confident as I’ve ever been,” he said. “I would say I am … I think that’s why every year I feel like I’ve gotten better, making strides, and never getting complacent in every part of my game. I know sometimes the numbers and things don’t always show that, but I think right now they are.”
As good as he’s playing, though, he hasn’t reached the pinnacle. Without the elusive Super Bowl ring on his throwing hand, no number or achievement will be the sledgehammer to break the concrete ceiling that he’s been hitting his whole career.
And he knows that.
We’ve seen this movie before ... twice
When Prescott’s accomplishments get lined up next to his lack of playoff success, the mirrored comparison to Romo’s career is eye-boggling.
Romo was 78-49 as a starter; Prescott is 80-51-1. Neither has made the NFC championship game. Both dealt with factors in and out of their control that led to a general lack of playoff success. Romo was 2-4 in the postseason; Prescott is 2-5.
Romo’s two best shots at making a postseason run were in his first full season as the starter and his final season. A strong argument could be made that Prescott’s best shot was in his rookie season as well.
Now, Prescott sits on the cusp of eclipsing Romo’s passing yardage total in Sunday afternoon’s contest against the Eagles. With just 160 yards needed to set the record, Prescott’s by-quarter passing averages on the season project that he will make the record-setting pass in the third quarter Sunday.
It will be an achievement worth celebrating. And while his passing success is certainly more indicative of the era of football he has played in compared to guys like Staubach and even Aikman, his consistency in a more pass-heavy era stacks up with the applause those two rightfully received in their generations for their statistics.
But we’ve seen this movie before. Twice. It wasn’t just Romo.
In the spirit of comparing eras, Danny White was the one who couldn’t get it done well before Romo and Prescott were even thought of.
His career had a similarly lucky start as Prescott. As the starting punter for four seasons, White stepped into the starting quarterback role after the retirement of Staubach in 1979. He would go on to play eight more seasons before injuries and the team’s desire to get younger sidelined him for Aikman in 1989. He finished his career with a 5-5 record in the playoffs and zero trips to the Super Bowl, with three excruciating losses in the NFC championship game.
Somewhat similarly, after sitting behind Eddie LeBaron in the franchise’s first years from 1960 to 1962, Don Meredith took the reins in 1963 and led the franchise to heights it hadn’t seen. While he had just a 1-3 postseason record, his role in epic games like the 1967 Ice Bowl with the Packers left him with a different reputation than the one White endured following Staubach and that Romo and Prescott have experienced over the past 20 years.
Prescott has one way to get off that list.
“They just need to get over that hump in the playoffs,” Romo said. “And that’s where the other guys have done that. And honestly, it’s the only thing I regret, not bringing a championship and a Super Bowl to Dallas.”
Prescott doesn’t want to live with that same regret.
Chasing Troy and Roger
Earlier this season, Prescott passed Romo on the team’s all-time completions list in the Week 4 tie against the Green Bay Packers. After the game, he was asked about the honor.
“Pretty cool,” Prescott said. “I can’t say I’ve been one to care for numbers, but watching this team growing up and being a Cowboys fan, it’s humbling. Coming in and spending my rookie year with Tony, growing up watching Tony, understanding all of the success he has, it’s pretty cool.
“I understand the players who have come before me and it’s an honor. But at the end of the day, I want to win games and I want to chase Roger and Troy and the accomplishments they have.”
What does that mean? Super Bowls — all five that the franchise can claim, to be exact. And if anyone understands the expectation in front of Prescott for the rest of his career, it’s him.
He was made the highest-paid player in the league when he signed a four-year, $240 million extension in September 2024. (Owner Jerry Jones likes to remind everyone of that quite often.) He’s the face of the most polarizing franchise in the league, if not all of American pro sports.
Without a championship, the rest means nothing. And in a world where ego and pride can get in the way of looking in the mirror, no one is harder on No. 4 than the reflection that looks right back at him.
He gets it. He knows what’s at stake in what is left of his career.
So, when he makes that record-setting pass Sunday and the announcement is made on the Fox broadcast and on the 25,000-square-foot jumbotron in AT&T Stadium, don’t expect Prescott to make as much of a deal about it as everyone else.
After the game, he’ll be asked about it, and his answer will be: “It’s great, it’s an honor. But I want a Super Bowl.” And by golly, he will be 100 percent right. For the Prescott pessimists who criticize his every move, for once they will be saying the same thing he will in that moment.
But don’t get these words twisted. Prescott will deservingly earn praise for reaching 34,184 passing yards and beyond. But as he moves forward in what is left of his already storied career, everyone in the room — including the elephant himself — knows what’s needed. This quote from training camp in August about what he wants for the rest of his career tells exactly that.
“Having fun and winning a Super Bowl, period,” Prescott said. “Period. It’s what I want from this game. ... I want it now. That’s the urgency that I carry with the love and passion for this game. Wanting to win one not only for myself, but for this organization. It’s been well damn long enough.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 1:03 PM.
