I think one of the worst negatives applied to the QB position is "Game Manager". At least that's how it is used, seldom as a compliment. He's just a game manager, synonymous with bus driver.
Wasn't Brees a game manager? How about Rodgers? Mannings? Brady? Montana? Aikman? Bradshaw? Starr?
All very good at executing the game plan and implementing and using the weapons. Establishing the connection between QB and player.
One thing Dak Prescott doesn't get enough credit for is his ability to immediately establish the QB connection with his weapons. I watched him at Miss St his last two years and he didn't have weapons, they were a heavy D team and short on skill position players on the O side. But the ones he did have, he really tired to connect with them. But then, he had little choice other than to take off.
Lots of talk early on that his players had to lift him, he wasn't a talent lifter. Is that still the case?
He made an instant connection with Cooper and restarted his career, he made us concerned about losing Gallup and made Lamb a can't miss 1st round pick. And he's had more than his share of drops from his receivers.
Look at the TE's. No one was excited about these players but regardless of whether it was Jarwin or Schultz, they were a factor and Prescott made sure of it.
Kellen Moore loves him some game manager because just like Brady and Brees, he gets all of the weapons involved and engaged. If you've noticed, Cooper has this tendency to drift, just like Irvin did, if he's not involved and Prescott and Moore see this and rectify it. Sometimes I even forget Cooper is on the field and then they get him engaged.
There are few QB's in the NFL that have this ability to establish the connection and some, like Rodgers, reward players with involvement and punish those that drop one of his perfect passes. But not Prescott, he'll come back to a receiver on the next play to keep the connection engaged.
I watched as much Prescott as a QB as anyone here unless they're a diehard bell ringing Bulldog and I can say that I have never seen another QB go from where he was to where he is like this one. Is he top 5? No but he's so much higher than he was coming out of college, he's not the same player. Doesn't even look like the same player. He is a top 10 QB and that's good enough.
We all agree, he needs the talent around him but the key is utilizing that talent as a formidable weapon that the defenses have to respect. It isn't just the weapons that make the Cowboys one of the best offenses in the game, it is the guy managing those weapons on the field. He is beginning to resemble Brady a little in the fact that the announcers are starting to count the receivers he's hit in the Q1 or first half, the greatest single attribute that Brady has owned in his career.
Dalton did a respectable job of filling in but that connection was sorely missing because Dak Prescott is now that QB that lifts the talent around him. He is not the best QB in the game but there is no game manager better at establishing the connection except Brady, and now that Brees has retired.
We have seen a 4th round pick emerge into a field general employing all of his weapons and if you dislike him so much you can't appreciate that aspect of his game, you are truly missing something. He might just be the best Cowboys QB at using his weapons since Staubach.