ARLINGTON, Texas– It's getting harder and harder to feel surprised by Dak Prescott's continued success.
The tests keep coming, and he keeps passing them -- day game, night game, preseason, regular season.
The 2016 season is still young, and Prescott is just three games into his rookie campaign. But it sure doesn't look that way, judging off his 248 passing yards, 36 rushing yards, two combined touchdowns, and – most importantly – no turnovers in an easy 31-17 win against the Bears.
"Like I've said over and over, I expect to be here," Prescott said after the win. "I have high expectations for myself, I only want to get better and better. I'm going to keep working hard to get better every day, and continue living in the moment."
At the rate he's going, it's only a matter of time before outside expectations match Prescott's. He completed 19 of his 24 pass attempts on Sunday night, raising his total for the season to 66-of-99 on the season, with no interceptions.
His quarterback rating in the win was an impressive 123.6 – the highest-ever for a Cowboys rookie quarterback.
If that's what he's capable of after three NFL games, it's hard not to feel good about the years to come – which plenty of people want to discuss since Prescott surged into the spotlight last month.
"When you see Dak perform at the level he's performing and you project for the future, then you feel good about the future," said Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones.
Of course, the present looks pretty peachy right now, as well. Having secured a home win for this first time in more than a year, the Cowboys now have two wins without Tony Romo in their starting lineup – which is one more than they earned all of last season.
[embeddedad0]And it's obviously not like they're winning in spite of the rookie quarterback, either. The Cowboys did not punt in the first half against the Bears, as all four of their possessions ended in points – three touchdowns and a 49-yard field goal from Dan Bailey.
Those points also aren't coming from quick strikes or broken plays. The Cowboys had five total scoring drives against Chicago – all of which lasted nine plays or longer. That helps explain why Dallas dominated time of possession throughout the game, racking up 25 first downs in the process.
"Yeah, the best offenses are able to make big plays. They get chunks both in the run game and passing game, but they're also able to move the ball methodically down the field," Garrett said. "Like you said, a lot of defenses are going to force you to do that."
If that's what the opposition is going to do, it certainly doesn't look like Prescott will struggle with it. He got the ball to six different receivers for chunk gains as big as 29 and 47. He also hit Dez Bryant for his first-career passing touchdown, scratching that item off the list of critiques through two weeks.
"It felt great. I had a couple other close moments there earlier in the game," he said. "Then we got Dez in there. It took a lot of attempts but it happened."
With Tony Romo still projected to miss several more weeks, it doesn't seem likely that it'll stop happening. That's not to say there won't be bumps along the way – that's just the nature of the NFL, especially for a rookie.
But with the way he continues to steadily do the job – successfully, at that – it's hard to bet against him.
"He works really hard and he seems to handle really anything that we give him," Garrett said. "There's never been a situation where we say 'OK, he can't handle that, let's not do that because Dak's our quarterback.' That hasn't been the case at all."
