As anger subsides for Cowboys, they still love their chances with Dak Prescott
ARLINGTON, Texas – Part of Sunday night felt familiar, watching the red-faced, clenched-jawed amble of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on his way to the postgame locker room. In front and behind, players gravitated between silence and agitated chatter. In the middle of the mix wide receiver Terrance Williams, who failed to get out of bounds for a last-second field-goal attempt, punctuated his walk with an obscenity.
“[Expletive] me,” Williams said.
“Everybody’s pretty mad in there,” Jones would say later, standing outside the locker room. “[They’re] pretty upset right now. Anything moving has got a good chance to get bitten in there right now.”
This was the familiar part. The obscene self-assessment and locker room hissing with disappointment. For a few moments after Sunday’s 20-19, home-opening loss to the New York Giants, it summoned remembrances of the 4-12 discontent from last season, when games slipped away weekly and Jones marched through the bowels of stadiums grinding the veneer off his teeth.
But this was only Week 1. The playoff hopes hadn’t been squashed. The seething would subside. And as the night wore on, the flip side of all of this frustration emerged. The Cowboys’ lament at 0-1 is different than last season’s familiar deflations. Unlike many of last year’s losses, this was a game Dallas believes it should have won – not could have won. This is a locker room that is very familiar with the difference.
When a team is grasping and hoping, but the ceiling can’t go any higher on a season, it’ll be angry about games it could have won. But when tangible improvement in depth and the quarterback spot show, the sting of dissatisfaction rises out of expectation. Last season, the quarterback situation was so screwed up for Dallas that the team stopped anticipating wins and started hoping for them. But these Cowboys are expectant again. And a large part of it is coming from the play of Dak Prescott.
“I can’t in any way show anything – or would show anything – but disappointment for these guys,” Jones said of the loss. “But I think we’ve got a chance to be a good team. Now. This season. A lot of it has to do with what I saw from Dak.
“He’s done it in preseason [and] didn’t look a bit different to me out there today than he did in the preseason. … He protected the ball and was really composed and, I thought, in control at all times. He had some times when his back was against the wall.”
Prescott’s numbers weren’t staggering: 25 for 45 for 227 yards with zero touchdowns and a 69.4 quarterback rating. But wideouts Cole Beasley and Dez Bryant both dropped touchdown passes that would have framed Sunday in a completely different light. And if Williams had gotten out of bounds at the end of the game, the Cowboys could have attempted what would have likely been a 60-yard, game-winning field goal for Dan Bailey, whose range appeared to extend that far in the pregame warm-ups.
Instead, the surrounding pieces at least partially scuttled Prescott’s regular-season debut. But not before he looked as calm and collected as the preseason, when Prescott’s play had some questioning whether he might supplant Tony Romo this season. It’s safe to say that Romo’s starting job is going to be waiting for him when he hopes to return (“Sooner rather than later,” according to Jones’ update on Sunday). But it’s also clear the Cowboys feel Prescott can win games for them in the interim and maybe beyond.
And why not? The Giants essentially put the entire game onto Prescott’s shoulders by taking away the two linchpins of the Dallas offense. They jammed the box against running back Ezekiel Elliott and bracketed Bryant the entire game with cornerback Janoris Jenkins and a safety over the top. Prescott’s response was to take a slightly more conservative offering and continually move Dallas into scoring position, typically through using routes that were 12-15 yards and in, racking up completions to tight end Jason Witten and Beasley in the slot.
That frustrated the Giants at times as they blitzed on occasion but rarely hit Prescott and failed to sack him. They also came up empty in the turnover department, as Prescott even managed to hold onto the football when his passing arm was chopped in the pocket at one point. But New York ultimately won where it mattered most, forcing Dallas to kick four field goals, something that would ultimately be the difference. The Giants schemed enough pressure to show that the Prescott who was impressive in the preseason may very well be the same player for the Cowboys in September and beyond.
“Dak, you have to give it to him,” Giants cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie said. “He made some plays. He stepped up [into the pocket], he’s scrambling, he’s running.”
“He played damn good and all he can do is just get better,” Bryant said. “And he’s going to do that. … He’s a real live competitor and all of the guys love him and we’re going to stay behind him.”
That’s praise from a frustrated Bryant, mind you, after catching only one ball for eight yards. But it’s emblematic of what Prescott has already brought to the table for the Cowboys. A sense that they should – not could – win games with him at quarterback.
Dallas is also getting a taste of what game plans will look like from this point forward. Teams will jam the line of scrimmage and pound on Elliott, who finished with a rough stat line: 51 rushing yards on 20 carries and a long run of only eight yards. And future opponents will lock up Bryant, too. They may not have the luxury of a cover corner who can follow Bryant around the field like Jenkins, but they’ll all put a safety over the top of him and hope Prescott makes the mistake of throwing into the teeth of double coverage.
That’s where the next step has to take place. When Prescott hits Beasley inside the 5-yard line, it has to be a catch-and-score. When he finds Bryant in the end zone, he has to hang on to the touchdown rolling out of bounds. Prescott still needs help. Simply not as much as last season’s backup quarterbacks, who were ultimately the anchors that dragged the season into the abyss.
“You’d have to be optimistic about our future, now having seen him in the first game plus what he did in the preseason,” Jones said. “We know how hard it is to get a good player at that position, and he looks to be that.”
That’s something Jones couldn’t say last year without looking wildly out of touch with reality. And even in a familiar loss, that’s why this failure feels strikingly different this time around.
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