Dallas Cowboys Preseason: 3 Things we learned vs Raiders

1. Dak Prescott cares not about your sophomore slump theory

There’s this belief that NFL players go through a slump in year two. There’s some proof here, but don’t mention that garbage to Dallas Cowboys second-year signal caller Dak Prescott. After a sensational rookie season, the new face of the franchise has come in looking sharp and finished the game against Oakland going 11-of-14 for 113 yards and a touchdown. He did miss a deep one to wide out Dez Bryant — which would have been a beauty — but overall was on his game and made the right decisions.

On the opening drive Dak was upset the play before that the refs blew a play dead when defensive end Khalil Mack jumped offside. He followed it up with a smart play on a first and five where he tucked it in and ran for the first, ending with a very alert slide. He also went for one of the smartest no gain passes on another play on the same drive.

With safety Reggie Nelson free to blow up the quarterback on a blitz, Prescott somehow saw him on his blindside and simply dumped the ball off to Ezekiel Elliott — who should have picked the blitzing safety up anyway. It was for no yards, but it kept him clean and didn’t push them out of field goal range.

Again on the second drive he showed off his stuff. He took advantage of a pass interference ans solid run game to close off the drive. From the 10-yard line he ran a play fake to running back Darren McFadden and then laid the ball perfectly into the hands of veteran tight end Jason Witten for a touchdown. On this driv,e he also showed what makes the idea of a slump for him laughable.

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The missed pass to Bryant happened, but on the play he had about four seconds of clean pocket to let the play develop. He also was throwing it to everyone as he drew the interference call when going to the No. 4 wide out Brice Butler and even hit tight end James Hanna, who missed ll of last season, for 13 yards.