PHOENIX – Expectations are permanently great for the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
They're even greater when you play arguably the best rookie season of any quarterback in NFL history.
Dak Prescott won the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award for good reason. The 2016 fourth-round pick led the Cowboys to a franchise-record tying 13 wins with league rookie records in passer rating (104.9) and completion percentage (67.8).
Speaking at the NFL Annual Meeting, Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett had high praise for Prescott as he reflected on the 23-year-old's first year in Dallas.
"I just think we've all been around this league a long time and I've just never seen a rookie quarterback handle everything as well as he did," Garrett said. "That's on the field, that's off the field. There weren't many situations that he was confronted with that really seemed to kind of knock him off his game and get him off his course.
"He just continued to work through things. He obviously had adversity at a lot of different times last year, within games, from game to game. But somehow some way he just got himself righted, focused on the right things and just kept going. And to me that probably was what was most impressive – and ultimately that approach really showed up in his play and was reflected in his play because he focused on what he needed to do, he executed, he helped our team win a lot of games."
The natural question, then, is how Prescott can improve as the starter in Year Two?
The standard at the position is high – Garrett knows that well as a former quarterback in the league.
Garrett also knows the importance of blocking out expectations outside the Cowboys' locker room.
"The thing that I would urge him to do is continue to go about it the way he has," Garrett said. "He's always prepared, he's always ready for any situation, he's got great poise and composure. He has great confidence in himself and he's able to transfer that confidence to the people around him.
"The expectations that we have are all our own expectations, the standards that we have for how we go about things each and every day as coaches, as players and as a football team. Obviously there are a lot of external expectations that we're all confronted with in life, but our focus is on the stuff that we need to do. The standards that we have and the expectations that we have for ourselves are higher than anybody else.
"So that's what we're going to challenge him with. That's what we'll challenge our whole team with – to live up to those each and every day, and everything else will take care of themselves."
