Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sincerely believes Dak Prescott will right the ship
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones readily admits that quarterback Dak Prescott and the team’s offense is struggling, even slumping.
But Jones also remains confident that Prescott can turn things around and he still has faith that the Cowboys can realize their Super Bowl dreams in Los Angeles, that for Jones are roughly 80 years in the making.
An upbeat Jones is emboldened by his unwavering belief in Prescott, whom he signed to a four-year, $160 million contract last March. And he compared Prescott to seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady and Superman just minutes apart while speaking outside the Four Seasons Hotel and Resort in Las Colinas late Wednesday afternoon.
The Cowboys (9-4) have a commanding three-game lead in the NFC East with four weeks remaining in the regular season. However, after opening the season with a mark of 6-1, they’ve gone 3-3 over their last six games. Most of the team’s problems center around the offense, which are embodied by Prescott’s decline in play.
He threw 16 touchdown passes against only four interceptions in his first six games, back when he was a viable MVP candidate. After the bye he missed a game due to a calf strain, and in his last six outing Prescott has just eight touchdowns and six interceptions.
“His health is good,” Jones said of Prescott in trying to explain the drop off. “I am satisfied that is the case.”
With injuries off the table, it’s now about Prescott’s mental, physical makeup and competitiveness. Jones says he is Brady-like in those areas.
“His greatest quality is how he takes challenges and not only knows how to point his energy towards it and then goes out and executes,” Jones said. “If I have ever seen or been associated with an athlete that has anything that would address him doing anything, adjusting anything, improving in any areas, it’s Dak Prescott.
“I had always thought that was the Cowboys’ Brady in how I have seen Brady mentally take the different challenges, different ebbs and flows. The very definition of what we are talking about here is the highs, get in lows and come back up and get highs.”
Jones said what was lost in the translation when he mentioned the word slump on his radio show earlier in the week about Prescott’s play was also knowing with full confidence that he would come out of whatever downturn he was going through.
“If it’s a demise, it just goes straight down,” Jones said. “That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a guy that knows how to deal with the highs and he comes off of that he knows how to get back right. That is his highest quality.
“We got the guy to deal with an offense that was flying high a few weeks ago and needs adjusting now. We got the man built for that task in Dak.”
Jones said the problems the Cowboys are having on offense go beyond Prescott’s play. He termed it a team-wide issue on offense, a sentiment that has been echoed by coach Mike McCarthy, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and running back Ezekiel Elliott.
But Prescott is the foundation of Jones’ confidence that the Cowboys will turn it around on offense.
“His ability to adjust, come back and make a play when he has been adverse is the thing that gives me the most confidence about our team,” Jones said. “In that sense, I am not worried. We have in Dak, the best guy I know on the planet, to right the ship. When I say, he will get this right, I can’t tell you how real that is inside of me.”
Jones also understands the sentiment that as the team’s highest-paid player Prescott should make up for some of the shortcomings in other areas, similar to other star quarterbacks, like Brady or the Green Bay Packers’ Aaron Rodgers or Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes.
“We are going to see Superman out of him and then we will see a few times when Superman’s jets didn’t work just right. His cape fluttered on him,” Jones said with a laugh. “Use that. Superman, sometimes his cape will flutter on him and he has to run a little extra to get up to speed. But he will get it done.”
Jones believes Prescott will get it done because his teammates have as much faith in him as he has. And they’re demonstarting a level of faith in each Jones said he hasn’t other like he hasn’t seen around the Cowboys in a long time.
“We got the talent and we got the makeup,” Jones said. “These guys have something special going. They have that. That is why you see them working so hard to execute for Dak.”
And for him.
Jones doesn’t boldly proclaim Super Bowl promises anymore.
After going 26 years since the team’s last Super Bowl title following the 1995 season, he has learned his lesson.
But the 79-year-old Jones admits that a trip to Super Bowl 56 at SoFi Stadium, located in his birthplace of Inglewood, Calif., would be special to him.
“I was born about a mile from the stadium in Inglewood,” Jones said. “I may have been dreaming of this since ‘42.”
