It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We start off with the quarterbacks. Dak Prescott had himself a great 2021 campaign, just because his foot stayed the correct direction this time. While Prescott lost Amari Cooper, and might be without Michael Gallup to start the year, he still has some fantasy football value heading into 2022. Let’s take a look at him for this year’s redraft leagues, shall we?
Dak Prescott ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: QB8, 71 overall
Average Auction Value: $3.6
Dak Prescott Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Att | Comp | Comp% | Yds | TD | Int | Comp/G | Aatt/G | Yds/G | TD/G | INT/G |
| 2021 | 16 | 16 | 410 | 596 | 68.8% | 4449 | 37 | 10 | 25.6 | 37.3 | 278.1 | 2.3 | 0.6 |
| 2020 | 5 | 5 | 222 | 151 | 68.0% | 1856 | 9 | 4 | 44.4 | 30.2 | 371.2 | 1.8 | 0.8 |
| 2019 | 16 | 16 | 596 | 388 | 65.1% | 4902 | 30 | 11 | 37.3 | 24.3 | 306.4 | 1.9 | 0.7 |
| Year | 4 PPTD | 6 PPTD | 4 PPTD/G | 6 PPTD/G | Year | Att | Yd | TD | YPC | Att/G | Yd/G | |
| 2021 | 320.6 | 394.6 | 20.0 | 24.66 | 2021 | 48 | 146 | 1 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 9.1 | |
| 2020 | 134.6 | 152.6 | 26.9 | 30.52 | 2020 | 18 | 93 | 3 | 5.2 | 3.6 | 18.6 | |
| 2019 | 337.8 | 397.8 | 21.1 | 24.86 | 2019 | 52 | 277 | 3 | 5.3 | 3.3 | 17.3 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | aDOT+ | Y/A | TD% | INT% | Sacks | Yds/Sack |
| 2021 | 4602 | 7.72 | 7.72 | 7.50 | 9.0% | 2.4% | 30 | 4.80 |
| 2020 | 1735 | 7.78 | 0.05 | 8.36 | 4.1% | 1.8% | 10 | 6.60 |
| 2019 | 5543 | 9.30 | 1.12 | 8.22 | 5.0% | 1.8% | 23 | 6.57 |
aDOT+ represents a player’s depth of target compared to the league average for that season. Air yards data is from FTNFantasy.com/air-yards
2022 Dak Prescott Fantasy Football Overview:
Dak Prescott quietly had a better year than you think passing the football in 2021. He passed for 278 yards and 2.3 touchdowns per game last year, which helped lead to his career-high in touchdowns and the second-most passing yards of his career. All of that coming off of not only his ankle injury but also his preseason back/shoulder injury (as seen on Hard Knocks). Now, let’s not dwell in the past with Dak Prescott. Instead, let’s look at the changes in his weaponry around him to see what he can do for 2022.
Dak Prescott, between Michael Gallup dealing with an ACL tear and Amari Cooper being a Brown, is out two of the top options that he has had in recent seasons. However, Dak isn’t left high and dry. He still has young stud, CeeDee Lamb, as his top option, and he has one of the better pass-catching tight ends in the league with Dalton Schultz. The Cowboys also went out and got him, Jalen Tolbert, to help ease the pain. So, the perceived impending Dak Prescott struggles might just be completely overblown. Tolbert, who you might not have heard of, is one of the most pro-ready wide receivers in this class, and who could immediately step into about 100 targets, should Michael Gallup miss time or not.
The Cowboys also have one of the better pass-catching duos out of the backfield with Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard. All these weapons combined to help Dak have such a strong season a year after his injury. Now two years removed, there are rumblings out of Cowboys’ camp that Dak Prescott will get his rushing back. After all, and understandably, that was the one thing missing from his profile in 2021. Prescott averaged 19 rushing yards per game in his first five years in the league, and last year he ran for less than half of that, averaging just 9 yards per contest. While that’s only an extra fantasy point per game, that extra point is the difference between where Dak finished last year (QB10) and QB6.
2022 Dak Prescott Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Dak Prescott Auction Value: $9
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming in early July)
Dak Prescott is an interesting case because depending on how your draft conducts itself, he’s either a terrible value or a great value. In snake drafts, his average draft position is QB7, which means that he would need to return to his passing form from last year as well as his rushing form from two seasons ago in order for that to not be his ceiling. That’s something that makes me itchy, and I’m not too keen on cobbling together potential production to try to make a case that QB6 isn’t his ceiling. Because of that, I’ll pass on him in snake drafts.
But in salary cap drafts, Dak is in a virtual tie at QB9 in price, alongside Matthew Stafford and Russell Wilson, as three quarterbacks you can pick up for $3 or less in your salary cap drafts. If you’re diving into that pool, I wouldn’t fall in love with any one of them, in particular, just be happy with whoever you can get for $4 or less in that range. If you can do that, you have one of three quarterbacks who all have top-6 QB upside, for the same price as Cordarrelle Patterson ($2.7 average auction value).
Best Case Scenario:
Dak returns to his pre-injury 2020 form and goes back to averaging 400+ yards and multiple touchdowns per game while rushing for over 20 yards per contest.
Worst Case Scenario:
The Cowboys didn’t fully read the Amari Cooper trade details, which stipulated that the Browns could add Baker Mayfield to the deal for Dak Prescott at a later date. Baker leads the Cowboys while Dak continues to not maximize Amari Cooper in Cleveland.
Check out all our 2022 player profiles, here.
If you would like our $7 Draft Kit, then follow this link!
For more analysis like these player profiles, check out these links!
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[Header Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dak_Prescott,_September_2016.jpg under CC BY SA 2.0]
