Once again, it’s not the fault of Dak Prescott, but great uncertainty and high drama surrounds both him and the Dallas Cowboys as their new season begins. “America’s Team,” a nickname that has been outdated for a couple decades already, will visit the Cleveland Browns when the 2024 NFL season kicks off in six days time.
This will be Prescott’s final year of his current contract. Ditto for head coach Mike McCarthy.
These two situations, plus the way that Dallas botched the handling of the starting running back position, and the nefarious nonsense surrounding the Micah Parsons contract situation, and well, the Cowboys have given us more drama that a season of Friday Night Lights. “He’s your leader,” former NFL quarterback and notable football pundit Robert Griffin III said to RG.org, in regards to Prescott.
“If you’re telling your quarterback we’re going all-in, but you don’t make any moves in the offseason to bring substantially better talent – like the Eagles did with Saquon Barkley, like the Chiefs did by drafting Xavier Worthy – if you’re not making those kinds of moves, how you truly be all in?
“Not only do you not pay your quarterback, you let starting running back Tony Pollard go to the Titans. Instead of just working that stuff out five months ago.
“They do what they were going to do five months ago. If you weren’t going to pay them straight, if you’re not going to pay Dak, trade him.”
The Heisman trophy winner and former ESPN Analyst is spot on. And like we said in the open, major drama surrounding Dak Prescott (through no fault of his own) as a new NFL season dawns is nothing new.
Flash back to 2021, Dak Prescott was then coming off a major ankle injury that he had suffered in a home game of 2020, and he also battled shoulder problems during that preseason’s training camp.
“When you come off an injury like that, you’re practicing and you feel good, but nothing can duplicate actually being in the game,” said Tony Romo, the lead Analyst for CBS Sports, during a media Zoom session that preseason.
“Ultimately, everyone is trying to get though the preseason healthy, trying to get to week one and survive the season- that’s the most important thing.
“I do think there will be a slight adjustment when the plays are difficult and everything doesn’t go perfect.
“I think Dak will be fine, it will just be a period of him adjusting himself and slowly getting back.”
Romo, who obviously knows a thing or two about what it means to the Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback, later added that for him, when he was playing, he always wanted to get at least one series at home, and one series on the road, in the preseason.
Fellow analyst Phil Simms, another former Pro Bowl QB, weighed in as well.
“When Dak came up with this lat injury that he got throwing the football, I was not shocked,” Simms said.
“I actually went on Twitter and talked about it. When that plant leg is not feeling right for a quarterback, he had to make some adjustments to get power on the football, so he changed the way he threw the football.
“When you change, the body wasn’t ready for it, put too much pressure on it, and that’s what we saw.
“So I’m really interested to see. I watched “Hard Knocks” just to watch him throw during one of the practices. It looked okay, but I didn’t see him put any mustard on the football, no power at all.”
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter.