After seeing the offense struggle immensely following Dak Prescott’s season-ending injury last year, fans wanted nothing more than for the Dallas Cowboys to lock him up. When the team did just that with a four-year, $160 million contract, the concern shifted towards his health.
Whenever a player signs a mega-deal, one nagging thought cannot help but pop into mind. What if he gets hurt? Well—it’s happened.
Training camp has been underway for about a week for the Dallas Cowboys. Dak Prescott has been participating, and so far, everything has been fine. But then during the season’s first padded practice Wednesday that changed.
After throwing early on during the practice session, Prescott became more of a spectator than participant. At one point, he could be seen speaking with head athletic trainer Jim Maurer. But he eventually jogged off the field with an apparent injury to his throwing arm.
According to early reports, the injury had something to do with his throwing shoulder. The team eventually released a statement:
“After leaving today’s practice early with soreness in his right arm, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott underwent an MRI examination in Oxnard, CA. The results of that test showed that Prescott has a muscle strain in his right shoulder.”
A simple muscle strain may not sound like a big deal, but the Cowboys are not taking it lightly. He is expected to sit out of practice for at least the next two weeks which means he will not play in the Hall of Fame game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on August 5 or possibly against the Arizona Cardinals the following week as well.
After losing him for most of the season last year and signing him to a mega deal in the offseason, it is likely safe to say the Cowboys will exercise extreme caution and take things very slow. Does that mean fans should worry at all?
It did not sound like Prescott was too concerned when he spoke with the media:
“Just a little shoulder pain, a little shoulder soreness I should say, and tightness. Felt it a little bit yesterday. I came out today and was going to work through it and just felt I should be smart… I obviously didn’t want to push through something that could potentially make it worse….”
That means, during the preseason, Dallas fans are going to get a healthy dose of Garrett Gilbert, Ben DiNucci, and Cooper Rush. DiNucci and Gilbert both recorded a start for the Cowboys last season. Gilbert had a respectable performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers. DiNucci’s came the week prior, a positively dreadful performance against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Cooper Rush recorded his one and only regular season completion in 2017.
There has been no official word on whether the Cowboys would invite any other quarterbacks to camp. But it would not be shocking if they were to kick the tires on a few free agents like Robert Griffin III, Brett Hundley, or Jordan Ta’amu.