Roster Rundown: What went wrong, right in Cowboys QB room development
With the doldrums of the offseason settling in across the NFL, it’s as good a time as any to recap how the roster of the Dallas Cowboys got where it is today. This is the first part of an ongoing series diving into the positional groups as it stands in June.
It begins, as it always does in football, with the quarterback position. The Cowboys have one of the more storied lineages in the league at this position, basically from their inception. Don Meredith, Craig Morton, Roger Staubach, Danny White and Troy Aikman all exist with great reverence for football historians. With Dallas not winning anything over the past couple decades, the recent iterations haven’t received as much adulation despite taking over nearly every season and career statistical lead.
What went right
There is no luckier team in the NFL than the Cowboys when it comes to the quarterback position. Transitioning from Tony Romo to Dak Prescott in one fell swoop without spending major draft capital can only be described as mana from heaven.
It is indeed better to be lucky than good, and the evidence for that stands 6-foot-2 and wears No. 4. The 2016 NFL draft will often be remembered for Jerry Jones and his affinity for Paxton Lynch. He very badly wanted to trade back up into the first round to select him, going as far as to say, “When I look back on my life, I overpaid for my big successes every time. And when I tried to get a bargain, get it a little cheaper or get a better deal on it, I ended up usually either getting it and not happy I got it. Or missing it. And I probably should have overpaid here.”
But that’s not even where the luck began. It started with both the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles making their moves in the weeks leading up to the draft. Both teams traded to the top and came away with Jared Goff and Carson Wentz. Neither of those players remain with their team and the latter has again been dealt (back to the NFC East) this offseason.
Prescott, meanwhile has done nothing but produce. And while his ranking remains a divisive topic on shows with loud talking heads, there’s no point in rehashing any of it here. He is without a doubt the kind of franchise quarterback fans pine for in their darkest hours.
What went wrong
Stephen Jones loves two things: pies and bargains. He is infatuated with winning every contract negotiation that comes his way that often ends up as a detriment to the team’s salary cap, and often the roster as a whole.
Heading into the 2020 season, Prescott’s draft peers had already received (at the time) massive extensions. Jones and company failed to offer a fair market price to the Dallas signal caller and so Prescott bet on himself. Despite a season-ending injury that submarined the season, the two sides ultimately came to an agreement on a four-year contract that fully guaranteed $95 million. His contract dwarfed that of Goff and Wentz, two players who were seen as prime comparisons in the years leading up to their fall.
All’s well that ends well. There’s nearly no way to overpay a true franchise quarterback, and with the salary cap projected to increase every year, paying Prescott should have no bearing on what they put around him, regardless of how much pie Stephen Jones wants to leave on the counter overnight.
Backup quarterbacks
The importance of a backup quarterback is often overstated. There’s not even 32 people on planet Earth capable of being a quality starter, so if a team’s franchise quarterback goes down for the year, that team’s fortunes are headed with them. It is important, however, to have a player capable of filling in for a spot start or two when called upon.
That man in Dallas right now is Cooper Rush. It’s possible he’ll face some pressure from Will Grier or Ben DiNucci, but he’s proven himself as a useful backup who’s earned the trust of the coaching staff. He’s started exactly one game through his four-year career, winning an ugly game last year on Halloween against the Minnesota Vikings, via late-game comeback, 20-16.
His performance was exactly what one would expect from a backup: spotty. He threw for 325 yards on 40 attempts. Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore had to pull out all the stops in order to produce just 20 points. If the Cowboys are going to go where they hope to be at year’s end, it won’t be because of their backups if they’re called upon, it’ll be because of the rest of the team around them.
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