The latest Dak Prescott injury update sounds like the Cowboys will have to end his season

All hope may truly be lost for the Dallas Cowboys this season. Or, you know, if it wasn’t already.

The Dak Prescott injury that knocked the Cowboys quarterback out early in the club’s Week 9 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, dropping Dallas to 3-5 on the season, was the absolute last thing the team needed. And in the aftermath, it was pretty clear that the prognosis was not positive, with rumblings that Prescott would be placed on Injured Reserve as a result of the injury. But maybe it’s even worse than us.

On Wednesday, NFL insider Jane Slater reported that Prescott suffered a “partial avulsion of his hamstring tendon, which was partially torn from the bone.” In layman’s terms, his hamstring tendon was partially torn from his hip bone. More importantly, Slater noted that recovery from this injury normally takes more than four weeks and the only reason the quarterback has not yet been placed on IR is because he is seeking more medical opinions.

To put it bluntly, nothing about this sounds remotely positive for the Cowboys in a season that is already eerily thin on positivity.

Unless Prescott returns with a medical that says he can play right away, this really sounds like an argument for him to go to IR and be shut down for the rest of the season. Let’s conservatively say he would return from this injury in six weeks – that would put him back in Week 16. What realistic chance is there that the Cowboys absolutely have something to play for at that point in the season?

Even if he were healthy, there’s a chance the Cowboys wouldn’t be playing for anything at that point in the year, depending on how things have gone so far. Once again, the team is 3-5 and the atmosphere couldn’t possibly be in shambles anymore. Prescott’s injury only makes the decision to pack it in that much clearer.

While it may be dismissive to some extent, the simple truth is that a Dallas team without Dak Prescott under center is even less likely to win football games than they already were. With all due respect to Cooper Rush, it’s a significant drop to the backup. And if Prescott’s injury is one that requires a long recovery time, there’s really no need to rush him back at all given the state of the franchise.

In an ideal world where we think long term, Prescott could steadily recover from this injury and then return for offseason workouts and training camp before the 2025 season with a new head coach, a new offensive coordinator, and a new defensive coordinator at the club. rudder of the ship.

We don’t live in that ideal world, at least not yet, but this latest update on the Cowboys star’s injury doesn’t leave much room for optimism about what the rest of his and his team’s 2024 season will look like.