It’s been a tumultuous offseason for the Dallas Cowboys. After owner Jerry Jones declared that the team would be “all in” for the 2024 season, the Cowboys instead proceeded to hemorrhage talent from both their coaching staff and their roster during the offseason.
Oh, and now Dak Prescott is apparently dealing with an injury, albeit a minor one. The Cowboys quarterback was spotted in Los Cabos, Mexico this week, sporting a walking boot on his right foot. According to the Dallas Morning News, the quarterback has been dealing with a right foot sprain and has been wearing the boot for a week, although Prescott is no longer wearing a boot (via ESPN).
NFL Media, meanwhile, reports that the injury is “very minor” and not anything that should affect his preparations for the upcoming season.
That’s a sigh of relief for Cowboys fans who have watched a mass exodus this offseason.
Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn left to take the head-coaching job with the Commanders, and passing game coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. followed him as the defensive coordinator. Defensive line coach Aden Durde became the DC in Seattle. Starters Tyron Smith, Tyler Biadasz, Tony Pollard, Michael Gallup, Dorance Armstrong, Stephon Gilmore, Jayron Kearse and Leighton Vander Esch will not return. Dallas brought in Mike Zimmer, Tyler Guyton, Cooper Beebe, Ezekiel Elliott and Eric Kendricks to serve as replacements for some of those players, but couldn’t do much more than that because of a self-imposed salary cap crunch.
That crunch came about because the Cowboys have yet to sign their three best players to contract extensions. Each of Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons is extension-eligible, but has not been handed a new deal. Prescott will therefore count for upward of $50 million on the salary cap. Lamb is holding out of the offseason program. And Parsons is biding his time and seeing the price of his next deal go up with every subsequent defensive player who gets a new deal before he gets his own.
Alas, even if the Prescott injury is not serious, it’s always something in Cowboys land, whether with the quarterback or the coach or the owner or the contracts (or lack thereof). There is never a dull moment, and we shouldn’t expect that the change when the team arrives in Oxnard, California, for training camp in a few weeks, either.
