Ask a former NFL player: Who would you like to see replace Jason Garrett as the next Cowboys coach?

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! Hope your holiday was filled with family, food, and football! A food coma, half asleep on the couch while watching football, is how Thanksgiving should be celebrated.

The first and last game of the day went as expected, with the favored Bears and Saints winning. The middle game went as Jason Garrett’s Cowboys games have gone so far this season, with a loss to a team with a winning record. Credit should go to the Bills, who outplayed the Cowboys when it mattered — like in the red zone — and now have a quality win.

I’ll be writing more about the Cowboys later, but right now, let’s get to the mailbag. And remember, if you have questions next time, you can ask me via Twitter or Instagram.

Who would you like to see take over the head coach job in Dallas? — @BrianLutke

Here’s the deal when you fire a coach: You have to hire someone who’s better than the current coach. Jason Garrett, for all his faults, has been winning the division and a couple playoff games. So when the Cowboys fire him, they need to hire someone better.

They are going to first look at two college coaches. Urban Meyer is the odds-on favorite right now, with Lincoln Riley next. I don’t think either is going to take the job, though. Meyer doesn’t feel like a pro coach. He loves having full control, and you’re not getting that in Dallas with Jerry Jones owning the team. Plus, it appears Meyer is having fun in his studio role.

Riley has probably done all he can at Oklahoma. He’s on his third straight quarterback and a defense that hasn’t improved much. The Sooners have failed to win a College Football Playoff game so far, and I don’t think they will this season, if they even make it. It feels like a great spot for him to jump to the NFL. Also, with the success of Kliff Kingsbury in Arizona this season, it seems like Riley could easily make the jump. He’d need to hire an outstanding defensive guy to run that side of the ball. But I’m not sure he would want the job.

Then, there are two outside-the-box hires: Matt Rhule from Baylor has been outstanding at rebuilding that program and was close to taking the New York Jets’ job last year. Patriots OC Josh McDaniels turned down the Colts two years ago, but I could see him jumping ship now for the Cowboys.

Is yards per attempt a good statistic for judging if a quarterback is throwing downfield consistently? Dak Prescott is averaging 8.4 yards per attempt, but my eyes are telling me he is still dinking and dunking just with excellent playmakers around him. — @aryaank2000

Yards per attempt is a good measure for a quarterback as a baseline, as is adjusted yards per attempt, which takes out drops and throwaways. But we now have available advanced stats (which I understand aren’t free) that can help us evaluate a quarterback.

I filtered air throws for 10 yards or more, and Dak Prescott is by far the best in the NFL. His EPA on throws that travel 10 yards or further is 86.8, and the next-closest quarterback is Russell Wilson at 73.5. He’s fourth for on-target throws and has the highest yards per average on those throws. So yes, Prescott is throwing a good deep ball this season, but we’ve got some recency bias with his last two games, both of which weren’t his best.

He went into New England and besides one pass, wasn’t able to move the ball through the air. The Cowboys went 2 of 13 on third down and didn’t put the ball in the end zone once in a 13-9 loss. Four days later, they moved the ball well against the Bills but, again, couldn’t score. The Cowboys had 32 first downs, were 54 percent on third down, and Prescott was 32 of 49 for 355 yards, with a good chunk of those yards coming after the game was in hand. This was his third-worst game this season, according to ESPN’s QBR metric.

When the offense moves the ball that well and doesn’t score, it goes on the quarterback, fair or foul. And when the Cowboys have a critical fourth down and Prescott throws the ball into the ground, he’s going to get mocked for it:

But in the end, Prescott has improved this season and the Cowboys will pay him — and should.

How did you get started in the NFL? —@NathanielStor16

By playing multiple sports as a kid. I cannot stress this enough: Please, parents, don’t specialize your kids at such a young age. I understand why you feel it’s needed: more exposure, keeping up with the other kids and their talent level, and getting a college scholarship. But we see so many stories of professional football players who played more than one sport in high school. In fact, 29 of the 32 first-round picks in the 2018 draft, and 88 percent of all picks that year, played multiple sports in high school.

Football was actually my last sport. I grew up playing baseball and basketball and continued to do so in high school. The JV football coach saw me the first day of the school year and asked why I wasn’t playing football. I told him I didn’t know when summer practices were, so I just didn’t think of playing. That day I was on the field. Then I was hooked.