The Dallas Cowboys enjoy making headlines, but this one might take the cake. According to Cowboys legend Michael Irvin, the Dallas Cowboys are internally discussing the possibility of replacing Dak Prescott with six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady. While some may not think Prescott is worth his upcoming extension, replacing him with Brady is a short-sighted move that will make the Cowboys worse in the long-term.

Dallas Cowboys Should Not Replace Dak Prescott for Tom Brady

They’re Similar Quarterbacks

Nobody is denying that peak Tom Brady is better than peak Dak Prescott. At the height of his powers, Tom Brady was the best quarterback to ever walk the earth. His six Super Bowl championships, three MVP’s, four Super Bowl MVP’s, and countless accolades speak for themselves. However, Brady isn’t the same quarterback he used to be.

Last year, Prescott led Brady in just about every important quarterback statistic. According to Football Outsiders, Prescott ended the year ranked 1st in DYAR, 6th in DVOA, and 4th in ESPN’s QBR. Brady, meanwhile, finished 16th in DYAR, 17th in DVOA, and 16th in QBR. Next Gen Stats tells a similar story, as Prescott’s 2.5 completion percentage over expectation beat out Brady’s -3.1

In fairness to Brady, Prescott had a vastly superior supporting cast in 2019. The Cowboys quarterback had one of the best offensive lines in the league, an elite receiver in Amari Cooper, and two strong starters in Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb. Brady, meanwhile, had an average-at-best offensive line, the beaten-up corpse of Julian Edelman, and nothing else.

If placed into a neutral environment, the 2020 versions of Dak Prescott and Tom Brady are probably similar quarterbacks. Pro Football Focus attempts to isolate these outside factors and grade quarterbacks based on what they control. While PFF is far from perfect, it’s probably the best metric publicly available for evaluating quarterback play. By their rankings, Dak Prescott was the 10th-best quarterback in the league, and Brady was 12th.

Dak Prescott Provides Longterm Certainty

Even if you believe that Brady represents a significant improvement on Prescott, he’s not a long-term fix at the position. Brady will be 43 during the 2020 campaign and has publicly expressed a desire to play until he’s 45 years old. Even if he continue his improbable victory over Father Time, this leaves the Cowboys with two or three years of Brady. Sooner or later (read: sooner) the Cowboys are going to make a considerable investment in the quarterback position.

Let’s assume that the Cowboys get two additional first-round picks by trading Prescott to the New England Patriots. This should give them the draft capital to move anywhere they want and draft any quarterback they desire. If the Cowboys can use these picks to draft a quarterback as good or better than Prescott, then this move might make some sort of sense.

Unfortunately for the Cowboys, it’s hard to find a quarterback better than Dak Prescott. The NFL Draft is a glorified crapshoot, and landing a franchise quarterback with a first-round pick is anything but a given. Since 2011 (the first year of the current CBA), 28 quarterbacks have been selected in the first round. Of those 28, only Patrick Mahomes is definitely better than Dak Prescott. One could make the argument that guys like Deshaun Watson, Andrew Luck, and Carson Wentz are on the same level, but Prescott is still better than the vast majority of first-round quarterbacks. Mathematically speaking, there’s a good chance that the Cowboys wouldn’t be able to find a better long-term option than Prescott, even with the additional draft capital.

Tom Brady won’t dramatically improve Dallas’ chances of winning in the short-term and the search for a replacement will make the Cowboys worse in the long term. Whether Jerry Jones likes it or not, the best move for the Cowboys is to pay Dak Prescott.

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