Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott were one heck of a two-headed monster for the Dallas Cowboys this season. They helped vault the Cowboys from being an afterthought to winning an NFC-best 13 games in the regular season.
Heading into Saturday night, it was expected that Elliott would win the award for Offensive Rookie of the Year. However, Prescott came away with the OROY honors, and with a pretty notable gap — given there are only 50 voters — of seven votes (via AP):
In balloting announced Saturday night, Prescott received 28½ votes from a nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league. The other 21½ went to Elliott, who rushed for a league-high 1,631 yards and scored 15 times.
Surprised Dak keeps winning all the Rookie of Year honors. Not that it's wrong. Just seemed national consensus was that Zeke was the guy.
— Tim Cowlishaw (@TimCowlishaw) February 5, 2017
As the Dallas-based Tim Cowlishaw said, while Prescott winning the award is a bit surprising, it’s not necessarily wrong either. The Mississippi State product had a tremendous season at quarterback, particularly with his efficiency. He threw for 23 touchdowns and just four interceptions, while putting together a 67.8 completion percentage. His 104.9 quarterback rating ranked third in the NFL, behind only Matt Ryan and Tom Brady. And keep in mind- this is at the most important position in the sport.
However, Elliott was the league’s most productive running back this season, and showed off a crazy amount of eye-opening highlights — particularly his awesome hurdles — to make him the talk of the NFL. Zeke rushed for 1,631 yards — over 300 yards more than anyone else — on 322 carries, for a terrific 5.1-yard average. He also ran for 15 touchdowns and 91 first downs (19 more than anyone else).
And here’s what really makes Prescott winning the OROY surprising: Zeke finished tied for third in NFL MVP voting with six votes, while Dak received one vote:
These votes are bizarre. Ryan got more MVP votes than OPOY votes. Carr got more MVP votes than All-Pro votes. Zeke lost OROY to Dak
— Gregg Rosenthal (@greggrosenthal) February 5, 2017
So Zeke finished 3rd in MVP voting and didn't beat out his own teammate for Rookie of the Year. https://t.co/PrKngEVgVx
— Matt Clapp (@Matt2Clapp) February 5, 2017
So that’s pretty weird.
The teammates went up on the stage together when Dak was getting presented with the OROY award, and during his speech, he said, “Do we have a knife so we can cut in this half?”
epic speech @dak #CowboysNation #DallasCowboys pic.twitter.com/hItxDLQ4Ms
— ⁶God (@matt_petruzzi) February 5, 2017
Dak Prescott wanted to share his Offensive Rookie of the Year trophy with his buddy Zeke. pic.twitter.com/pr5UHkVcQy
— ESPN (@espn) February 5, 2017
As you can see, Zeke is quite fine with his teammate winning the award, and these two may just lead the Cowboys to the ultimate prize in the coming years.
