Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott will miss a fourth straight game in Week 5 as he continues to recover from thumb surgery, the Dallas Morning News reported Tuesday.
Cooper Rush will make his fourth straight start for the Cowboys. The team also signed Will Grier to the active roster from the practice squad to back up Rush. Grier was out of standard elevations.
The strength in Prescott’s thumb is not good enough for him to return this week, per the Morning News report.
Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said earlier Tuesday that Prescott’s thumb is improving but the quarterback still can’t grip a football “well enough to play.”
Jones made the comments during an interview on Audacy’s 105.3 The Fan in Dallas.
“Well, I know that it’s better, and I know that he’s going to go out there every day and make progress towards being able to grip the ball,” Jones said on the show.
When asked if Prescott can grip a football now, Jones answered, “No, not well enough to play.”
Prescott met with doctors later Tuesday.
“I don’t know that you could ask for better news technically, physically in how it’s responding, how it’s healing so to speak,” Jones said. “So all of those things are on go and I don’t know that as we bid bye to each day if considering the injury, considering the location of the injury, I don’t know that you could make any more progress. There’s some things here about healing that again I often say only the man upstairs knows how that works, but he’ll have a big week and he’ll be hard on himself getting it ready to go.”
The team has yet to formally rule Prescott out for this week’s game against the Los Angeles Rams, but both Jones and head coach Mike McCarthy want a full week of practice with Prescott before turning him loose.
“We need to have that process before we (go) in a ballgame,” Jones said. “Can’t eliminate the week’s work and be ready to go, especially not at quarterback.”
Prescott said last week he was targeting this week to return after fracturing his thumb in the team’s Week 1 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was projected to miss six weeks.
Rush has led the Cowboys to three straight wins in Prescott’s absence. With Sunday’s win against Washington, Rush became the first Cowboys QB to win the first four starts of his career. He went 1-0 in 2021.
Dallas worked out some long snappers on Tuesday after likely losing Jake McQuaide for the season with a torn triceps sustained Sunday against the Commanders.
McQuaide, 34, is a two-time Pro Bowl selection and has played in 181 NFL games with the St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams (2011-20) and Cowboys.
–Field Level Media
