What To Expect From Dak Prescott When He Returns To Dallas
The Cooper Rush “Linsanity” era in Dallas may have come to an end last weekend in the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. With Dak Prescott returning, it should breathe new life into the Dallas Cowboys offense.
Dallas struggled on both sides of the ball from kickoff having to deal with a loaded Eagles roster and Cooper Rush especially looked as if playing in that type of environment for a divisional matchup was too much for him. Philly had a packed house for Sunday Night Football which was expected with Dallas coming to town for the biggest game of the season so far for both teams. What took it over the top was rapper Meek Mill getting the crowd amped up during pregame and even had the United States First Lady Jill Biden in attendance to rep the Eagles.
Realistic fans knew the Cooper Rush win streak wouldn’t last forever, no win streak does. We simply just didn’t know when it would end after watching the way this Dallas defense was performing and beating both Super Bowl teams from last year. Coming into Philadelphia everyone had a feeling this might be the game Rush finally dropped one, what we didn’t know was how he and the rest of the team would look.
Rush looked bad, and this might even be an understatement of his performance Sunday night. He threw for 181 yards, a touchdown, and three interceptions in the game. He looked especially bad in the first half which is when Dallas dug themselves into a hole, going into halftime trailing 20-3. A comeback was attempted by Dallas in the second half when they were able to cut the lead down to as few as three points in the fourth quarter, but the Eagles offense ultimately marched down the field again to put the game out of reach.
While there are some who felt Rush was able to turn it around significantly in the second half he did still noticeably struggle throughout the game as he had a quarterback rating of 37.3. After the game, quarterback Dak Prescott said he plans to play next week against the Detroit Lions. This in my opinion confirmed that the plan all along was to play Rush until he lost, giving Dak Prescott all the time needed to come back fully healthy.
Dak Prescott Returning To Cowboys Lineup
Dak Prescott has only played in one game this season so it’s unfair to judge him off such a small sample size (people do it anyway) but based on his full body of work it is without question that this team’s ceiling is much higher with #4 behind center. That is in no way downplaying what Rush was able to do when he was asked to step in. He led this team to four straight wins and took care of the ball in all of those victories.
In a perfect world, Rush would’ve remained undefeated until the team simply felt good about putting Dak Prescott back into the mix. One thing I will give Rush a lot of credit for is being a focal point in establishing the team’s winning formula of running the football, managing the clock, and letting the stellar defense do their thing on the other end. Even with Prescott coming back, this formula shouldn’t change at all. In fact, it should be amplified.
People tend to forget that when Prescott led the Cowboys to a 13-3 record during his rookie season that a lot of it had to do with him playing as a game manager with a then-elite Ezekiel Elliott behind an even more elite offensive line. While both Elliott and the offensive line are far removed from their 2016 forms, we still have a running game that has been very effective between him and Tony Pollard running behind an offensive line whose strong suit has proven to be run blocking.
On top of that, this team has been blessed with a top-five defense that was only a pipe dream during the 2016 season. Adding Dak Prescott back to this team will no doubt elevate the passing game, but the running game should still be the focal point of the offensive game plan going forward. Dak has always been a guy who’s great on third down, so having a running game that will get us to third down and manageable yardage sounds like a great recipe for success and long drives when you have a signal caller that makes good decisions on those important plays of a drive.
Dak Prescott has been medically cleared to play this week and the team seems to have a sense of excitement around his return. Dallas will host the Lions in week seven who currently have the last-ranked rushing defense in the entire NFL. This will be the perfect opportunity for Dallas to show they’re truly committed to the winning formula they found with Rush at the helm.