by Dak Prescott has been in situations during his seven years as a pro where he had to make up for what was missing around him. Maybe it was the injuries along the offensive line. Or when the team was reviewing his receiving pool. Or when Ezekiel Elliott has been away.
This season, very clearly, is not the case for Prescott. And that point was made emphatically clear to the 29-year-old during the five games he missed.
“I know what a great blessing it was to be able to see these five weeks, and these five weeks to end the record that we have,” Prescott said, in a quiet moment after Sunday’s game, after a win that ran to record as many as 5– two. “I was able to learn a lot. I was able to learn what this team is capable of, what we have in all aspects of this team, whether it’s defense, special teams, whether it’s our running game that I feel is the best in the last two years.
“So it’s all exciting and just being able to take that in this week, that’s all I can think about is coming back and being a part of it and knowing I don’t have to do too much. It’s not about me; it’s about this team and just understanding that we have a lot of greatness. And then stay in the game, manage it and make sure you put these guys in the best position.”
The truth is, Prescott briefly said he lost that Sunday.
There were two shots, both in the first half, that he admitted to me that he would have liked to recover, unnecessary risks that, given the team around him, he didn’t need to take to win. But that is where the beauty of the place where he is now comes into play. That same team was good enough to win and go out on Sunday despite that.
That means, for returning quarterback Cowboys 24, Lions 6 it was all about getting his feet wet, re-acclimatizing with the guys around him and pulling off a win.
And to be able to look ahead, too, how all this could be with a little more time.
It wasn’t the most dramatic Sunday in NFL action, but Week 7 gave us plenty of stories. These are the ones we are going to cover in this week’s MMQB column:
• In Three Deep, we’ll dive into the Chiefs’ rebound, the Seahawks’ restart and the Titans’ resurgence.
• In Ten Takeaways, we’ll look at Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati outburst, the Christian McCaffrey trade and Washington’s ownership situation.
• In Six From Saturday, we’ll see a bumper crop of college runners.
But we’re starting with the Cowboys and the new lease on football life that Prescott thinks he has, after watching his team go into battle without him for five weeks.
Cooper Rush’s success gave, as Jerry Jones has hinted in recent weeks, the Cowboys more flexibility in scheduling Prescott’s return after he broke his thumb in Game 1 against the Buccaneers. Dallas won and won and won and won, going 4-1 before losing last week to the Eagles in Rush’s fifth start of the season.
But 100% from a football perspective is not always 100% from a normal human perspective and that, Prescott openly admitted to me, was the case here as well.
“The hand is great,” Prescott told me. “Honestly, I feel like I’ve relearned how to use it, activate it, this whole last week and a half. As for doing my job, there are no limitations; I have no doubt that I was not going to be able to do what I just did. That is also trusting my rehabilitation process, trusting everything I’ve been through.
“On the real life side, yeah, there’s probably another little step, step and a half that I can take before I’m 100% or 100%. But I can do my job, I can do my job comfortably, I can do my job very confidently and that’s all that really matters to me.”
It would only take Prescott a minute to get there on Sunday.
The Cowboys started with a pair of 3-pointers and outs against a very leaky Lions defense. On the first drive, off third-and-8, the Lions brought Prescott home, and Prescott didn’t move much in the pocket, creating an easy situation in which he took a costly sack. On the team’s next drive, he scored his first completion, down the middle for seven yards to rookie Jake Ferguson, but Elliott was brought down for a two-yard loss, leaving Dallas with a second straight three-and-out to start. the game.
That set up the rest of a first half in which Prescott and the guys around him were testing their limits and Prescott himself was testing the thumb.
“There were two pitches I took early that I don’t necessarily want to take back because they didn’t turn out bad, but yeah, that was my confidence and that’s what I have to guard against,” he said. “It’s understandable that I have this team, and I don’t have to try to force these balls, whether it’s third down or in a tight window. I have to keep playing the game, control it, get into field position and trust our defense to give it back to us.”
As such, the Cowboys’ offense sputtered a bit in the first half as Prescott got to his feet and went into halftime trailing 6-3. And did Prescott mention that the defense gave it back to the offense?
That’s how the second half began: Trevon Diggs intercepted Jared Goff on the third play of the third quarter and the Cowboys turned around and immediately went 82 yards in seven plays. Even better, to cover that ground, Prescott didn’t have to do much, with only three pitches left on the drive. He connected with CeeDee Lamb for 10 yards on the second play of possession and Dalton Schultz for nine yards on the fourth, then helped Schultz draw a pass interference flag into the end zone from the 10-yard line.
The running backs took care of the rest, with Elliott leaping from right guard, getting past a defender and racking up 18 yards between Prescott’s two completions, and Tony Pollard ripping off a 28-yard right tackle two plays after that to score the drive. . Prescott could really be the bus driver for that, and he was totally comfortable with it.
The PI flag set up a one-yard touchdown drop from Elliott, and the Cowboys were never far behind.
Week 7 was not without its hiccups, as Prescott had to pick up the pace after some time on the shelf.
Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports
When I asked Prescott, unequivocally, if this version of the Cowboys’ defense, with its supercharged pass rush and superman front seven Micah Parsons, is the best he’s ever played, he didn’t miss a beat.
“There’s no question this is the best defense I’ve ever played with,” he said. “Last year we had signs and we showed what we were capable of. just of me [point of view], I don’t think they were as tight as they are now. Right now, they are special. I feel like whatever D is called, those guys can do it. And they are running through walls to do it.
“It’s great to see.”
It’s also good to see, for Prescott, how things around him evolved offensively when he was out and Rush was in. The big question about left tackle appears to have been answered with first-rounder Tyler Smith more prepared than anyone expected to take the reins. that Tyron Smith has held for over a decade. Healthier than Michael Gallup, Ferguson emerged as a viable option, and the bottom pack is working.
And the on-field realization of all of that, of all that Prescott had observed during his entire time on the shelf, actually came on a possession before the first touchdown drive detailed above.
The Cowboys took possession at their own 24-yard line with 4:03 remaining in the second quarter and quickly found their rhythm. First, it was Elliott for eight yards, then Prescott found Schultz for another eight, and by the two-minute warning, Dallas had covered 51 yards and had first-and-10 at the Lions 25-yard line. he took a sack that was overturned for a penalty, then Noah Brown fumbled inside the 5-yard line, but what the quarterback was looking for during the first 30 minutes of the game materialized.
“I know that resulted in a fumble right there in the 1 or so, but the couple of passes that were called there, the couple of shots that I made and just getting into my rhythm, I came into halftime feeling pretty good about it. , knowing coming out for the second half that we’re going to be able to do what we needed to do,” he said. “Yeah, I felt great.”
When asked what made him feel that way, Prescott said: “It was just the rhythm, the way the ball came out of my hands, some of it was progressions and I just trusted what I was seeing and doing. the pitches, and the receivers were making the catches. And just being on the same page with those guys is amazing.”
Before that possession, Prescott was 6-of-9 for 61 yards. Thereafter, he was 13-of-16 for 146 yards and a touchdown. And methodically, the Cowboys would take the Lions from there, with the defense shutting down Detroit for the final 2 1/2 quarters of the game, and the offense scoring on three of their five possessions (excluding knees) after the break.
And the fun part, for Prescott & Co., sure looks like it’s yet to come.
The Cowboys, over the past 15 years, have rarely been short of talent. So declaring that things are different this time around for a franchise that last reached a conference title game 27 years ago might be silly.
But, at least at this starting point, there is are a number of things coming together for Dallas. And one, indirectly, is Prescott’s injury itself, and the benefit she got from being able to see her team from a 30,000-foot view. He felt the benefit Sunday at Arlington, realizing what his team needed from him against Detroit. She also felt it knowing how good the group around him can be and what they, collectively, might be capable of.
“There’s no question about it, you just said it,” he said. “Watching the last five weeks and seeing the offensive running game is the best it’s been in the last few years, seeing a defense, the best defense I’ve been a part of in my seven years, to see all of that and understand that when come back, I can add another level, hopefully, to our offense and to our team, to be able to extend it if necessary but stay within myself, there’s so much excitement.
“And honestly, it’s a privilege. It was a blessing to be able to sit through those weeks and see that, understand that, learn as much as I did and now be back and healthy. I’m just grateful.”
It’s safe to say the Cowboys are grateful, too.
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