Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott was one of the best values at the position last season. With sustained levels of elite QB1 performance, is Prescott being overlooked in Best Ball drafts? Should fantasy football managers be targeting him aggressively?
Dak Prescott’s 2024 Fantasy Outlook
Coming off the worst season of his career, fantasy managers were reluctant to draft Prescott, especially after offseason talk from Mike McCarthy about wanting to run the ball and not light up the scoreboard. As it turned out, that only served to depress Prescott’s ADP and make him one of the best values in fantasy drafts.
Prescott averaged 20.7 fantasy points per game, finishing as the overall QB4. But even that doesn’t tell the full story. Prescott wasn’t even startable over the first five weeks of the season.
From Week 6 onward, Prescott averaged 24.1 fantasy points per game. He was the best quarterback in fantasy, even outpacing Josh Allen by 0.2 points per game.
Despite McCarthy’s talks of wanting to run the ball and play defense, the Cowboys were fourth in the league with a 61% neutral game script pass rate. They also played at the second-fastest pace, averaging 26.7 seconds per snap. Fantasy managers love a quarterback on an offense that throws the ball and plays fast.
Prescott led the NFL in passing touchdowns (36) largely because he led the league in pass attempts in the red zone. When volume and efficiency coalesce, we get an elite fantasy quarterback.
Should You Draft Prescott in 2024 Best Ball Leagues?
Conventional wisdom suggests a QB who was that good for that long would be highly-priced the following season. Prescott is nowhere near as inexpensive as he was last year, but he’s still being drafted curiously behind guys like Anthony Richardson and C.J. Stroud.
I love the young kids, both in real life and fantasy, but we’re doing a whole lot of projecting to take either of them above Prescott. Prescott’s price makes him very stackable with the likes of CeeDee Lamb and Jake Ferguson.
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What makes Prescott so appealing in Best Ball is his potential for big games. Although he’s not the runner he used to be, he has enough mobility to occasionally rush in a score or two.
We also saw him throw for four touchdowns in four games last season. With seven games of 25+ fantasy points, Prescott is a difference-maker at the position. And in large-scale tournaments, he has the upside necessary to carry you if he spikes during the playoff weeks.
With that said, several quarterbacks are going in the middle rounds that look like good values. Prescott is right there with them.
I would approach Prescott the same as the guys going around him. You want one of them, but you don’t want to pay the highest price. Where Prescott goes in Best Ball drafts will fluctuate. When he falls into your lap at the right spot, go ahead and grab him.