Cowboys backup QB competition is more important than ever thanks to Dak Prescott injury

Jerry Jones loves a quarterback controversy. Most of the time he fabricates one himself around Week 3 or 4, but this year Dak Prescott beat him to the punch when he was spotted wearing a walking boot over the Fourth of July weekend. With the Dallas Cowboys training camp starting in less than two weeks, that’s not ideal.

It sounds like Prescott had an MRI done on a right foot sprain, which is the same leg that was turned into a bone-holding skin bag during the gruesome Week 5 season-ending injury in 2020. This puts Cowboys fans in a familiar reality: A backup quarterback could have significant playing time in meaningful games.

Should the Cowboys be concerned about Prescott's injury-prone future?

In the past four seasons, Dak Prescott has missed 17 out of 67 games. He had the right leg injury in 2020 (missing 11 games), a right calf strain in 2021 (missing 1 game) and a hand injury in 2022 (missing 5 games).

Eleven of the 17 games Prescott missed were from one single injury, but he has missed time from issues on that same leg. Also, he’s turning 31 on July 29, and everyone knows that once you turn 30, your body turns into mush—a stubbed toe can take you out of commission for a month. Post-30, you're always thinking that you didn’t peak (even if your entire family tells you that you did).

The point is that even though we’re still two months away from the start of the NFL season, an offseason injury to an old-for-the-NFL quarterback can come back to rear its ugly head later in the season. This is especially true if that QB has a history of aggravating injuries to a surgically repaired leg. 

The battle for the Cowboys QB2 is real, and it’s spectacular

This relatively notable position battle is between Cooper Rush and Trey Lance. Rush is 30 years old and has been the Cowboys' QB2 since 2021. After Dak hurt his hand in 2022, Rush was the one who came in and won four straight games. 

Lance is 24 years old, and after an abysmal two-year run with the 49ers (which included a Prescott-adjacent leg injury), he was traded to the Cowboys in August of 2023. He spent the entire season as a healthy scratch, meaning he never got a chance to be the QB2 during a game. 

So in one corner, there’s a guy who has shown that he can win, but he’s as old as Prescott. In the other corner, there’s a young guy who has squandered his starting opportunities and also had his leg bones turned into mashed potatoes.

It’s probably not the quarterback battle that Jerry Jones was going to throw at us in October, but at least it takes something off the plate of the biggest drama queen/owner/general manager in the NFL. Now he can finally get back to going all in.