Dak Prescott was in a small interview room at Cleveland’s Huntington Bank Field after the Dallas Cowboys opened the season with a win against the Browns on Sept. 8. Hours earlier, the quarterback agreed to a contract that would make him the highest-paid player in history. NFL history: Four years, $240 million, $231 million guaranteed.
Everything seemed possible.
Until it wasn’t.
As early as Wednesday, Prescott could undergo season-ending surgery to repair a partial avulsion of his right hamstring, but the Cowboys’ season continues. Prescott will fly to New York on Monday morning to meet with a specialist. If there is agreement that surgery is the best route, Prescott will need three months to recover.
The first game without Prescott ended in a 34-6 loss to the visiting Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
Cooper Rush and Trey Lance combined for 66 yards passing. The Cowboys turned the ball over five times.
“I don’t want to be sarcastic, but do you have the same arithmetic as me? We’ve won three games with Dak,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said after the game. “So, I’m just saying that we weren’t playing well with Dak, at all. So, there’s a lot to work on here, and we’re all aware of it, and [it’s] very worrying.”
It was the Cowboys’ fourth consecutive home loss.
In 2015, they lost five straight home games on their way to a 4-12 finish when quarterback Tony Romo suffered two broken collarbones.
That season, the Cowboys attempted to fix their quarterback room, first with Brandon Weeden and then with a trade for Matt Cassel from the Buffalo Bills. In the end, Kellen Moore started the final two games of the season.
This season, the Cowboys have Rush, now 5-2, as Prescott’s replacement during his tenure with the Cowboys, and both losses came against the Eagles. In 2022, the Rush lost to Philadelphia at Lincoln Financial Field in what was their final start before Prescott’s return from a broken right thumb.
On Sunday, Rush completed 13 of 23 passes for 46 yards. He was sacked once and lost a fumble in the first quarter.
Like Prescott last offseason, Rush is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. Rush went from being an undrafted free agent on Dallas’ roster in 2017 to being released by the team in 2020 and becoming a legitimate backup in 2021.
He will turn 31 in two weeks and that is what he is at this point in his career: a substitute.
Lance, the third pick in the 2021 draft by the San Francisco 49ers, will also be an unrestricted free agent when the season ends. Acquired for a fourth-round pick that, in part, prevented the Cowboys from selecting a running back in April’s draft, Lance remains a mystery. In the second half against Philadelphia, he completed 4 of 6 passes for 21 yards and was intercepted once.
He’s 24 years old, younger than 2024 first-round picks Bo Nix (Denver Broncos) and Michael Penix Jr. (Atlanta Falcons). If the Cowboys’ season continues to dissolve, why not see if Lance could be Prescott’s backup in 2025 or potentially get a compensatory pick in 2026 if he performs well? Jones wasn’t ready to go there Sunday.
“We’re going to have to play better than we’re playing right now,” Jones said. “No, I don’t know if there are answers outside the organization. [at quarterback]. “But we’re going to have to play better in all positions than we did tonight.”
Lance got a chance in the preseason, and while he showed talent at times, most remember the five interceptions he threw in the finals against the Los Angeles Chargers.
“I feel like I’m in a really good place right now,” Lance said last week about understanding the offense. “Having been through the whole offseason program, training camp and everything, having a full year and something under my belt, being around these guys, it helps a lot.”
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy might find himself in the toughest position of anyone in the organization.
Like the backup quarterbacks, McCarthy is not under contract beyond this season. There has been talk of his job security since the Cowboys’ loss to the Green Bay Packers in January.
The Cowboys’ season will no longer be centered around a long playoff appearance unless something close to a miracle happens. For McCarthy, it will be about how he keeps a team together when there is nothing to play for beyond pride and individual statistics.
“I don’t think we’ll make a coaching change during the season,” Jones said Sunday.
When injuries (especially those to the starting quarterback) take over a season, a team’s struggle can mean more to Jones than wins. Keyword: power. Especially since McCarthy was brought in to do what Jason Garrett couldn’t: make a deep run in the postseason.
However, in two of McCarthy’s five seasons, Prescott did not make it past the middle of a season. In the fifth game of the 2020 season, the signalman suffered a dislocation and compound fracture of his right ankle.
The Cowboys started three different quarterbacks (Andy Dalton, Ben DiNucci and Garrett Gilbert) after that injury and finished 6-10.
This season, Prescott suffered his injury in the eighth game of a 17-game season. Even before the injury, he wasn’t having his best season, having thrown 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions, one shy of his interception total for 2023, when he started every game.
And now the Cowboys are 3-6.
There are eight games left in what increasingly looks like a lost season, like 2015.
The final autopsy of the 2024 campaign will arrive at the beginning of January.
Until then, the Cowboys will continue to play without Prescott.
