Tag: 2021 season week 8

Minus green dot, Cowboys LB Micah Parsons named NFC Defensive Player of the Week

Micah Parsons wasn’t the defensive playcaller Sunday, but he became the first rookie ever to log double-digit tackles with 4 for loss. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Micah Parsons made some changes to his personal routine during the Cowboys’ bye week, like coming into work earlier to get a head start on his own game prep.

“I just felt like I’ve got to do more,” he said.

He certainly did more on Sunday… but maybe because he was doing less.

The rookie linebacker was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for his dominant performance in the Cowboys’ 20-16 win over the Vikings: ten tackles, an assist on another, a quarterback hit, four tackles for loss.

As per the team website, Parsons is the first rookie in NFL history to log double-digit tackles in a game and have four of them occur behind the line of scrimmage.

He was given the game ball for his efforts, a souvenir he carried with him all the way to the podium during his postgame remarks to reporters.

“I just felt like this is one of my better games I’ve played,” Parsons said after the victory. “Like I said during the week, when things aren’t going right, you’ve got to prepare different. So I think this week, I came in with the mindset like, ‘Sunday night, I’ve got to be the It Factor.’ It’s kind of what I expected, what I wanted to do today.”

There is obviously more to it than just setting an earlier alarm in the morning, but defensive coordinator Dan Quinn definitely noticed a renewed focus and energy from the 22-year-old in the week leading up to game time.

“I did see that, in fact,” Quinn said of Parsons’s mental shift. “I get in pretty early. I turn around and I saw him walking in next to me. So I said, ‘Okay, what have we got going on here?’ And he said, ‘I’m doing something. I’m changing some things.’ I said, ‘I love it, man.'”

The first-round draft pick has packed a lot into his first seven games at the pro level. After starting Week 1 at linebacker, the rookie moved to defensive end for his second and third outings to cover for missing teammates. He’s been asked to do a lot as a rookie, and he’s answered every call from the Dallas coaching staff.

In Week 8, though, they actually asked him to do just a little bit less.

Jayron Kearse wore the defensive playcaller’s “green dot” in Minnesota instead of Parsons. With the journeyman safety acting as the primary communicator in the huddle, Parsons was able to simplify his pre-snap routine in a way he previously couldn’t.

“What this did was let Micah Parsons be free, let Micah Parsons not think,” noted ex-NFL safety Ryan Clark on ESPN. “This is the best he’s played from the inside linebacker position. Micah Parsons got to bring this thing back to park ball. Run. And hit.”

Maybe it’s the green dot. Maybe it’s the earlier wake-up call. Maybe it’s an extra push that came from some self-scouting sessions. Parsons believes it’s all of the above.

“I would say it’s everything,” Parsons said. “It wouldn’t be just one particular thing. It’s everything we do: how you prepare, what you watch, how you practice, what time you come in, how you recover during the week. I think everything let me play how I usually play today.”

It is indeed a process. And by stripping the whole thing down and building it back more thoughtfully, Parsons and the coaching staff may have taken a leading candidate for Defensive Rookie of the Year… and made him even better for the Cowboys’ run to the playoffs.

“When you’re trying to improve,” Quinn explained, “one of the best things you need to learn how to do is put a process together; what is that step-by-step going to look like? It’s not just, ‘Hey, I’m going to wake up earlier.’ It’s: to do what when you get here? What are the processes? I knew when he got to the game, when you just feel that ready. I said, ‘Where did that come from?’ It was from the week. I said, ‘It was no surprise that you’re going to play well,’ and he certainly did.”

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Hulk SMASH!: Cowboys’ new 7-OL package shows big creativity, offers jumbo versatility

Putting Connor McGovern and La’el Collins in the backfield came from a bye week brainstorm in Dallas; the Hulk package could return. | From @ToddBrock24f7

There were times during the 2020 season when Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott had no idea who was going to be on the injury-riddled offensive line blocking for him. But for a handful of plays in Sunday night’s game at Minnesota, it seemed like they were all out there at the same time.

Already fielding an offense with backup quarterback Cooper Rush under center, coordinator Kellen Moore and the Cowboys unveiled a brand-new personnel package early in the Week 8 contest, using a total of seven offensive linemen: five in their usual spots up front, and two more in the backfield with Elliott in an inverted wishbone, or diamond, formation.

The result: 2,187 pounds of run-blocking in front of Elliott or pass-blocking in front of Rush.

“A lot of beef on the field,” guard Zack Martin commented after the Cowboys’ 20-16 win before revealing the grouping’s instant-hit code name. “‘Hulk package’ is what we call it. It’s great to get those big guys on the field, and we had some good plays out of it tonight.”

Dallas used the Hulk package just four times Sunday night, and while the team ultimately went with more of a pass-heavy attack against the Vikings, the look will certainly give opposing defenses a new wrinkle to prepare for in the weeks to come.

The Cowboys had already employed versatile backup lineman Connor McGovern, 308 pounds, as a backfield blocker for Elliott in a few situations this season. With La’el Collins, 320 pounds, returning to active duty but not starting, the Dallas coaching staff came up with the Hulk package as a way to add both big men and their combined 628 pounds to the “best five” already playing up front.

“We have a ton of talent on the offensive line,” Moore told reporters on Monday. “Like all the other positions, you’re trying to find opportunities to get guys involved in the game plan. L.C. was coming back: obviously, he hadn’t been a part of it for a number of weeks. So we felt like if he wasn’t going to be the right tackle, that’s a guy you still want on the field. So it kind of turned into a brainstorm opportunity there. Mac’s been doing a phenomenal job in the backfield- McGovern, that is; why not throw another guy back there?”

It’s a credit to the confidence the staff had in Rush that, instead of spending the bye week having to rewrite an offensive game plan for his first NFL start, the coaches had the luxury of sitting around inventing all-new formations to put on the field.

“I think we were just brainstorming,” Moore explained. “Jeff [Blasko, assistant offensive line coach], Joe [Philbin, offensive line coach], Mike [McCarthy, head coach], the whole offensive staff, just going through the process of how can we put our guys in, maybe, a different position, something that they haven’t seen coming off the bye week. Certainly, Mike ran that formation a number of times back in the Green Bay days with their fullbacks. Something that all those guys obviously had a lot of comfort level with, so we wanted to go down that road. And there’s more things coming off of it.”

Imagine the possibilities as the Cowboys continue to experiment with over an actual ton of in-the-box blocking. Plowing a road for Elliott or Tony Pollard. Giving Prescott enough time to take a nap in the pocket. Forcing one-on-one mismatches in coverage for any of the team’s outside receivers. Maybe even, if everything goes perfectly, the most fun play in football: the offensive-lineman touchdown.

“Always looking for different ways to get guys involved,” Moore said, “and we’ll continue to do that.”

Moore said that, besides adding a new tool to the offense’s arsenal- a tool that can certainly be tweaked and developed even further- the Hulk package also helped Collins get re-acclimated to the flow of the game after five weeks away.

“Certainly,” Moore confirmed. “The more guys you get involved in packages and roles and different things, that helps the individual but also helps the entire offense, just being able to play a number of guys in that game. Receivers are a part of packages, tight ends, running backs. I think we’ve got a lot of guys that we can utilize, and we want to try to use as many of them as we can.”

It was perhaps poetic justice that the new personnel grouping that featured offensive linemen disguised as backfield blockers, the package named after a comic-book superhero, made its debut on Halloween night, right about the time there were countless other Hulks running door-to-door in neighborhoods across America.

But who in Dallas came up with the name?

“I don’t know,” Moore laughed. “I don’t even know who named it.”

Whatever it’s called, expect to see it again. Because head coach Mike McCarthy- no small guy himself- copped to being a big fan of the Hulk.

“Utilizing your personnel,” the coach explained Monday. “I loved it. It’s the biggest inverted bone formation I’ve ever seen in my life. We’re trying to break records around here.”

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LB Jabril Cox to miss remainder of Cowboys’ season with ACL tear

Cox was injured on a third-quarter play while in punt coverage; he had been a heavy special teams contributor in his rookie season. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The injury bug has bitten the Cowboys repeatedly over the team’s first seven games, though most of the cases have been relatively minor, with the affected players missing just sporadic or limited time.

But now a promising young playmaker has been lost for the season.

As Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News is reporting, rookie linebacker Jabril Cox suffered an ACL tear in Sunday night’s win over Minnesota and is out for the remainder of the 2021 campaign.

The injury occurred during the third quarter of the Week 8 win; Cox was injured on punt coverage. Unable to put pressure on his right leg after the play was over, he was helped to the sideline medical tent and then carted from to the locker room.

He left the Vikings’ stadium on crutches and received an MRI on Monday, confirming the tear.

Cox himself posted a message to Twitter shortly after news of the severity of his injury went public.

A fourth-round draft pick out of LSU, Cox had been a heavy contributor on special teams, logging over 55% of the unit’s snaps in each of the Cowboys’ previous six games. He had seen just nine game snaps thus far with the regular defense, but it had been thought that the recent departure of Jaylon Smith might result in more time at linebacker for the 23-year-old Cox.

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Cowboys WR Amari Cooper battles hamstring and teammate for game-winning play: ‘He tried to steal my touchdown’

Amari Cooper nursed his own hamstring back to playing shape. but says CeeDee Lamb “tried to steal my touchdown” on the game’s biggest play. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The clock was ticking steadily toward zeroes. The Cowboys were on the move, trailing by three points under the command of a backup quarterback making his very first NFL start. A field goal might only prolong play into overtime, extending a road game in which Dallas hadn’t led for a second to that point; a touchdown might let Dallas sneak out of Minneapolis with an improbable win no one expected under the circumstances.

And the team’s leading wide receiver was down on the sideline turf, wriggling around on a softball.

“I tweaked my hamstring, and that was so frustrating, as you can imagine on a drive like that,” Amari Cooper told reporters after the Week 8 game had gone final. “I can’t say I knew I was going back in because I was trying to do everything possible to alleviate it a little bit.”

And while there was another Cowboys receiver waiting in the wings- and even lobbying to play the hero- Cooper desperately wanted to come up big in crunch time.

The offense’s final drive had indeed already seen its share of drama. On a 2nd-and-10 from their own 25, Cooper made a crazy juggling reception for a 33-yard pickup down the side stripe.

Cooper Rush’s throw first made contact with Vikings defender Bashaud Breeland, slicing through Cooper’s open arms and hitting the cornerback square in the chest. Breeland’s hands went up instinctually. His right hand knocked the ball upward, then the left tipped it out into midair. That’s where Cooper got in on the act, tapping the ball once himself- and even having it hit his facemask- before hauling it in for the circus grab.

“The bobbled catch just wasn’t really a great route by me, but I wanted- I needed– to catch the ball,” Cooper recalled later. “So I fought, scratched, clawed, concentrated, and I was able to come up with the catch.”

The play took the Cowboys offense across midfield. An 18-yard catch by Cooper on the next snap advanced the ball to the Minnesota 24. An incomplete pass to tight end Dalton Schultz followed, and the next time TV cameras showed Cooper, he was using a massage gun on his right hamstring. Rolling over the back of his leg for a few minutes with a softball came next as he tried to loosen the muscle flare-up.

He first tweaked the hamstring in Week 4 against Carolina but played through it as he has several other injuries already this season, including a cracked rib in Week 1 versus Tampa Bay. But now hampered once again with the Week 8 game on the line, Cooper was determined to make it back onto the field.

“Once I got up, the clock was moving fast,” Cooper explained. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to go back in. They need me.’ Once I got up and started running a little bit, I was like, ‘This is all I need to do, be able to run a little bit. I’ll take care of the rest.'”

When he re-entered the game, though, his hamstring was enough of a hindrance that the four-time Pro Bowler had to dig into his bag of tricks just to run an effective route on the short fade rout that ultimately sealed the 20-16 win.

“As far as the fade,” Cooper recalled, “that was after I kind of had my hamstring. Couldn’t really give him the release I really wanted to; I think I could have killed him on the release and made the catch a bit easier. But didn’t really want to risk hurting it even more, so I just said to myself that if he throws it to me, I’m just going to have to go up and get it. And that’s what I did.”

But the game-winning catch might have gone to CeeDee Lamb if the second-year phenom had gotten his way on the 1st-and-5 play call.

In the huddle, Rush gave the offensive alignment as “double-left,” which puts Cooper on the left, in better one-on-one coverage.

But Lamb, according to Cooper,”wanted the ball really bad.”

So the younger receiver angled with his quarterback to make himself the better option once the play unfolded. He confirmed “double-right,” as if that had been the proper call all along.

“And Coop was like, ‘Nah, it’s double-left, bro,'” Cooper revealed with a grin to media members.

But Lamb wasn’t done lobbying, playing on Cooper’s aggravated hamstring with the man himself.

“And then he was like, ‘Coop, you want to let me get it?’ I said, ‘Hell no!'” Cooper laughed. “That’s how much pride I take in wanting the ball in those pivotal moments, because I know I can go up and make the play.”

As it turned out, both receivers ended the night with very similar stat lines. Cooper had eight receptions for 122 yards and that game-winning score; Lamb recorded six catches for 112 yards. Both rank within the league’s top 25 in terms of receiving yardage after eight weeks of play. The two top pass-catching threats on the Dallas roster, Cooper and Lamb have a combined nine receiving touchdowns, the same number as the rest of the team has collectively.

“He tried to steal my touchdown,” Cooper joked of his teammate before continuing, admitting that it’s a good problem for the Cowboys to have.

“That says a lot about us, the confidence that we have, that we want the ball in those important situations because we know we can win the game for the team.”

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‘Just as good as the dream:’ Cooper Rush waited a long time for his magic moment with Cowboys

Rush guesses he’s dressed for ‘around 50’ games he didn’t play in; so he made the most of his first NFL start with a fairytale showing. | From @ToddBrock24f7

As a backup quarterback for four seasons, Cooper Rush had gone through the motions more times than he could count. Except, he actually had counted.

“I’ve counted the games where I’ve dressed and prepared and didn’t get in,” Rush told reporters after Sunday night’s 20-16 Dallas win. “It was up around 50, I think. You just knew it was coming; had to be patient. I think all that preparation, being in it still- even though you haven’t started- really helped, came through tonight, making plays and stuff like that.”

Making plays and stuff like that.

Rush did plenty of “stuff like that” at U.S. Bank Stadium, throwing for 325 yards and a pair of touchdowns- including the game-winner with under a minute to play- on the road in a challenging environment and in front of a primetime audience.

The Central Michigan product made his first start as a late-replacement for Dak Prescott, but it was practically Rush’s first everything. Despite a career stat line of just 1-of-3 for 2 yards coming into the Week 8 tilt, the 27-year-old looked like anything but a wide-eyed newbie as he led the 6-1 Cowboys against a stout Minnesota defense.

“I felt like I belonged out there,” Rush said. “You’re in the huddle, breaking huddle, getting to the line, going through your processes, it didn’t feel overwhelming at all. I haven’t played a lot, but being around the NFL, you’re practicing everyday against those guys- and our defense is pretty good; real good players- you’re going against those guys every day. It’s not like you’re not seeing things. So it never felt too big in terms of speed. I felt, like, in command. Playing with those guys I get to play with out there, just go down the list: O-line, running back, receiver. It makes my job a lot easier.”

It wasn’t easy, to be sure. Rush struggled at times with accuracy, and he threw two interceptions. As a team, the Cowboys found themselves trailing or tied for the first 59 minutes of regulation. But through it all, Rush never seemed shaken, said the man he was filling in for.

“I don’t think there was ever a moment, necessarily, I felt like he was too high or nervous or rattled,” said Prescott, who was ruled inactive just before kickoff in order to give his strained calf more time to heal. “That’s Coop. He’s very mild tempered and just always that way – never too high, never too low. It showed tonight; just allowed him to be able to stay in there, stick to it, stick through some bad plays and come out and make some great plays to win the game that we needed down there in the fourth quarter.”

“It was obviously special,” Rush said of Prescott’s encouragement and support, especially late in the game. “We’ve been together for a long time. A lot of games where it was the other way around: he’s making plays at the end, and I get to watch those. It was fun for me to get a chance to go do it and have his full support.”

The Cowboys’ final drive indeed proved to be Rush’s Cinderella moment. The former Chippewa went to wideout Amari Cooper three times on the eight-play series for 56 yards, including the go-ahead touchdown in the back corner of the end zone.

“Coop has an arm,” Cooper the receiver said of Cooper the quarterback after the game. “The thing about Coop, he’s going to give you a chance. He’s always going to give you a chance. That’s why I was rushing back in on when I knew we were, like, five yards away from the end zone. I figured we would be throwing some type of fade. So I was rushing back in there, because I know the thing about Coop, he’s going to throw it.”

Cooper admitted that he doesn’t normally get many practice reps with Rush.

“Not a lot,” he laughed. “Not a lot at all.”

It sure didn’t look like there was any unfamiliarity between the two. The Cooper-to-Cooper combo connected eight times on the night for 122 yards, the wideout’s highest yardage total since Week 4 last season.

That very same day in October 2020, Rush was literally watching games on his couch, having just been released by the Giants. After three seasons in Dallas, Rush had been let go with the signing of Andy Dalton. He spent the first three weeks of the season on the New York practice squad before being cut.

He was re-signed to the Cowboys practice squad as a insurance policy for Prescott on Halloween of 2020. And exactly one year later, he’d make his first start for Dallas against the Vikings.

But the fairy tale has a happy ending because it ended with a real-life game-winning touchdown tossed by the guy who’d only ever imagined it a million times.

“A lot of mental reps,” Rush recounted. “They always talk about mental reps, and they came through. We’re doing it in preseason, we’re doing it in camps, and those come through. You watch a lot of ball; I think that helped a lot… been in a league a little bit, around it. To get to go out there with that group… Trust in those guys, run the system, play within the system, trust [offensive coordinator] Kellen [Moore], and it usually works out.”

Rush’s storybook night may not get a sequel. But even if Prescott’s calf allows him to resume his spot on the field and relegates Rush back to the headset, the backup will never again have to dress out for a game and merely wonder if he’d have the stuff to go in and win one.

“It’s just as good as the dream. It’s pretty awesome to be able to share that with everyone and be able to win like that.”

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Cowboys GameDay News: Joseph activated, Prescott’s calf a question mark

With Dak Prescott’s status in the air, what can one expect from Dallas on the road? Predictions, storylines and more in the gameday news. | From @CDBurnett7

Quarterback Dak Prescott headlines all the stories ahead of the Dallas Cowboys’ post-bye week road game against the Minnesota Vikings. With his status for Sunday Night Football up in the air, it’s leaving everyone to predict if it’ll be the franchise face or backup Cooper Rush suiting up as the starter at US Bank Stadium.

The Cowboys are always the talk of the town but fans have kept their expectations surprisingly low. Is an NFC East crown too low of expectations, or is it just safe thinking?

Cornerback Trevon Diggs enters a huge matchup with fellow sophomore Justin Jefferson, who is also having an impressive start to the season. Can Diggs keep his historic interception streak alive and can Dallas slow down the Vikings offense?

The cavalry is coming soon for the Cowboys with many big contributors back at practice or returning to the field in Week 8, but it will it be enough to move to 6-1 this week? Here is the Cowboys Gameday News and Notes.

Cowboys’ Dak Prescott leaves door open to sitting Sunday: ‘I don’t want this to linger’

Dak Prescott says if this Sunday’s game were a playoff tilt, there “would be no question” about his status. But it’s not. So there is. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott practiced again on Thursday, telling reporters that he pushed his strained calf even harder than the previous day, in an attempt to simulate the demands of a game as best he could.

And while he came out of the day’s work seemingly fine, he went on record as saying that a final decision on whether he plays Sunday night will likely not come until Saturday, the day the team is scheduled to depart for Minnesota.

Prescott told media members after the Thursday session that he believes the calf injury, which occurred on the final play of overtime in the Cowboys’ Week 6 overtime win in New England, is related to the ankle dislocation and compound fracture he sustained in the same leg last October.

While Prescott wore a protective boot for his postgame press conference in Foxborough, he dismissed the injury at the time, saying he could have played on had the game not ended when it did on a touchdown pass to wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.

On Thursday, he took a similar tack, stating that if Sunday’s game were a playoff matchup, his status “would be no question,” and he would “100 percent” be playing, as per ProFootballTalk’s Charean Williams.

Prescott got an MRI the day after the injury, and while the results were deemed “optimistic,” the injury appears to be causing more concern in Dallas than originally revealed. Prescott spent the bye week rehabbing in a pool and wasn’t a full participant in practice either Wednesday or Thursday.

“I’m doing everything I can to make sure I give myself the best chance,” he was quoted as saying by the team website.

Head coach Mike McCarthy has said that the team plans to prepare both Prescott and backup quarterback Cooper Rush as if each is going to play.

The team’s 5-1 record and healthy lead in the NFC East have caused many to suggest that Prescott should sit out the Week 8 game as a precaution, if only to further ensure that the calf is fully healed and that he won’t exacerbate the injury, possibly taking himself out for an even longer stretch of games as the Cowboys try to keep themselves in contention for a top seeding in the postseason.

McCarthy has allowed for the possibility by prepping Rush, and Cowboys players- while saying their leader looks good- have, to a man, expressed belief that the offense would be in good hands if Rush gets the call against the Vikings.

While Prescott no doubt wants to play and sounds as if he could play, he understands that it may ultimately be in the best interest of the season that he doesn’t play.

“It’s not fully my decision,” Prescott said Thursday, via Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News, “because there is a bigger picture. It’s more than just one game… I don’t want this to linger past this week.”

That’s a far cry from owner Jerry Jones telling fans- as recently as Tuesday- that his starting quarterback’s calf strain was “not even in my thought process of things to worry about.”

It sounds like it’s not a worry, long-term, for anyone in the Dallas camp.

But it also sounds like they’re suddenly talking themselves into Plan B for the short-term.

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Dak Prescott practices Wednesday, Cowboys’ McCarthy also prepping Cooper Rush for Week 8

Mike McCarthy will work both QBs until a decision is made on Dak Prescott’s calf injury, though reports from his first practice were good. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy opened his Wednesday press conference by telling assembled reporters that quarterback Dak Prescott’s right calf “has improved every day” since he strained it on the final play of the team’s overtime win in Week 6 versus New England.

He outlined the plan for working Prescott back into practice starting with Wednesday’s session, talked about the mutual trust that Prescott and Cowboys associate athletic trainer and director of rehabilitation Britt Brown share in progressing through adversity, and even told a story about how Aaron Rodgers played through a similar calf injury in 2014 during McCarthy’s time with the Packers.

And then he casually dropped the nugget that the team is simultaneously getting backup Cooper Rush ready to, possibly, make his first NFL start in Minnesota on Sunday night.

DakWatch: The 2021 Calf Edition has officially begun.

Prescott did take the practice field at The Ford Center on Wednesday, starting off with a long stretching and light-movement warmup period, with McCarthy and Cowboys vice president of player personnel Will McClay watching.

“He’s so driven. He’s always going to push through,” McCarthy said of Prescott. “There’s a tremendous history there that you have to tie in. Britt and Dak have a tremendous history and relationship, so I feel like we’ll be on the same page with how he progresses through this. He’s going to do everything he can to play on Sunday. That’s a given.”

Brown’s voice will be a key factor in determining Prescott’s readiness for the Week 8 contest. As McCarthy had alluded to, he has a close relationship with Prescott and was instrumental in getting the quarterback healthy after last year’s ankle dislocation. He also played a large role in rehabbing Prescott throwing shoulder after he strained it in the offseason.

“We don’t want this to be a week-to-week situation,” McCarthy said. “We’re going to trust Britt and Dak and the whole process and make the right decision.”

Prescott went on to participate in most of the QB drills on Wednesday, appearing to jog without any visible limp. He didn’t seem to favor one leg over the other or appear to be compromised while throwing in the portion of practice that was open to the media.

Michael Gallup, himself returning from a calf strain, was one of Prescott’s targets Wednesday, as was CeeDee Lamb.

Lamb said after practice, “We’re planning for [Dak] to be out there Sunday. And even if he’s not, we’re prepared for whoever’s up next. But I’m just about 90% sure that he’s going to be out there.”

That sliver of doubt, though, means Rush will be getting extra work this week, in case he has to come on in relief.

“I just think it’s a matter of trying to make sure Cooper is ready,” McCarthy explained, “and to make sure Dak is getting what he needs until, really, Dak clears the threshold of the rehab component with Britt. We won’t make that determination on if he’s a full go until we get to that point. So we’ve got to make sure we’re getting Cooper ready, too.”

McCarthy failed to elaborate on what exactly “the threshold” is. While he acknowledged that a quarterback can theoretically play through a calf strain more easily than, say, a running back or wide receiver, the coach also intimated that the club wouldn’t be taking any unnecessary chances in Week 8 of a 17-game season.

“I went through something similar back in 2014 with Aaron Rodgers,” McCarthy recalled. “He actually hurt it later in the year and we were dealing with this in the playoffs, so obviously a different time of year.”

Rodgers played that January day in Seattle, going 19-of-34 passing and even ripping off a 12-yard run in Green Bay’s overtime loss to the Seahawks. But the passer limped noticeably throughout the game and was clearly not at full-strength.

McCarthy continued, “It was difficult. The weather was different, two outdoor games, then played up in Seattle there in the NFC Championship Game, so yeah, that was a challenge. But it was January. It was a different time of year and had some different circumstances.”

This Halloween night’s matchup between the Cowboys and Vikings carries nowhere near that kind of significance, but expect the Dallas fanbase and the national media to breathlessly turn Prescott’s latest rehab effort into a week-long game of will-he-or-won’t-he anyway, as the world waits for a dramatic decision that could- the story will undoubtedly go- have serious implications on the Cowboys’ promising 5-1 start to the season.

Or just take NFL insider Jane Slater, who knows Prescott and the Cowboys as well as nearly any reporter working today, at her word:

“I would be shocked,” she said Wednesday on NFL Network, if Prescott didn’t play Sunday.

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Cowboys place DT Brent Urban, CB Maurice Canady on injured reserve

Two roster spots have opened up for the Cowboys heading into Week 8, possibly opening the door for the debut of rookie CB Kelvin Joseph. | From @ToddBrock24f7

In a week where several Cowboys players are returning to action after a stint on injured reserve, two others are now making their way there.

Defensive tackle Brent Urban is dealing with a triceps injury, while cornerback Maurice Canady is still working through a concussion suffered in the Week 6 contest at New England. Both will be moved to Injured Reserve, according to the team, and will therefore miss at least the next three games.

Urban, a veteran in his eighth pro season, has played about 40% of the team’s defensive snaps and on roughly 15% of the special teams’ plays this season, his first in Dallas.

After an impressive turn at camp, Canady has been mostly a special teams contributor, but saw a fair amount of playing time on defense in Weeks 3 and 4, versus Philadelphia and Carolina, respectively.

The spots vacated by Urban and Canady will open the door for two additions to the 53-man roster ahead of the Cowboys’ Week 8 visit to Minnesota.

As team writer David Helman points out, cornerback Kelvin Joseph and tight end Sean McKeon are well within their 21-day evaluation period since being designated for return on October 13. Both players began the 2021 season on injured reserve; second-round draft pick Joseph has yet to make his NFL debut.

Wide receiver Michael Gallup, defensive tackle Trysten Hill, and linebacker Francis Bernard were designated for return earlier this week. The 21-day practice window has just started for that group; it is not known how close any of them are to being ready for game action.

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Cowboys’ Jerry Jones says Prescott’s calf ‘not even in my thought process of things to worry about’

The Cowboys owner is “much less” concerned about his QB’s current calf strain than he was the shoulder strain suffered during camp. | From @ToddBrock24f7

To be clear, Jerry Jones does not have a medical license. But as the owner of the most valuable sports franchise on the planet, one can be reasonably sure that the 79-year-old billionaire keeps a close eye on his biggest investments. If an oil well has run dry, he knows about it. If a company he has a controlling interest in is foundering, he knows about it. If a blue-chip stock is no longer paying dividends, he knows about it.

Jones can’t talk about quarterback Dak Prescott’s right calf in the kind of detail that a doctor or a physical therapist or a member of the Cowboys medical staff might. But it’s highly probable that if there were a significant chance of the team’s $160 million man not being ready for a primetime meeting with the Minnesota Vikings in five days, Jones would absolutely know about that, too.

But speaking Tuesday with Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan, Jones didn’t sound like a man who’s worried about his quarterback situation.

“Based on what you saw yesterday, that was very encouraging,” Jones began. He was referring to the team’s Monday return to The Star, when Prescott showed up without his protective boot, joked briefly with reporters, and apparently did some throwing in a closed session.

“But those things have to be monitored,” the owner continued. “We’ve got a solid week, which is great to monitor that. I thought [right guard Zack] Martin had a good description of it when he had the calf tear last year. He said some days it feels great, and then it feels like you got run over by a bulldozer the next day. But still, I feel very good about where Dak is right now.”

Good enough that there hasn’t been a peep about the team trading for or bringing in a veteran quarterback just in case.

Cooper Rush is listed as the Cowboys’ QB2 on the depth chart, with Will Grier behind him. Rush has not attempted a pass in a regular season game since November 2017 and is a career 1-for-3 passing for 2 yards. Grier started the final two games of Carolina’s 2019 season; the Panthers were outscored 80-16 in those contests.

Suffice it to say the Cowboys would be a vastly different team this Sunday night without Prescott. Still, with a 5-1 record and already a commanding lead in the NFC East, perhaps Dallas doesn’t need to hurry Prescott back into action?

The situation resembles training camp, when Prescott strained a throwing shoulder that kept him out of the team’s first padded practice. The Cowboys insisted the injury was not serious, yet they held him out of the entire preseason and didn’t let him throw at all for the majority of camp. The cautious approach paid off; Prescott came out on fire in the season opener and hasn’t cooled off since.

Prescott spent the bye week rehabbing after an “optimistic” MRI, with he and the team brushing off any visible concern. Still, he was shut down for a week. And held out of real practice on Monday. It’s the same easing-back-in process.

Resting Prescott for exhibitions in August is one thing. Shelving him for a conference game in the middle of a potential MVP campaign and legitimate playoff run is a very different proposition.

“We had less of it, but [had] some of this thinking early when we were thinking about his shoulder,” Jones recalled. “The idea then was: don’t be pennywise and pound-foolish. And make sure you feel good about his ability to not- as you much as you can- about his ability not to reinjure. That’ll be the key.”

In the grand scheme of things, Jones says the summer’s shoulder issue was far more worrisome than the current calf problem.

“Much less,” Jones said flatly. “Much less. Not even in my thought process of things to worry about.”

Jones is no doctor. But he’s also not an Oscar-caliber actor. If Prescott were in real danger of missing Sunday’s game, Jones would arguably be spinning a much different-sounding tale this week.

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