‘I feel terrible for him.’ Dallas Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy on Dak’s injury, Andy Dalton
The post-game mood after the Dallas Cowboys’ 37-34 win against the New York Giants on Sunday at AT&T Stadium was mixed.
Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy was pleased with improvements he saw in his defense and confident in his backup quarterback Andy Dalton but his heart was heavy.
Dak Prescott’s season-ending ankle injury that required surgery Sunday night cast a pall on the evening. Defensive tackle Trysten Hill also left the game with a right knee injury.
During McCarthy’s press conference, he discussed the injuries, relying on Dalton going forward and the Cowboys’ beleaguered defense.
Here’s an edited transcript of McCarthy’s post-game comments:
McCarthy’s opening statement
It was a tough game, obviously. To see Trysten go down and then to see Dak go down, those are injuries that are an unfortunate part of our game. I thought the team did an excellent job of hanging in there and really as you’ve seen over the course of our first five games, this is a team with a tremendous amount of fight. We’re still working through some things, but I thought we did a better job today playing some team football. We had the mistake early, but the defense bounced back with the turnover for a touchdown. Then offensively, we needed to get the run game going. I thought that was a key for us offensively. I thought our defense, though we had some things in the first half that were productive, but I thought we did a much better job stopping the run and winning the situational battles. Tough game, a lot of ebb and flow to it, back and forth, my experience has been in the past that division games are always the toughest games. This one was no different. We’re happy to get the win, obviously, and give us a chance to catch our breath. We’ve got an extra day to get ready for the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night.
McCarthy’s emotions regarding the injuries
I could just tell the way [Dak] went down it was of a serious nature. I knew Trysten’s injury looked to be serious. And then I walk up on Dak, you knew right away it was serious. I feel terrible for him. He was having a tremendous year. In the short time working with him, he’s made such an impression on me. He’s clearly the leader of this football team. I have no doubt that he’ll bounce back from this. This will be just another chapter of his great story. He’s a fine young man and an outstanding quarterback.
What was McCarthy’s post-game message to the team?
Really, the message was that our fight is our flight. If you look at the five game that we’ve played in, we’ve had some rough moments, but every game has come down to the end. Just the composure and the communication on the sidelines, I thought we were much better than we were at this time last week. We have a lot of work to do. There are still some things that we can sync up better and I think it allows everybody to perform at a faster level. So we improved today as a team. The most important thing is that we won the game. But we’re going to have to make some adjustments moving forward.
McCarthy’s assessment of Andy Dalton
Andy came in and made the key throw there at the end. The defense gave us the opportunity. I can’t say enough about the connection between him and Michael [Gallup] at the most important part of the game. That’s big-time football. You’ve got to make big plays at key moments to win games in this league. That will never change. Andy did a heck of a job.
McCarthy on the moment with Jason Garrett when Prescott was injured
It was a personal moment. But I have great respect for Jason Garrett, always have and always will. I haven’t seen him in a while but that’s definitely (not the circumstances). I know it was hard on him too. We talked about it briefly after the game.
Was McCarthy able to say anything to Prescott after the injury?
No, but just a sign of support. I don’t know where your viewpoint was, but there was a flood of emotion, even from their bench. Obviously, there’s relationships on their sideline that Dak has and the respect that everybody has for Dak. That was clearly evident during those moments.
McCarthy on his confidence going forward with Andy Dalton
We all have great confidence in Andy. We’ve all been working together since training camp. Andy’s got a lot of pelts on the wall. He’s been a great addition to the quarterback room. It’s a very healthy quarterback room. I expect Andy to keep our offense moving forward and hopefully we can improve some. The one thing we haven’t nipped in the bud yet is the turnovers. But we have great confidence in Andy.
McCarthy on the play of the Cowboys’ offensive line
I thought the run game was productive. I thought that Zeke [Elliott] ran exceptional today. He ran with tremendous power. I thought the run game, the quarterback movement phase was a real positive for us in the normal (down and distance). We definitely had a chance to improve. We had some young guy mistakes that we’ll learn from. But, hey, we scored some points and we were right there at the end where we needed to be. Those guys were a big part of it.
McCarthy on the Cowboys’ defense
I thought the defensive performance was the key to winning. We needed to get the ball back and they gave us that opportunity. It was the first time we were able to get our dime personnel on the field. I think we are off to a good start there with that on third down. Hopefully, we can expand more into some of our situational defensive calls.
McCarthy on balancing the feeling of winning while also losing key players
I don’t know. Unfortunately, I’ve been through this a couple of times. I’m more concerned about Dak and Trysten on a personal level. It’s the hard part of this business — injuries to players. We’ll do the best we can. Most important is that we take care of these guys on a personal level. We have a tremendous staff that will do that.
McCarthy on relying on Dalton without Prescott at quarterback
Andy is steady. There’s no doubt about that. You can see that from Day 1. He’s very calm. He’s the same guy every day. I mean, that’s exactly how he practices. It was no surprise to see him pick up and keep going. [The sack] was a 2nd-and-1 call where we knew we would have a one-on-one situation on the outside. It was really two-fold. We wanted to get the first down, but it was important to get the new quarterback in the game, hopefully, making a throw early so he could get into a rhythm.
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
