Dak Prescott just finished his 10th season as Dallas’s starter. He led the NFL in passing yards. The Cowboys went 7-9-1 and missed the playoffs for the second straight year. That sentence is absurd. It’s also the most Cowboys thing imaginable.
Prescott threw for 4,552 yards in 2025. Career high. He completed 67% of his passes, tossed 30 touchdowns against just 10 interceptions, and looked like a top-five quarterback most Sundays. None of it mattered. The defense surrendered 511 points, worst in the league, and Dallas posted back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 2000-02.
The Romo parallel? It’s not a parallel anymore. It’s a mirror.
The Numbers Are Screaming Now
Through ten seasons, Prescott sits at 82-51-1 in regular season starts. Tony Romo finished his Cowboys tenure at 78-49 over 127 games. Both men posted winning records. Both delivered Pro Bowl seasons. Both cling to exactly two playoff victories.
Prescott’s 2-5 postseason mark edges past Romo’s 2-4. That’s not a compliment. More opportunities, same result. Different decades, identical frustration.
| Category | Dak Prescott | Tony Romo |
|---|---|---|
| Regular Season Record | 82-51-1 | 78-49 |
| Playoff Record | 2-5 | 2-4 |
| Career TD Passes | 243 | 248 |
| Career Passing Yards | 35,989 | 34,183 |
| Super Bowl Appearances | 0 | 0 |
Career stats via Pro Football Reference
Prescott now owns the franchise passing record. He surpassed Romo’s 34,183 yards during the 2025 season. A milestone that should feel triumphant feels hollow when January brings exit interviews instead of playoff games.
2025 Proved Everything And Nothing
Prescott’s 2025 campaign was arguably his best. His 4,552 passing yards topped the league. He threw for 300+ yards six times. He strung together four consecutive games with three or more touchdown passes from Week 4 through Week 7. The arm talent was obvious. The wins weren’t.
Dallas beat exactly one team that made the playoffs all season. One. The Thanksgiving win over Kansas City was the lone exception. Every other victory came against squads fighting for draft position or already eliminated. When the schedule got hard, the Cowboys broke.
The defense deserves blame. Matt Eberflus’s unit allowed 30+ points nine times. They surrendered over 500 yards to opponents for the first time in franchise history. Prescott would march the offense 80 yards for a touchdown, and the defense would answer by letting Jordan Love or whoever walk right back down the field.
But Prescott isn’t blameless. The four straight losses to end the season included games where he needed to be better. The Vikings game. The Chargers disaster. Championship quarterbacks find ways when their teams can’t. Prescott finds excuses.
The Romo Exit Playbook Is Open
Romo’s Cowboys tenure ended abruptly. He hurt his back in 2015, missed most of 2016, and watched a rookie fourth-rounder named Prescott take his job. By March 2017, he was in a broadcast booth.
The transition from Romo to Prescott felt seamless at the time. In retrospect, it was Jerry Jones getting lucky. He drafted a day-three quarterback who immediately won 13 games. That doesn’t happen twice.
Dallas has no clear successor waiting. Cooper Rush is 31 and has started exactly 10 career games. Joe Milton showed flashes in garbage time against the Giants in Week 18, but calling him the future feels optimistic. The 2026 draft class is thin at quarterback.
Jones restructured Prescott’s deal last March, freeing $36.6 million in cap space by pushing money into future years. Standard operating procedure for this franchise. The bill comes due eventually. Prescott’s cap hit balloons through 2028, and the dead money makes a trade nearly impossible before then.
So Dallas is stuck. Not with a bad quarterback. With a good one who isn’t quite good enough. Sound familiar?
What Romo’s Career Actually Looked Like
People forget Romo was excellent. Four Pro Bowls. Led the league in passer rating in 2014. Posted a 97.1 career quarterback rating, highest ever for someone who never won a Super Bowl as a starter.
The criticism dogged him anyway. December collapses. Playoff chokes. The botched hold against Seattle in 2006. Romo couldn’t escape the narrative that he wasn’t built for big moments, even when the evidence said otherwise.
Prescott is living the same story with different details. The 48-32 blowout loss to Green Bay in January 2024 still haunts this franchise. Prescott threw for over 400 yards in that game. Didn’t matter. Jordan Love hung 272 yards and three touchdowns on the Cowboys defense, and suddenly Prescott was the problem.
The pattern is clear. Dallas builds talented rosters, pays the quarterback, neglects the defense, and watches playoff hopes die in January. Rinse, repeat, blame the guy taking snaps.
Jerry’s Decision Is Coming
Jones has been patient with Prescott. Ten years patient. Two playoff wins patient. The loyalty runs deep, and so does the financial commitment.
But 7-9-1 changes conversations. Back-to-back losing seasons change conversations. Watching the Eagles and Commanders fight for NFC supremacy while the Cowboys clean out lockers in early January changes conversations.
Prescott turns 33 in July. His contract runs through 2028. The window isn’t closed, but it’s not exactly wide open either. If 2026 looks like 2025, with gaudy passing numbers and another losing record, Jones will face the same choice he faced with Romo.
Move on, or double down?
Romo made the decision easy by getting hurt. Prescott played all 17 games in 2025 and led the league in passing yards. There’s no convenient exit. There’s only the uncomfortable truth that sometimes good isn’t good enough.
The Path Forward Looks Narrow
Dallas needs a defensive overhaul. That’s obvious. The 511 points allowed was an embarrassment. Schottenheimer’s offense averaged 27.7 points per game, which should be enough to compete. It wasn’t because the other side of the ball was a sieve.
But fixing the defense costs money. Money the Cowboys tied up in Prescott’s contract. The same trap that limited roster flexibility during Romo’s final years is limiting it now. Pay the quarterback, pray the rest works out.
Prescott hovered in the teens all season in our NFL quarterback rankings. Fantasy gold, real-life fool’s gold. He throws for 300 yards, loses by 10, and everyone points at the defense. But top-10 quarterbacks find ways to win games like that. Prescott finds stats.
Run the Cowboys through a Super Bowl projection right now and they’re not contenders. They’re a team that might win 9 games if the schedule breaks right and the defense improves marginally. That’s not what $60 million quarterbacks are supposed to deliver.
Where Prescott Lands In Cowboys History
Prescott has more wins than any Cowboys quarterback in franchise history except Aikman and Staubach. He has more passing yards than anyone, period. He’s thrown more touchdowns than Romo, more than Aikman, more than any Cowboy ever not named Roger.
And he has zero Super Bowl appearances. Same as Romo. Same as everyone in Dallas since the 1990s dynasty ended.
Aikman won three rings with less impressive counting stats. Staubach won two and made it to four Super Bowls total. The franchise standard isn’t passing yards or Pro Bowl selections. It’s trophies in the case. Prescott has none.
Neither did Romo. The comparison ends nowhere good.
The Final Verdict Isn’t Written Yet
Prescott still has time. He could win a Super Bowl in 2026 and make everything I’ve written irrelevant. Stranger things have happened. Eli Manning won two, and he was worse than Prescott for most of his career.
But the trajectory points somewhere familiar. Somewhere Tony Romo knows well. Excellent regular seasons followed by playoff disappointments followed by blame followed by exit interviews followed by a broadcast booth.
Prescott deserves better. He’s been a model franchise quarterback for a decade. He’s stayed healthy when it mattered, produced when asked, and represented the organization better than the organization probably deserves.
None of that guarantees him a different ending than Romo. Dallas hasn’t figured out how to build a complete team around its quarterback since the ’90s. That’s not Prescott’s fault. It’s not Romo’s fault. It’s a front office failure that spans decades.
Two playoff wins in ten years. That’s the number. That’s the story. That’s the legacy unless something changes.
The Romo comparison isn’t an insult. It’s a warning.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How does Dak Prescott’s regular season record compare to Tony Romo’s exactly?
Prescott finished his 10th season with an 82-51-1 record. Romo finished his Cowboys career at 78-49 over 127 starts. Both won roughly 62% of their regular season games.
Why do Prescott and Romo have nearly identical playoff records?
Prescott is 2-5 in the playoffs. Romo was 2-4. Both faced defensive issues and coaching limitations in January. The Cowboys haven’t built a complete roster capable of deep playoff runs since the 1990s.
What were Dak Prescott’s 2025 statistics?
Prescott completed 404 of 600 passes for 4,552 yards, 30 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. He led the NFL in passing yards, attempts, and completions. The Cowboys still finished 7-9-1.
Can the Cowboys move on from Prescott’s contract?
Not easily. His contract runs through 2028 with significant dead money that makes a trade nearly impossible before then. Dallas is financially committed regardless of results.
Where does Prescott rank among Cowboys quarterbacks all-time?
Prescott leads the franchise in career passing yards with 35,989, surpassing Romo’s 34,183 during the 2025 season. He ranks third in wins behind Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach.