Dak Prescott was on pace to shatter his amazing 2019 campaign until he suffered an ankle dislocation and compound fracture in Week 5. The road to recovery hasn’t been an easy one, but the former fourth-round pick has been ahead of schedule in his rehab, and the anticipation for another big season is running wild in North Texas.
The Dallas Cowboys will begin training camp at the end of July, and all eyes will be on Prescott to see just how much he’s progressed since last October. Head coach Mike McCarthy addressed the media on Tuesday from he first day of mandatory veteran minicamp and gave an update on what Prescott’s involvement will be next month, and it appears there will be no limitations.
“That’s a great question. He’s done everything. He hasn’t missed anything that’s been slated,” McCarthy said. “He’s doing a lot of extra frankly so the anticipation would be for him to go every day is the outlook. We’re not naïve. It’s just like any player that comes back from injury, especially a major joint injury. The first year back there’s going to be some things you have to work through but I would anticipate we’d start with him in full mode, get him into the team periods and get back to playing football.”
Prescott has looked mobile on his surgically repaired ankle during OTAs. Last week, he scrambled and connected with CeeDee Lamb who made a highlight-worthy catch over cornerback Anthony Brown. That may have caused Cowboys fans to get in an uproar, but McCarthy mentioned Prescott has caught his eye several times recently with what he’s done on the field.
“Oh definitely,” McCarthy said. “He’s definitely had some moments from workouts probably 3-4 weeks back where I definitely felt once we were able to see him move in the pocket, out of the pocket-type drills, scramble drills. We’re doing more of that work by design for a number of reasons and that only helps him. I think it’s like a lot of players and really us as coaches: We’re going to be putting in new concepts today and tomorrow and they’re not going to look great. But that’s a normal path when you’re this deep into your installs. You get into more exotic things, things you don’t get a lot of reps on, some of your secondary and auxiliary concepts so it’s not going to look great. But he needs it, we all need it. It’s really kind of where we are as a team. Physically I think he’s right where he needs to be.”
The success of the 2021 Cowboys will depend heavily on what the offensive side of the ball does, even if their defense improves from its atrocious performance of a year ago. That will ultimately rest on the shoulders, or rather the arm of Prescott who is taking all the necessary steps to get back to being one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
