If you are expecting this Dallas Cowboys locker room to fracture after a 3-4 start, it’s not going to happen. At least not anytime soon.
While teams like the Jaguars and Raiders bicker through their rocky starts, life around the Cowboys has been quiet, at least in the locker room, and that’s thanks in no small part due to the calm demeanor of quarterback Dak Prescott and the respect his teammates have for him.
Recently, I heard from NFL sources that some players in the Cowboys locker room were unhappy with the direction of the offense. Prescott, the story goes, was able to calm the locker room before things got worse, and now the offense is unified again.
The exact details of what happened aren’t known and actually aren’t important. What matters is the role Prescott was willing and capable of playing—that of a rudder at a time when the Cowboys really needed one.
“When you play this game, we all make our mistakes,” Prescott told B/R this week. “I make my mistakes. Other guys on the team make mistakes. The key is to just execute better.
“The last thing we’re going to do on this team is point fingers,” he said. “We’re staying tight. You won’t see us come apart.”
Prescott wasn’t bragging or commenting on other teams. He was simply stating how things are in Dallas.
The Cowboys are fortunate in ways others are not. In Jacksonville, players got into a heated locker room argument following their Week 7 loss to Houston. In Oakland, there was a report from The Athletic about how some players lost respect for quarterback Derek Carr because they believed he cried following a hard hit to his left shoulder during a game against Seattle on Oct. 14. Carr said he didn’t cry (who cares if he did).
Raiders players, after the story mushroomed, defended Carr.
The good news is they traded for Amari Cooper, who could help generate more offense. And considering no team has run away with the NFC East, the division remains wide open. Washington leads at 4-2, the Cowboys and Eagles are 3-4, and the Giants are 1-6.
Only the Giants and the chronically sacked Eli Manning are dead in the division. Everyone else is in it.
That includes the Cowboys, thanks to Prescott.
