We could have learned this almost 21/2 years ago, a warm August night in the LA Coliseum when a young Dak Prescott completed 10 of 12 passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns in his opening warmup act as an NFL quarterback.

If that was expecting too much of our foresight, then maybe the Cowboys' team-record 11-game win streak that season, the one that earned him Rookie of the Year honors and sent Tony Romo into retirement, should have told the tale.

But if none of that worked and we reserved our doubts about a fourth-round pick all the way into this year's playoffs, consider what took place over the weekend. It was just another feather in the cap of Dakota Rayne Prescott.

The four wild-card games featured quarterbacks 25 or under still playing on their rookie contracts against a variety of proven veterans, including two Super Bowl winners (Seattle's Russell Wilson and Philadelphia's Nick Foles). Three of the four young quarterbacks were first-round picks.

Do I even have to tell you which one was the only youngster to advance to the next round?

You had quarterbacks taken near the top of the first round (Chicago's Mitchell Trubisky, second overall), near the middle (Houston's Deshaun Watson, 12th) and right at the bottom (Baltimore's Lamar Jackson, 32nd). Regardless, they were all first-day picks in their drafts, not a third-day choice like Prescott.

The three first-rounders are done. Only Trubisky can even be said to have played well from this group. Prescott, while not blowing anyone away with his passing numbers, provided another signature moment in his young career with his third-and-14 sprint toward victory.

Dallas held a 17-14 lead with barely 2:30 to play. The Seattle coaches were about to be forced into letting Wilson try to win the game instead of just running a variety of backs into the Dallas wall. On third-and-14, the play that follows tends to be fourth down.

It wasn't.

Prescott took two steps back, then dashed toward the middle of the field. Only a flip near the goal line kept him from scoring, but his sneak on the next play gave the Cowboys a 10-point lead and, in essence, the ballgame.

We didn't realize at the time that 24 points would make the Cowboys the highest scoring team of the weekend.

"He took it on his shoulders,'' Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said of Prescott. "He made plays to come out like we did.''

Prescott totaled 255 yards passing and rushing to Wilson's 247. In a two-point victory, you could call that the difference. Now that he has won a playoff game, can he become the first Cowboys quarterback since Troy Aikman in the 1995 season to win back-to-back playoff games?

I certainly won't put it past him, but the challenge is raised by going on the road. The Cowboys almost certainly caught a break when Chicago's Cody Parkey had his potential game-winning field goal click off the left upright and the crossbar before falling short, a stroke of awful luck for the Bears that sent Philadelphia to New Orleans.

The Saints would have been primed and ready for revenge against the Cowboys. The Rams are simply the Rams, which is to say a team that jockeyed with New Orleans and Kansas City for the right to be called best in football during the regular season.

LA stumbled in December, losing consecutive games to the Bears and Eagles, but that was after they had clinched the NFC West with their 11-1 record. While Prescott has surely grown since that NFL exhibition debut in the Cowboys' last trip to the Coliseum, Jared Goff has made greater strides.

He looked raw that night (still operating under the guidance of Jeff Fisher), going 4 for 9 with 38 yards and an interception. Goff emerged in his second season under Sean McVay, and even while struggling late this season he still threw for the fourth-highest yardage total in the league along with 32 touchdowns.

As the first overall pick in the same draft in which Prescott went 135th, Goff is going to get the check mark for this game from most observers. I'm not saying he won't win, just be careful with that. Wilson would have certainly received the same last week.

If Prescott's lying on the canvas and the referee is at nine, be careful about counting him out.

Twitter: @TimCowlishaw