With Dak Prescott back, it’s now proving time for Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy

The wait is over for the Dallas Cowboys.

The wait to put last year’s horrible season in the past.

The wait for the return of quarterback Dak Prescott.

The wait to unveil the team’s new defense.

And the painstakingly long wait for coach Mike McCarthy to start anew is finally over.

No matter how many times he yelled, “F last year” to his team, the process of burying last year’s disappointing 6-10 campaign won’t officially begin until the Cowboys take the field Thursday night and square off against the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers to kick off the 2021 NFL season.

“I’m excited. I’m excited because it is our first game,” McCarthy said. “I think the environment we’re getting ready to play in is always fun. So, it feels like the first real game because last year was such a mismatch of things leading up to the season. So, I think clearly we’re so much better prepared this year than we were last year.”

They better be better prepared than last year because of who they are playing in Week 1 — with seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady standing on the other side of the field along with one the league’s top defenses from a year ago.

It was the Cowboys unpreparedness for that transpired last year that proved to be their ultimate undoing.

McCarthy erred in his defensive coaching hires and decision making. The staff didn’t handle impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in getting the team ready to play.

And the Cowboys couldn’t overcome the plethora of injuries that robbed them of much of their top talent, led by quarterback Prescott missing 11 games with a fractured ankle, right tackle La’el Collins missing the entire season following hip surgery and left tackle Tyron Smith having neck surgery after playing in just two games.

The Cowboys addressed the defense with a new coordinator in Dan Quinn and 16 additions via the free agency and the draft, led by rookie top pick Micah Parsons.

The Cowboys are healthy again with Prescott, who was on pace the shatter the NFL record for passing yards in the a season before going down last year, is back to lead the way offense.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” vice president Stephen Jones said of the opener. “You get to play against Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time. You are going against the Super Bowl champions. They pretty much signed their whole team back so we are going to see what the best was last year.

“And of course, on our end, we are fired up to get Dak back and get a lot of our players back in action that we didn’t have last year. Obviously, that is exciting. Mike’s hiring of Dan Quinn and what we are doing on the defensive side of the ball gives us great reason for optimism.

“We are excited to see how that is going down. We are going to get opportunities to see how much we have improved.”

In 2021, the Cowboys are also going to see if the decision they made to hire McCarthy as head coach before last season was the right one.

McCarthy made the playoffs nine times in 13 years with the Green Bay Packers, including a Super Bowl title in 2010. As a proven winner, he was hired to return the Cowboys to Super Bowl glory.

His 6-10 record in his first season in Dallas, however, was reminiscent of his 11-16-1 mark in his final two seasons in Green Bay that ended with his ousting before the end of the 2018 season.

Team owner Jerry Jones remains firmly in McCarthy’s corner. He said he owned the mistakes of the past year and is now ready to live up to the prior expectations.

“I think there’s a resolve,” Jerry Jones said. “He took the dose of what we got last year like a man and took any responsibility you want to give him. And he did it in a way that says we’re going to try to get better, try to improve. You just have somebody that the players believe in, that I believe in.”

“I feel the team that I thought we were going to have last year, and that was before Dak’s injury,” he said. “But this year, with what we addressed, we’ll see how the results are. Man, did we change it up. All of those things give me the same feeling I had last year. We got a good team.”

Dak Prescott is 100 percent

Questions continue to be asked about quarterback Dak Prescott’s health and readiness for Thursday’s game against the Buccaneers.

It will be his first return to live action since suffering a fractured ankle last October. That his comeback was complicated by a strained shoulder in training camp, forcing him to miss the entire preseason, raised additional questions about whether he will be rusty.

For the 1000th time, Prescott and the Cowboys say he is completely healthy and there will be the limitations on his game. “Dak Prescott is 100 percent ready to go,” Stephen Jones said. “He has looked outstanding [in practice].” Jerry Jones echoed his son.

“He’s very decisive in practice. He does not look rusty,” Jerry Jones said. “We’ve always known if anybody could be what we were talking about, get better as they move along he should be a poster child. He’s the best I’ve been around.”

The Cowboys are taking their cues from Prescott who feels he will be as sharp as ever in Game 1. ”He feels ready to go,” Stephen Jones said. “I know how he feels so I echo those thoughts. We have total confidence in Dak and how he feels about what he can do for this football team.”

Said Prescott: “Obviously, I have high expectations for myself. I plan to come out starting fast. I plan to come out better than I was last year, to be honest. That’s just the work that I’ve put in going all the way back to February when I got back on the field. I’m excited for it.”

Before taking the field on Thursday, the Cowboys did a little business with Prescott, converting $6.25 million of his base salary into a signing bonus, creating $5 million in cap space.

The simple procedural move was already built into the four-year, $160 million contract Prescott signed in March. It gives the Cowboys a little extra operating space under the cap during the season in case they need to make a move. They also have the option to carry over unused cap space into 2022.

”That was really both [reasons],” Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones said. “It was looking around the corner, looking at what you’re going to need as you move through, if you will, even this season but certainly into next season. It was anticipated when we made the contract and it’s part of the contract that allows you to manage your roster. Everything about it was expected.”

Cowboys still awaiting word on Zack Martin

The Cowboys are going to take the Zack Martin decision down to the final day.

The team traveled to Tampa on Wednesday without Martin, who is still going through the COVID-19 protocols.

The Cowboys are holding out hope that Martin may be available, but 24 hours before the game Stephen Jones said that having Martin on the field may still be a long shot.

Martin would need to be symptom free and provide two negative COVID-19 tests by Thursday in order to play. The Cowboys will fly him out Thursday morning on a private plane, if necessary.

Martin, a perennial Pro Bowl guard, has been called the best player on the Cowboys by running back Ezekiel Elliott.

And if there is any chance he can get on the field to help open holes for Elliott and protect Prescott against a Tampa Bay defense that is among the best in the league then the Cowboys are going give him every opportunity to do so.

The Cowboys are continuing to being careful with COVID-19 after having nine players in protocols over the last three weeks.

Per a CBS Sports report, the team is asking all players to not meet with anyone outside the traveling party ahead of game at Tampa. The Cowboys do not want players leaving hotel.

Dallas Cowboys 2021 staff predictions

Clarence E. Hill Jr.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Clarence E. Hill Jr. covered the Dallas Cowboys as a beat writer/columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 1997 to 2024.