Dallas Cowboys waive backup QB Cooper Rush, waste no time making room for Andy Dalton
The team announced that Cooper Rush had been waived to make room for Dalton. Rush was due to make $2.1 million in 2020.
Dalton is guaranteed $3 million, including $2 million in base salary. He has a chance to make another $4 million in play-time incentives and playoff success. But he will get just $3 million if he simply backs up starter Dak Prescott for 16 games.
Prescott has never missed a game in his career — a fact Rush knows too well.
After surprisingly surpassing Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator as an undrafted rookie in 2017, Rush has completed just one pass over the past three seasons combined and that came in his first year.
Rush remains an inexperienced unknown but the timing of his release gives him a chance to latch on with another team before training camp.
Dalton is a clear upgrade as a backup quarterback and gives the team confidence they have someone they can win games with if Prescott is out for any reason.
Dalton, who is from Houston and played in college at TCU, gets to return home to Texas after nine seasons as a starter with the Cincinnati Bengals. His off season home is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area so he doesn’t have to move his family during the coronavirus pandemic.
Dalton has a 70-61-2 career record and helped the Bengals reach the postseason in each of his first five seasons.
Cincinnati released Dalton last week after drafting LSU quarterback Joe Burrow with the No. 1 overall pick, relieving themselves of the $17.7 million salary he was due in the final season of his six-year, $96 million contract.
The Cowboys still have four quarterbacks on their roster. In addition to Prescott and Dalton, the team has 2019 draftee Clayton Thorson and Ben DiNucci, the Cowboys’ seventh-round pick in the 2020 draft.
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 12:09 PM.
