Cowboys owner Jerry Jones believes Dak Prescott has become MVP 'right before our eyes'

Dak Prescott and the Cowboys saved their finest performance of the 2023 season for their biggest game, cruising to a 33-13 win over the Eagles on Sunday night.

The win moved the Cowboys ahead of the Eagles (via tiebreaker) for the top spot in the NFC East, improving to 10-3 on the season. It also moved Prescott into pole position in the MVP race, becoming the betting favorite following Sunday's games. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones agrees with that sentiment, telling reporters following their win that Prescott has "become the Most Valuable Player right before our eyes in the last several months."

"I thought this was a monumental game for him tonight," Jones said of Prescott's performance. "Everybody that follows the NFL and follows sports knew that he had a lot of the expectation as to how he was going to perform and how he was going to meet this challenge. The ever-overhang of ‘Well, did he do it with the right competition?' I don't mean to sound condescending. That's fair. 

"He did it tonight, and he did it in a very efficient way against [a team] as good as we'll play."

Prescott might not have put up gaudy numbers on Sunday, completing 24 of 39 passes for 271 yards and two touchdowns. But he led an efficient performance for the Cowboys' offense as they scored on seven of their nine possessions. Dallas also went 9 of 16 on third-down conversions, helping it hold the ball for nearly 37 minutes of Sunday's game. Prescott also played relatively clean, with his only miscue coming in the middle of the quarter when he was strip-sacked for a scoop-and-score.

But Jalen Carter's touchdown off Prescott's fumble only cut the Cowboys' lead to 24-13 as Dallas held a relatively comfortable cushion for much of Sunday night. 

Following Sunday's game, the Cowboys rank fourth in total offense and lead the league in scoring. Jones thinks that Prescott doesn't necessarily need to be named MVP for him to be recognized as the Cowboys' top player.

"First of all, as far as what it represents, which would be his importance to the team, he doesn't have to win that award for me to know how important he is to our aspirations this year, where we are and where we've got a chance to go," Jones said. "He's got that kind of appreciation from I think everybody in this organization. It's Dak evolving and working with [Cowboys head coach] Mike [McCarthy], [Cowboys offensive coordinator Brian] Schottenheimer and what we're trying to do offensively and how he's making those adjustments. 

"That represents his finest skill and quality, which is he can take your idea and my idea from a classroom to the practice field to the ballgame and execute it. He's the best I've ever seen at taking it from there to there."

Even though Prescott is third in the league in passing yards (3,505), second in passer rating (107.5) and first in passing touchdowns (28), there were still questions about whether he could put up good enough numbers against the league's better competition. Following a three-interception performance against the 49ers in Week 5, Prescott has turned it up in the Cowboys' only two other games against teams with records over .500 at the moment. He threw for 374 yards and three touchdowns in the loss to the Eagles in Week 9 before his outing on Sunday.

Jones believes that those performances and Prescott's play over the last two months should silence the doubt on whether he can play well enough to beat the league's best teams, saying, "I think that we'll go as far as Dak will take us."

"Dak Prescott, for anyone that might have a question about it, for him to come in here and play like that against Philadelphia, he should have his due," Jones said. "That ought to shut that door of questioning his ability to play in a playoff-type game."