Heartbreaking: Dak Prescott and the Future of the Cowboys
Dak Prescott tucked the ball and ran for nine yards, a routine play on a pivotal drive to keep the Cowboys alive against the Giants, a divisional opponent trying to play spoiler. The results were disastrous. While at the time of writing, the full scope of his ankle injury remains to be seen, everyone who witnessed it knows to expect the worst. No one would wish an injury like this on anyone, but it feels particularly cruel for it to happen to Dak and the Cowboys at this moment. He was in the middle of a truly historic season on a team that required regular displays of brilliance from him in order to simply survive. With one routine play, the Cowboys went from dark horse Super Bowl contenders to facing a season on life support. With one routine play, the biggest sports contract bet in recent years went bust. And more than just football, he was just about the last person you would have wished ill will on, with everything he has gone through. Everything is in flux down in Dallas and it is all heartbreaking.
First, let’s contend with the reality of what this means for Dak. As the Ringer noted prior to his injury:
“Prescott could shatter records this year. Through four games, Prescott leads all quarterbacks with 1,690 passing yards. That’s a whopping 364 more than the next leading passer, Josh Allen, and is the most in NFL history through four games. If Prescott were to keep that pace all season, he’d finish with 6,760 passing yards. The record is 5,477, set by Peyton Manning in 2013. Prescott will certainly regress some as the season continues, but even to be on pace to break the record by more than 1,000 yards is mind-boggling. There’s a very good chance Dak will finish 2020 as the all-time single-season passing yards champ, and he might become the first 6,000-yard passer ever.
Prescott’s also attempted 201 passes this season, which is an average of more than 50 per game. That’s also tops in the league by a wide margin and puts him on pace to shatter another record (Matthew Stafford’s 727 attempts in 2012).”
Not only was this the beginning of a truly historic year, it was in the midst of messy, volatile public negotiations with owner Jerry Jones on a contract extension. Unable to lock down a long term deal, Prescott took a one year franchise tag, “prove it” contract. And, man, was he really proving it.
To players and fans, there’s nothing more inspiring than watch a player turn down job security for the hope for something more. We root for it in spite of the fact that few, if any of us, would have the courage to do the same. Many times, it’s getting the money they rightly deserve or getting that money in guarantees instead of incentives. The risk/reward proposition of these one year contracts are brave and exciting. For some like Kirk Cousins, who declined a lowball contract and took a franchise tag with the Redskins, betting on themselves works out wonderfully. For others, like Dak right now, it can feel like the worst decision ever. He seemed primed to follow Cousins’ footsteps and come out the other side with a massive, industry-changing payout. Instead, he’s lost all his leverage entering free agency. Actually, forget leverage — we don’t even know if he’ll be healthy by free agency. And in a year where COVID-19 will still affect team decision making, health concerns will hamper player valuation as on-site medical visits remain infeasible. We all witnessed what happened to Cam Newton, a former MVP quarterback with injury concerns that was forced to take the league minimum, this offseason. That feels like an inevitable outcome here. Heartbreaking.
The NFL remains the only major sports organization to not standardize guaranteed money in contracts. This is despite NFL players being injured 3.4x more often than players in the MLB, NBA, NHL, and UEFA. It’s why players like Le’Veon Bell and Melvin Gordon chose to hold out for months, losing millions of dollars in game checks. Dak Prescott saw the broken system, decided to bet on himself, and, through no fault of his own, was robbed. This system of loading contracts with loose, incentive-based money, has been hated by every athlete for decades. Yet, their player union was either unable or unwilling to fix it for its players when they signed a new bargaining agreement earlier this year. Until the NFL and the NFLPA has this conversation more forcefully, players will continue to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.
For the Cowboys, this is the worst case scenario. Here’s a team, on paper, with an absolute Maserati of an offense. They have one of the best offensive lines in the league and with players like Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, and Ezekiel Elliot, there is star power at almost every skill position. They’re third in the league in points for a reason. And yet, they’re still 1–3! Why’s that? Their defense is, to put it mildly, absolutely terrible. Partially because they’ve been decimated by injuries, their DVOA is currently 24th in the league, largely due to an abysmal run defense. The Cowboys blueprint to contend for a deep playoff run this season absolutely relied on continued brilliance from Dak Prescott and the offense to counteract the mess on defense. Losing Dak throws it all out the window. In comes Andy Dalton, a quarterback best known for his struggles in winning big games. For a team that was thinking Super Bowl, it’s not the most inspiring replacement. Can they still manage to win the division? Maybe. The NFC East is stunningly bad year after year. The winner, usually the Eagles, is consistently won by attrition via injury rather than talent. In a division that was originally a two team race, it’s now the Eagles’ to lose with Dak gone and 12 games to go. For the Cowboys, to salvage this season with three of the last six games against division opponents, Dalton needs to show up like he’s never done before. Don’t bet on it.
All of this ignores the personal pain. This man has gone through so many tribulations in his life, from his mother passing of colon cancer to his brother committing suicide. He’s lauded by his peers as a champion of mental health in the league. Today, he finds himself at the base of another mountain to climb. Heartbreaking.
The ripple effects of this one play won’t fully reverberate for years. Dak’s importance to his team, the league, and the players’ union in 2020 cannot be overstated. He served as a beacon of hope for Cowboys fans finally hoping for playoff relevance. A beacon of hope for ownership to finally see expensive investments pay off. A beacon of hope for players fighting for better and more fair compensation. A beacon of hope for humans rooting for a feel-good story in a time of so few good feelings. For those reasons, and so many more, this injury is heartbreaking.
