The 2024 calendar year has been different for Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
A year ago at this time, he was in the process of putting together the most efficient season of his NFL career with a personal best 105.9 passer rating en route to leading the NFL with 36 touchdown passes and the Cowboys to a 12-5 regular season for the third year in a row. Now, Dallas is 5-7, after Prescott suffered a season-ending hamstring injury that required him traveling up to New York for surgery. On Tuesday, Prescott celebrated the small victory of being able to drive again for the first time since the procedure in November.
"I feel good. Still on the crutches. I'll be on the crutches for a little bit longer but starting to walk a little bit more with my weight," Prescott told CBS Sports on Tuesday. "Getting to drive today, that's something new. So that's a step. It's a little goal in the process but yeah, start starting to be able to do more, which is fun for me and now I can start collecting my small victories."
The next major item of his recovery check list is simply being able to drop his crutches for both a few physical therapy exercises and then eventually full-time weight-bearing on his own. Despite suffering the second season-ending injury of his career to his lower body -- his gruesome ankle fracture in 2020 and the hamstring tear in 2024 -- Prescott doesn't see much of stylistic change to the way he plays the quarterback position going forward. He's looking to get back to his 2023 play after registering an 86.0 passer rating, the lowest of his nine-year career, while throwing for 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions and completing 64.7% of his passes, the second-lowest completion percentage of his career.
"I don't think it will change much," Prescott said of his injury. "I think I honestly this rehab being such a hamstring, a runner's injury, the fact of me feeling 100% is going to take a lot of running and a lot of me getting confidence back and using my legs. I think just with that rehab naturally coming back next year adding on to the passing game, everything I'm gonna work on with my accuracy, I know I'll play much better than I did this year. I think you'll see a lot more of what you saw last year, if not even using my legs a tad bit more and not particularly on quarterback running plays, but just within the passing game and to keep us ahead of the chains."
So when might Prescott return? Well, thanks to him opting to get the surgery done right away instead of fighting through rehab to get back this season, Dak could be back for the start of Dallas' offseason program.
"My plan is to start OTAs and start the offseason no restrictions, full go," Prescott said. That's part in getting this jump on this surgery that we thought was inevitable anyways. At that point, just doing everything I can to be the best quarterback and leader of this team to help this team come in next year with the best outfit that we can."
Going to bat for Mike McCarthy and free agency help
Any head coach-starting quarterback relationship in the NFL is going to be a deep one, at least for successful partnerships. Prescott's with Cowboys head coach and offensive play caller Mike McCarthy's is no different in terms of football, but their friendship also extends beyond work. Prescott allowed McCarthy to hold his baby girl M.J. after training camp practices in Oxnard, California while chatting with his family, and Prescott went with McCarthy to the head coach's family home in Pittsburgh ahead of the team's Week 5 showdown with the Steelers.
Given his MVP-caliber season in 2023, McCarthy's first as his Cowboys play caller, and the numerous injuries to himself, cornerback DaRon Bland (foot stress fracture), edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence (foot), edge rusher Micah Parsons (high ankle sprain), right guard Zack Martin (ankle/shoulder), cornerback Trevon Diggs (groin/knee) and wide receiver Brandin Cooks (knee) just to name a few, Prescott plans to go to bat to Jerry and Stephen Jones on McCarthy's behalf to try and get him a new Cowboys coaching contract after his initial, five-year deal expires at season's end. Dallas went 12-5 in all three seasons of McCarthy's five-year tenure that Prescott finished the year upright.
"Obviously I'm going to make that case first and foremost everything that he's had to battle," Prescott said. "This year being a contract year on top of hell, it just being a contract year and the pressure that that has going into that into the offseason and now carrying into the season and then on top of that, right, the injury bug has hit us large in part. ... I'm going to push and be in the corner and pushing for Mike to get a second contract... and just the opportunity to do things more with a healthy team. I'm all for it. It's been tough, and [I] feel helpless in the sense of not being able to help him in a year knowing how big this is, being able to get out there to play well to get victories and even in the games that we played, not being able to play as well or get victories, was very frustrating."
Prescott also doesn't believe his new deal will hamper the Cowboys being aggressive to reinforce the roster through free agency, but if he is asked to restructure his deal to add an impact teammate, he would be willing to do it. Jerry Jones repeatedly spoke about his salary cap management this past offseason and how he felt he needed to earmark money for Prescott and All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, whom he re-signed to a four-year, $136 million extension. The Cowboys spent an NFL-low $20.13 million in free agency this past offseason, according to OverTheCap.com, which was just over $10 million fewer than the perpetually cap-strapped New Orleans Saints ($30.925 million).
"Yeah I don't think my contract is going to withhold us from making any moves or doing anything that we need to in free agency," Prescott said. "However, if that big chess piece or big piece comes up, that will require that or does require that, yeah the way that my contract is structured and the way that I believe in this team, I don't think that would be a problem at all to to move things around to make that happen."
Looking back on "definitely one of the toughest" years of Prescott's nine-year career
The 2024 calendar year has been, to use Prescott's categorization, a rollercoaster. His individual performance in addition to Dallas winning the NFC East resulted in Prescott being named the 2023 second team All-Pro quarterback and the 2023 NFL MVP runner-up, but the finish to 2023 was marred by a 48-32 wild card round playoff defeat against the Green Bay Packers.
This year also brought Prescott a public, months-long contract negotiation between himself and Jerry Jones before Prescott signed a four-year, $240 million extension hours before Week 1 against the Cleveland Browns. That made him the NFL's highest-paid player with an average annual salary of $60 million. He and his partner Sarah Jane also had their first child together in the spring, a daughter named Margaret Jane, and they announced their engagement in October. That came before Prescott suffered his season-ending hamstring injury in Week 9 against the Atlanta Falcons. He also categorized 2024 as "definitely one of the toughest" of his NFL career.
"It's been a roller coaster, all the highs and then just throwing a couple of lows in there," Prescott said. "For me, it's about counting my blessings and not the trials that I'm going through and facing ... They're all worth it when you come home and you see Margaret Jane and Sarah Jane and you get to be home. You forget about all that and take that perspective in and get to be a father and a fiancé for a second. .... It's about for me about trying to just stay level and not ride quite the highs and the lows as much."
Prescott spoke with CBS Sports in promoting his partnership with DICK's Sporting Goods to decorate a Dallas location in an effort to help local youth sports organizations through DICK'S Sports Matter philanthropy grants.
The Cowboys quarterback entered a Texas-wide store decorating competition against Team USA Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles (Houston), San Antonio Spurs point guard Chris Paul (San Antonio), and University Of Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers (Austin) to help raise money for local area youth sports.
"It's to represent this great city of Dallas as we did flip the Denton DICK's Sports into the Blue and Silver Christmas theme. More importantly, it's about getting a victory against those other three cities ... excited for my part in it," Prescott said. "It was all awesome, so being able to be a part of this in a philanthropic effort, giving back to the Sports Matter grant, $100,000 for the youth sports is awesome, and [I] didn't take a moment for granted."
