The main reason why Dak Prescott is a 2025 MVP candidate

More importantly, he’s protecting the football.

So far, he has just three interceptions.

None thrown in the last four games. His start to this season has him in the conversation for the NFL’s MVP award.

He’s certainly on pace for his best year of his career.

The Odd Year Wonder

In the decade of the 2020s, Prescott seems to have solid years in the odd-numbered years.

In 2021, after seven games, he was 5-1 with one missed game and a bye week. He had 1,813 yards, with 16 touchdowns and four interceptions.

In 2023, he was 5-2 after seven games with a bye week, and sported a line of 1,637 yards, 10 touchdowns, and five interceptions.

Unfortunately, in both seasons, the next game ended with a loss, including one to the Broncos in 2021 at AT&T Stadium. Hopefully he can break that trend this Sunday.

In both seasons, the Cowboys finished 12-5 and made the playoffs.

The difference this year is that Prescott doesn’t have to put the ball up in the air to get the team downfield.

In 2025, he has a running game. And that is the biggest reason why Prescott is enjoying the success he is in 2025 and is in the MVP conversation.

Williams Scares Defenses

Javonte Williams already has more rushing yards (592) and touchdowns (6) in seven games this year, than he had all of last year in Denver.

And he’s done it in 28 fewer carries at that.

Williams had 513 yards and four scores in 2024. He had 774 yards and three touchdowns in 2023.

In his rookie year in 2021, Williams had 903 yards and four touchdowns.

Barring injury, he will set his career marks across the board for the Cowboys.

That threat is forcing opposing defenses to play honest. And it’s opening up the field for Prescott as well as making his life so much easier.

Sort of like what a certain sports scribe was pointing out just before the 2024 NFL Draft, trying to get Dallas to draft a bell cow running back to help Prescott out.

It’s amazing how well your passing game functions when you consistently move the chains by running the football, isn’t it?

Prescott’s Biggest MVP Barrier

No, it isn’t media/voter bias. It’s something much simpler.

It’s the won-loss record.

Right now the Cowboys are 3-3-1.

It is not going to be easy getting back over .500 and staying there the rest of the way with Dallas’s remaining schedule. If Prescott wants that MVP, the Cowboys need to win and make the playoffs.

Because no one in the history of the NFL has ever won the regular season MVP award with a losing team record.

And there are too many quarterbacks having just as solid a start to the season as Prescott is. And nearly all of them have winning records and are in first place in their divisions.

That will be the biggest barrier Prescott must navigate if he wants to be the second Dallas player (Emmitt Smith – 1993), and the first Cowboys’ quarterback, to win that award.