PHILADELPHIA — For the last two months, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has felt helpless.
Sidelined for the rest of the season because of a right hamstring avulsion suffered on Nov. 3 against the Atlanta Falcons that required surgery, Prescott has watched the Cowboys’ season flitter away from the coaches’ booth, including Sunday’s 41-7 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field.
Eliminated from the playoffs last week, the Cowboys (7-9) are guaranteed just their fourth losing record in the last 20 years with the defeat against the playoff-bound Eagles.
“Nobody plans to lose. Nobody plans to have a losing season, to be in this position,” Prescott said in a small hallway outside the Cowboys’ locker room. “You expect the playoffs every year. You expect to win this division and then to be in this place or whether it’s at home, playing against this team usually for the division. That’s not the case. Yeah, it’s frustrating.”
Sunday’s loss to the Eagles was reminiscent of the some of the early season defeats with an offense that turned the ball over too many times (four against the Eagles) and a defense that could not come up with enough stops (Philadelphia scored on six straight possessions).
Now, the best the Cowboys can finish is 8-9 with a Week 18 win against the Washington Commanders at AT&T Stadium.
The last time the Cowboys finished below .500 came in 2020, Mike McCarthy’s first year as coach. The others in the last 20 years came in 2010 (6-10) and 2015 (4-12).
McCarthy’s job status has been a focus for most of the season since he is in the final year of his contract. Next week could potentially be his final game with the Cowboys, but he did not want to talk about having his fifth losing season in 18 years as a head coach.
“Ask me that in eight days,” McCarthy said. “I’m here to finish the race. That’s my mindset and that’s the team’s mindset.”
Left guard Tyler Smith was the Cowboys’ first-round pick in 2022. He experienced two straight 12-5 seasons that led to the playoffs to open his career.
“As a competitor, I mean it just hurts,” Smith said. “It hurts to have no dreams after Jan. 5, but I think we got to use this. I think every setback is a set up for a comeback. I truly do, and so just using this experience, feeding off of this. I never want to feel like this again. I never want to lose a football game — I know eventually you will — but we’re a winning team. We got winning guys on this team. We built a winning culture. We just gotta get back in the offseason … First things first, next week against the Washington Commanders, but we just got to clean it up. And it’s on us.”
Owner and general manager Jerry Jones did not speak after Sunday’s loss. He has been effusive in his praise of McCarthy for how the team has fought despite the injuries to stars like Prescott, Zack Martin (ankle), DeMarcus Lawrence (foot), Trevon Diggs (knee) and CeeDee Lamb (shoulder).
But there have been no discussions with McCarthy’s agent regarding a new deal.
“It’s tough to probably get your job done and do your job with all that hanging over your head,” Prescott said of the scrutiny McCarthy has been under this season. “But credit to him, credit to his professionalism and really his coach’s style of being able to get guys being ready to play and go out there and finish and take pride in what we finish and what we put on tape.”
Prescott added, “Obviously, I’m a promoter of bringing him back.”
Whoever is coaching the Cowboys in 2025 will have a full-strength Prescott at some point in the offseason. He had surgery on Nov. 13.
“Gained some strength in it, started to use it a little bit,” Prescott said. “Yeah, I’m probably a few weeks maybe a month from running, running. But got on the bike. So definitely doing some things, moving more.”
Edge rusher Micah Parsons pointed to health as the biggest reason why the Cowboys have not won. Like Smith, he had experienced nothing but making the playoffs since the Cowboys took him in the first round in 2021.
“Yeah, definitely not what I envisioned, definitely not what I hoped for,” Parsons said. “Coming off a devastating playoff loss and you say, ‘Hey, I’m just going to get the same team back and we kind of know what it’s going to look like, what the team’s going to be like.’ And you go into the season and devastating injuries across the board between CeeDee and Dak and Trevon. Just can’t catch a break.
“But you say there’s other teams who are fully healthy and they’re not where we’re at right now. I’m going to take that as a grain of salt and use that as motivation to go toward next year.”
