Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott suffered a season-ending ankle injury in the Cowboys 37-34 victory Sunday over the New York Giants. It shocked the NFL world and was just the latest in a season full of disappointment in Big D.
When Cowboys owner Jerry Jones joined 105.3 The Fan for his usual Tuesday radio appearance, he was asked about his emotions when Prescott went down and was very candid in his response.
“I obviously, as we all did, poured out inside for Dak,” Jones said. “And there’s nothing, nothing in athlete’s makeup of nothing in his experience that is as bad as having an injury. It’s just the last thing you want to think about and it’s the most challenging thing you have to deal with.”
Any time a quarterback gets a lower-body injury, especially something like a compound fracture and ankle dislocation, there’s a concern with how he will recover and return to form. Jones has no such worries about Prescott.
“I don’t have any. I really don’t have any. I don’t at all,” Jones said. “I got as much as God lets us get, and the nature of what they found when they did the surgery. It’s all positive relative to a recovery. Nothing’s positive about it; don’t misinterpret, but it’s a positive as to his chances as to getting it back to normal.”
Jones was also adamant Prescott’s injury hasn’t altered his conviction about him being the face and future of the Dallas Cowboys going forward.
“None. You mean this particular injury. We’ve known for a long time that you can have a great player at this spot, but then not have him at periods of time during his career. We had it with Aikman. We had it with Romo. You don’t always have them. So, you’ve got to rely on other parts of your team.”
The biggest elephant in the room when it comes to Jones’ relationship with Prescott is his inability to get him signed long-term this offseason before slapping the $31.4 million franchise tag on him in June. When asked about the criticism from the failed negotiations, Jones had this to say.
“We’ve got to be reminded that to have a team, we’ve got to really manage how we dole out our resources. Dak is deserving of anything that you want to put on a piece of paper, relatively speaking. He’s deserving of that. If you evaluate what he can do to help us win championships, you can see that it’s there. Plus, he’s a leader at the premier leader spot. We’ve got to make it work. So what am I saying? I’m saying exactly the same thing I said the last time I was asked about this before the season started. This is part of the game, the business, and the contract part.”
The recovery time for Prescott’s injury is 4-6 months which would mean he could be back to doing football-related things around April or May, which Jones agrees with.
“Physically I’m told by the doctors, by our own experience of seeing this injury, physically there should be no problem with him being back out there in early May or April.”
Prescott is now home recovering after successful surgery. Now, the long road to begins as he tries to regain the form that’s made him one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
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