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The legend of Dak Prescott refusing the trappings of fame
Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys is so devoted to football he's skipping Kanye to watch Thursday night games. Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

The legend of Dak Prescott refusing the trappings of fame

He holds the new record for the most amount of passes to start an NFL career without an interception while the Cowboys have gone 5-1 with him under center. He’s Dak Prescott, and he may have already supplanted Tony Romo as the Cowboys starter for the remainder of 2016 and beyond. 

While the Cowboys have said Prescott will start in Week 8 after their bye, the team is noncommittal beyond that, if for no one reason than the necessity for there to be constant drama surrounding the Cowboys. Romo even being healthy enough to play in Week 9 is still a question mark, though the debate must rage on, if only to help fund the sports media industrial complex. 

At this point, the job is Prescott’s to lose. He’s inexperienced enough that Dallas doesn’t want to promise the job to him, only for the rookie to suddenly come undone and make the organization look silly for returning to the veteran later on. Should Dallas keep winning and Prescott plays near the level he’s been performing, there’s little question even an owner as impulsive as Jerry Jones won’t rock the boat. 

And why not? Prescott wants nothing more to do than process football at all times. It’s becoming a theme, his turning down doing other things to be the football automaton the NFL has longed for since Peyton Manning retired. It’s not necessarily something he *has* to do, though it’s a great way to impress people who insist athletes focus on nothing but their job. 

Back in Week 3, Prescott was offered tickets to a Kanye West show on a Thursday night, which he turned down so he could watch what ended up being a truly disgusting Texans-Patriots game. He also mentioned a need to get sleep, though being engrossed by two teams the Cowboys don’t even play this season makes him seem like more of a student of the game, so it’s best to stick with that narrative. 

And now this week, during the Cowboys’ bye, we found out that Prescott turned down both a late night show appearance and a chance to do an endorsement deal overseas so he could spend time with his grandma in Louisiana. Sure, this has little relation to his football preparedness, it does show he’s slow to embrace fame, which is enough to convince some that he’s ready for the big time. 

It’s abundantly clear that Prescott is the humblest, hard-working-est grinder there ever was, unlike the desperately fame-seeking Romo, a terrible choker who actually leads the NFL in fourth-quarter comebacks since 2006 despite missing quite a bit of time. 

Popular sentiment turned on Romo a long time ago, and at the age of 36, time has as well. Tony may very well get another crack under center, either because Prescott struggles or because the rookie even gets hurt, but the transition has been made, whether it’s officially permanent or not. All I know is sooner or later we’re going to see a story about how Prescott skipped out on a night out of drinking so he could save a family from a house fire.   

The NFL ratings dip clearance sale: All theories must go

The NFL ratings decline has been a subject of constant discussion by the media all season, yet somehow that talk was amplified further this week. Minus any semblance of hard data to support conclusions, every pundit has their best guess as to why fewer people are watching the NFL, or watching games as long. In fact, the only thing we know we can’t blame is boycotts over anthem protests, as Roger Goodell dismissed those on Wednesday per his talks with league network partners. Let’s run down the various guesses. I’ll even toss in a new fake one at the end, since it really doesn’t matter because no one actually knows anything.

- Millennials are cord cutting and watching pirated streams

- People en masse suddenly got tired of the NFL’s lies at the same time

- Players doing sexualized end zone dances made little kiddies’ eyes bleed

- The crackdown on fun and end zone dances, while not new, is alienating anyone with a sense of humor

- There are too many taunting penalties/penalties in general

- Anthem boycotts, which, again, the NFL and network executives dispute as a cause

- The quality of football is poor, which even the commissioner seems to acknowledge by addressing the need for more practice time for teams

- The best team in football is the relatively unpopular Vikings

- A perceived lack of star power all of a sudden (the only star who has gone anywhere is Peyton Manning)

- The presidential election is a big honking distraction

- There’s an oversaturation of the sport, even though the NFL didn’t add games this year

- Ratings are rigged!!!!! 

Red Zone bathroom pass

NFL watchability ratings are generally pointless. Everyone has access to the same prime time games and their quality typically corresponds to the night they’re broadcast. Sunday night is the best, Monday night is next, then there’s Thursday night.

Instead, here’s my expectation of how many bathroom breaks you might be able to get away with during a slate of games on Sunday. It’s generally going to be more difficult during the early slate because the NFL still insists on frontloading most of their Sunday nights into the early slot.

We’re back to London games after several weeks of calm Sunday mornings, so don’t take too long waking up and making yourself presentable. This is prime debauchery time, after all. 

London game: 
New York Giants “at” Los Angeles 
Expected breaks: One. 

For a London game, this one actually ain’t bad, which is to say, it’s not great, either. Now that the Rams have lost two straight to fall back to .500, there’s no telling where they’ll go. Either way, they’ll likely correct themselves to draw even in the standings the following week, per the law of Jeff Fisher. 

Early-ish slate: 
Cleveland at Cincinnati / Washington at Detroit / Oakland at Jacksonville / New Orleans at Kansas City / Buffalo at Miami / Baltimore at New York Jets / Minnesota at Philadelphia / Indianapolis at Tennessee 
Expected breaks: One 

Strange times indeed when Sam Bradford is can’t-miss viewing, but I guess there are considerably more bizarre things about 2016 when you get down to it. 

Late slate: 
San Diego at Atlanta / Tampa Bay at San Francisco / New England at Pittsburgh 
Expected breaks: Four. 

That Patriots-Steelers game was shaping up to be one of the more enticing on paper this season and now it almost certainly will be a Pats blowout win, so feel free to go to town. The late afternoon slate has typically been a saving grace this season, and we’re getting ripped off even there this week, too.

More must-reads:

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