Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images
‘Sunday Night Football’ proved what Dallas has been missing.
The quarterback “controversy” in Dallas lasted all of one week. On Sunday night the world saw in primetime how much the Cowboys miss Dak Prescott, and why it’s foolish to distill the quarterback position to wins and losses.
It was abundantly clear from the first drive that Dallas wasn’t going to be able to hang with the Eagles. Cooper Rush completed one pass to CeeDee Lamb, missing another before stalling out at the 25 yard line. When the Cowboys answered the first Philadelphia touchdown with an interception by Rush it all began to fall apart — digging a hole too deep for the team to claw out of.
This was a scenario everyone should have seen coming. Last week I wrote about how well the Cowboys were playing, but acknowledged that they really only had one way to win with Rush under center: The defense needed to shut down big plays, while Rush had to play mistake-free football. A narrow needle to thread, which ended up being all the difference.
The point here isn’t to dump on Cooper Rush. He has played phenomenal caretaker football, backed up by some incredible coaching to allow it all to work. Contrast Dallas with the Cleveland Browns, who have utterly collapsed through six week — and they knew the team would be without Deshaun Watson for multiple weeks, rather than being forced to pivot after the first game.
Rush has proven himself to be a reliable, smart backup who can steady a team, and that’s fine. We don’t need every quarterback who starts due to injury to be an immediate Tom Brady-esque threat just because it’s a fun narrative. So instead, let’s get back to that core idea of “ways to win,” because it really showed itself on Sunday Night Football, and highlighted why Dallas needs Dak Prescott back.
The “ways to win” concept is nothing new, but it’s one of those internal football scouting terms which is becoming better known to fans. It’s really incredibly simple: How many different ways can a quarterback make plays? Considering they touch the ball on every offensive snap it’s a big reason behind the proliferation of dual-threat quarterbacks in the NFL, or when it comes to more traditional passers it’s about how they excel at every level in the route tree.
Josh Allen, for instance, isn’t an elite deep passer — despite talk of his arm strength. In 2021 he was 32-for-77 on passes of 20+ yards, or 41 percent. However, he makes those completions count, because safeties are often frozen by the threat of him running. When he does complete deep, it’s impactful.
So, in this case Allen wins at the short and intermediate levels with both his arm and his legs, and he wins deep by his run threat opening up the field for his receivers. This gives him a lot of ways to win.
Patrick Mahomes differs in a more traditional way. He doesn’t have the run game to support his arm, but his field vision and accuracy at every level to throw all over the field and beat defenses.
Circling back to the Cowboys you have Prescott, who is one of the league’s most accurate deep passers (63 percent), and one the NFL’s best at picking apart zone defenses (4th in NFL) — but he struggles against man (27th in NFL), and in short-intermediate routes. However, he’s adept at making plays with his legs in the short-intermediate, which both mitigates his accuracy problems there, and helps him beat man defenses that are less prepared to stop a mobile quarterback. That’s a lot of ways to win.
Then you have Rush, who as we’ve established, simply doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have the arm to throw deep, the athleticism to run, and as an x-factor he can’t push the ball downfield quickly in a two minute drill. This was always the difference between the two passers, and why any claims Rush should start over Dak when Prescott was healthy were silly.
When the ways to win are limited it provides defenses with a natural inherent benefit. They only need to scheme to stop one or two aspects of a passer, then they can move on to stropping a running back and gadget plays. This is what the Eagles did to the Cowboys on Sunday night. They forced turnovers from Rush, bent but didn’t break in the run game, and walked away with the win.
The silver lining for Dallas, and it’s a big one, if that they still came within 10 points of a win despite these issues. It’s a testament to how good the Cowboys’ defense is that they only gave up 26 points to a potent Philly offense despite three interceptions that started the Eagles with a short field.
If Prescott can return with the same ability he’s shown his entire career, and the Cowboys can keep a conservative offense that allows the defense shine then this team will make a lot of noise in the NFC this season. That has not changed despite one speed bump. Make ni mistake: Dallas is still extremely dangerous, and could make a deep playoff run.
