When you get to No. 4 in Dallas Cowboys history, the debate doesn’t last long. There are five names on the list, but this one belongs to Dak Prescott, and it’s not particularly close.
The full group includes Toby Gowin, Micah Knorr, Dak Prescott, Mike Saxon, and Shaun Suisham. If there’s a real challenger for the spot, it’s Saxon, the first Cowboy to wear No. 4, who held it from 1985 to 1992 and finished his Dallas run with a Super Bowl title in his final season. He still sits atop the franchise’s all-time punting chart with 24,542 yards.
Even so, Prescott is the obvious headliner here - and maybe the last Cowboy to wear the number. Dallas doesn’t retire numbers officially, but it’s tough to imagine anyone else taking No. 4 once Prescott eventually lands in the Ring of Honor, which feels like a matter of when, not if.
Prescott arrived in Dallas as a fourth-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft after a decorated career at Mississippi State, where he was a two-time First-Team All-SEC selection. He was originally handed No. 10 before switching to No. 4 during rookie minicamp, and he entered his first NFL season buried on the depth chart behind Tony Romo and Kellen Moore.
That changed fast. Moore broke his right tibia in the first week of training camp, then Romo suffered a vertebral compression fracture in the Cowboys’ third preseason game. Prescott was pushed into the starting job and never let it go, even after Romo was healthy enough to come back later in the season.
What followed was one of the best rookie seasons in franchise history. Prescott helped Dallas go 13-3, setting a team record for wins by a rookie quarterback and becoming just the second rookie in NFL history to win that many games, joining Ben Roethlisberger. Along the way, he piled up a long list of rookie marks: 32 completions in a game, 311 completions in a season, 3,667 passing yards, 23 touchdown passes, a 148.3 passer rating in a game, a 104.9 passer rating for the season, and five fourth-quarter comebacks, among others.
That performance earned him Offensive Rookie of the Year honors over teammate Ezekiel Elliott, a sixth-place finish in NFL MVP voting, and a Pro Bowl berth.
Prescott has kept stacking numbers ever since. Through the 2025 season, his 66.9 completion percentage is the best in Cowboys history among quarterbacks with more than 150 pass attempts, and his 98.3 career passer rating is also the franchise standard. He has thrown for 35,989 yards, passing Romo’s old mark of 34,183, and came within a single yard of breaking Romo’s single-season record in 2019, finishing with 4,902.
He also owns the Cowboys’ single-season touchdown record with 37 in 2021. On the career side, his 243 touchdown passes are second only to Romo’s 248, and his 83 regular-season wins put him third in team history behind Roger Staubach’s 85 and Troy Aikman’s 94.
The one missing piece is the one that always hangs over quarterbacks in Dallas: a Super Bowl win. Prescott is 2-5 in the postseason, and that part of the résumé still trails the rest of the production.
But even without that breakthrough, he’s already carved out a place as one of the greatest quarterbacks in Cowboys history - and the clear best to wear No. 4.
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