Dak Prescott has had quite a bit of success since taking over as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys in 2016. A fourth-round rookie who started his first offseason low in the rankings developed into a franchise quarterback. Dallas had immediate success with Prescott, who earned four Pro Bowl nods and was a top MVP candidate twice in his eight-year career.

But Sunday night’s loss, a 30-24 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, put Prescott in a situation not seen since 2019. With Prescott under center, the Cowboys have lost at least two games in a row on two separate occasions.

Dallas has not lost two games in a row in either 2022 or 2023. They lost two games in a row once in 2021, and that included an overtime loss on Thanksgiving Day to the Las Vegas Raiders. In 2020, Prescott lost the season in Week 5, so the last two losses of the year were not at his expense.

It has to go back to the 2019 season to see a Prescott-led team this bad. There is a parallel here too. 2019 was Jason Garrett’s slow coaching year. Mike McCarthy and his staff are under the same pressure.

This season, the Cowboys started with three straight wins before losing three straight and falling to .500. They would win three of their next four games before losing four of their next five. Things never quite got right with this version of the ballclub, and that feeling is familiar as Dallas works toward the middle of the 2024 schedule.

This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Prescott, Cowboys suffer this dubious performance for the first time since 2019