"Who is this year's Dak Prescott?"

It's a question that's been asked throughout this year's draft process, given the fortune that befell the Cowboys with their selection of Prescott in the fourth round (No. 135 overall) of the 2016 NFL draft.

Prescott certainly wasn't projected to play much before Tony Romo went down with a back injury in the 2016 preseason, but given the opportunity, he cemented himself as franchise quarterback material during a stellar rookie season, leading Dallas to the NFC's top seed and winning AP Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.

So, again: Who is this year's Dak Prescott? Draft experts have thrown out names such as Pittsburgh's Nathan Peterman and Tennessee's Joshua Dobbs, who are not projected first-rounders.

But at least one league scout believes a franchise can draft a better quarterback than Prescott this week, though it would likely have to be in the first round: Clemson's Deshaun Watson.

In his breakdown of this year's quarterbacks class, Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ranks Watson as the second-best of the bunch (behind Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes -- more on that in a bit) and shares insight on each signal caller from anonymous scouts. One of them had this to say about Watson:

You can say he's better than Dak Prescott. Total winner. Highly poised. Top intangibles. Lot of predetermined throws. Going to need a lot of work, like all these guys from the spread.

Interesting. Another scout told McGinn that Watson is "No. 1" and all of them touted his intangibles. But, remember, seven quarterbacks were drafted ahead of Prescott last year. Watson is expected to be among the first two or three taken this week. Expectations for first-rounders are much higher than those of fourth-rounders.

And taking Prescott's enormous success as a rookie starter into account, there likely won't be "a Dak Prescott" in this year's draft, Bob Sturm, co-host of BaD Radio for KTCK The Ticket (AM 1310/FM 96.7), wrote recently for SportsDayDFW.com in an analysis of previous draft classes.

Moving on.

The scouts McGinn talked to seemed much more divided on Mahomes, the former Texas Tech gunslinger who has wowed with his raw talent but raised questions about how he will translate from the Red Raiders' Air Raid offense to an NFL offense.

One personnel man called Mahomes "a guilty pleasure" who "pulls plays out of his (expletive) like you wouldn't believe." That same individual stopped short of comparing Mahomes to Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, but said his "natural sense of making plays when they break down is unusual."

The others weren't so keen on the former Red Raider, with one scout saying Mahomes comes from a system "no quarterback has ever succeeded from, really," and another describing his play as "reckless."

-- Read McGinn's full QB class breakdown here.