The honeymoon is over for rookie sensations Prescott and Wentz
It was a fun moment: two rookie quarterbacks vying for superiority in the NFC East and perhaps even superstardom in the NFL’s new era.
Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz and Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott are the future of the league, but they’re also the present.
And for both quarterbacks, it’s time to be a little less of the former and a bit more of the latter.
The NFL now has a book on both rookies — tendencies and weaknesses have been determined and defenses are going to know exactly what to do to make things difficult for the kids.
Things are about to get a lot tougher for the freshmen sensations.
The honeymoon is over.
The feel-good portion of the show might have been over for Dak Prescott for a few weeks now. The Cowboys are an NFC-best 5-1, in large part — but not exclusively because of — Prescott’s steady hand at quarterback, but with Tony Romo lurking in the wings, there’s no guarantee that the rookie out of Mississippi State will keep his job as the starting quarterback.
Should he? Absolutely. But he’s going to have to prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that he’s the better option to lead this team to the Super Bowl.
A few weeks ago, the Cowboys were asking Prescott to stand in and survive — just hold down the fort until Romo comes back. Now he only has to prove he’s a championship-caliber quarterback.
Things escalate quickly in Dallas.
If the fervor emanating from Wentzylvania would die down, it’d show that the Eagles need their rookie quarterback to evolve to match the level of the now studied defenses Philadelphia is facing.
After a rollicking start to the season, Wentz completed only 54 percent of his passes in the last two Eagles games. Much of this has to do with teams taking away his first option — that’s a film-room adjustment — but it’s also in part a bit of arm hubris. Wentz isn’t moving his feet in the pocket effectively, and is attempting to use his prodigious arm strength to rifle the ball into tight windows.
Those windows will continue to become more and more false as the season progresses — defenses will bait the rookie into tougher and tougher throws.
Sunday night’s game is a pivotal matchup in the competitive NFC East — a win for the Eagles puts them atop the division with the best point differential of the four teams. A win for the Cowboys creates separation in a division that could have been defined by parity this year.
Every player, and particularly the quarterbacks, are going to need to have their best game ready for Sunday. This is the biggest game of both young quarterbacks’ NFL careers — a quasi-playoff contest — and rookie mistakes are not worthwhile excuses to make for a loss.
It was fun while it lasted, but Wentz and Prescott are no longer novelties, they're quarterbacks of playoff— and perhaps Super Bowl—worthy teams. The honeymoon is over — results are the only thing that matters now.
