Offering up predictions for an upcoming NFL season is always fun. You throw out things that you believe are going to happen, and if you are feeling particularly spicy then you toss out some that you feel a bit less confident in but could still see happening if things broke a certain direction.
On Wednesday the worldwide leader in sports did just that by offering several bold predictions for the league at large. These vary in type and some are specific to players as opposed to teams. But the theme of them all was that they were of the bold variety.
There is one involving the Dallas Cowboys.
ESPN is calling for a Dak Prescott 5K season
This is the kind of thing that requires the right environment. The “right” environment means one conducive to it happening. Players generally only throw for 5K because their teams were in positions for them to do so. This is a nice way of saying that they had bad defenses.
Dak Prescott came close to 5K back in 2019 as noted by ESPN. They note that a big factor in that was how quickly the Cowboys offense moved that season and that they shared a similar level of speed last year which is why the prediction is what it is.
It has been done 14 times by nine different players: Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Ben Roethlisberger, Dan Marino, Matthew Stafford, Justin Herbert and (I’ll give you a billion guesses for the last name) Jameis Winston. The most recent 5,000-yard passer was Mahomes in 2022.
To clear 5,000 passing yards in a 17-game season, a quarterback must average 294.1 passing yards per contest. In Prescott’s best season (2019), he averaged 306.4 yards per contest and fell just 100 yards short of the 5,000-yard mark since there were 16 games. Interestingly, the Cowboys weren’t particularly pass-happy that season, with a 60.7% dropback rate that was below the league average. But they had a high total number of plays because they were moving fast. In their first season under offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, no team snapped the ball with more time on the play clock. Only five offenses had more plays per game; only six ran no-huddle more frequently.
Last season, the Cowboys rediscovered their superspeed ways in their first year under coach Brian Schottenheimer and coordinator Klayton Adams. The Cowboys once again led the league in play clock remaining at the snap, and this time, they led the league in offensive plays per game. Prescott had a career-high 600 total pass attempts. The volume will be there for Prescott to not just lead the league in passing in 2026 but to once again challenge for the 5,000-yard milestone.
Volume is the first half of the riddle; explosiveness is the other half. To that end, the Cowboys must successfully get wide receiver George Pickens to play on the franchise tag for Prescott to reach the mark. Pickens unlocked a new level to his game in just one season with the Cowboys, as Prescott provided him with stable quarterback play for the first time in his NFL career.
It did take Dallas some time to riddle out the chemistry between Pickens and incumbent WR1 CeeDee Lamb, and Lamb missed four games early in the season with a high ankle sprain. When both Pickens and Lamb were on the field, Prescott averaged 8.1 yards per pass attempt. When at least one was not on the field, that fell to 6.7. Lamb had a weird year in general, with a career-worst eight drops and his worst season for YAC since he was a rookie. It’s fair to project an improvement in the Cowboys’ passing game in Year 2 under Schottenheimer and Adams, as they’ve had time to iron out the wrinkles in the Lamb/Pickens pairing.
While the Cowboys’ offense should get better in 2026, it’ll likely remain a below-average unit, forcing them into shootouts that give Prescott additional dropbacks. There’s some concern in pass protection at both tackle spots for Dallas, but no environment can be perfect. As Prescott gets older, he’ll scramble less and instead throw more against pressure. Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow is another good candidate to race to 5,000 over the next few seasons … but since Pickens might be a Cowboy for only one more year, I’ll pick Prescott to get over the mountain in 2026.
There is a line in here about how the Cowboys have to “get” George Pickens to play this season out on the franchise tag, but it is worth noting that Pickens has already pledged to do so. The Cowboys have (seemingly) conquered that part of this checklist.
We all expect (aka hope) the defense to be improved from last year and that could cut down on Prescott’s ceiling from a volume perspective. If the Cowboys don’t need to score as much as they did last year then it is debatable as to whether he will even come close to 5,000 yards. Again, this shows how this requires the right circumstances to properly happen.
Prescott has shown a clear ability to accomplish this kind of feat, but do you think it is possible?
