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Dak Prescott Should Not Be the Scapegoat of the 2025 Cowboys

Originally posted on Inside The Star | By Mark Heaney | Last updated Sep 22, 2025 12:32 PM ET

If you have watched the Dallas Cowboys’ first three games and come away believing Dak Prescott is the problem, it may be time for you to reevaluate this organization.

Dallas, now 1-2 on the 2025 season, has shown us who they are in record time.

The blame can be spread across many people, but this team reads like a carbon copy of the 2020 squad: no defense, and usually not enough offense, despite the best efforts of an All-Pro quarterback and his star wide receivers.

If yesterday’s game and these first three weeks in total have taught us anything, it should be to stop the blame and focus on Prescott in favor of the real problems facing this slumping franchise. Let’s get serious, folks.

The Top Problem: No Defense = Few Wins, No Matter What The Offense Does

Simply put, when your defense is bad enough, it really does not matter what the offense does; you are not going to overcome the weak unit all the way to the playoffs.

That is what the 2025 Dallas Cowboys are running into.

At the end of the day, the defense on this team is so poor that the rare 40-point game will need to become commonplace if the Cowboys want to come away with wins. Unfortunately, that’s just not realistic in the NFL.

Dallas got lit up by Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson on Sunday, and that’s an offense that had struggled mightily heading into Week 3.

Caleb Williams delivered one of the best games of his young career:

19-of-28
298 Passing yards
4 Touchdowns@CALEBcsw | @ChicagoBears pic.twitter.com/TUP2gbLdM0
— NFL (@NFL) September 21, 2025

If the Chicago Bears could outright abuse the Cowboys’ defense as badly as they did, imagine what good, great, or elite offenses can and will do. I’ll give you a spoiler: it will be uglier than you can even imagine,

This is why the blame-the-quarterback game is so silly. Unless Dak Prescott and his weapons can explode for 500-yard performances, like they did against the Giants, they are cooked.

The Underlying Issue: Badly Built Homes Crumble Under Pressure

The Cowboys’ front office built a bad product defensively. Now, it’s failing, and some of us are surprised, and/or blaming the quarterback?

They traded away a top-three pass rusher in the league, and now they can’t generate pressure on quarterbacks. They have committed nearly $200M to two cornerbacks who can’t stay healthy, and now have one of the worst secondaries in football.

What we’re seeing is not a reflection of poor offense, but rather, poor team building on the defensive side, followed up by lackluster coaching.

Matt Eberfus is showing major weaknesses already, and has fans calling for his firing just three weeks in. That doesn’t happen if things are going well.

Dallas’s defense seems disjointed and lacking in talent.

But yes, let’s focus on Dak Prescott and his inability to get stops on the defensive side of the ball?

This article first appeared on Inside The Star and was syndicated with permission.

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