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By Bob Sturm Jun 15, 2021
They often ask you a question that can border on annoying when you buy products online these days. When you buy a product at a certain price point, they always try to interest you in adding on some very nice two-year or four-year product coverage in the event that you accidentally drop your new coffee maker in the ocean. Chances are you will never need protection, but if enough people opt-in for the $19.99 coverage, well, you know how it generally works.
But buying something you probably don’t need happens because there is a very big chance your brain will play games with you and paint the worst possible scenarios in your head, and this invariably makes you feel the anxiety of not knowing what might happen in the future. And that is why you so often opt in for product coverage on mom’s new e-reader.
Professional football has that product coverage as well, but it is very pricey. And there are teams that just don’t want to budget the cash to cover their QB situation at all. The truth is that if there is a significant injury to the starting quarterback, the season is in massive trouble unless that injured QB is Carson Wentz and Nick Foles can run things for six weeks and end up holding a Lombardi Trophy. Would the Eagles have won the Super Bowl if a lesser backup was employed? Who can say? Nobody thought the Eagles could beat Tom Brady in a Super Bowl shootout with Nick Foles, and many of us still wonder how it happened. But it did.
Which brings us to one of the most notable situations in the league right now, and it regards the Cowboys: What is the plan in 2021 behind Dak Prescott?
The two most important developments for the Cowboys — not just at quarterback but also for the entire present-tense trajectory of the franchise — would have to be (A) the signing of Prescott to a four-year extension and the largest guaranteed money in the history of the NFL and (B) the healing of Prescott’s ankle and his return to the field as the starting quarterback.
Once they checked both of those uncertainties off the list, everything else pales in comparison by miles and miles.
But I do find it interesting that one year after Andy Dalton fell into their laps at a reasonable price that only a COVID-19 season could supply and also after that foolproof idea of having a decade-long starting QB as your backup still couldn’t come close to saving the 2020 season, the Cowboys have apparently assured themselves that their backup QB situation in 2021 is no big deal.
I am willing to be gradually convinced that they have it sorted out better than I think they do, but before we go through the options, let’s look at the past decade that got us here.
The health situation of Tony Romo is something that we lived with for many years. Starting in 2008 with his first significant injury, it was a constant struggle. The Cowboys had a Super Bowl-winning backup that year in Brad Johnson, which was seen as a real marker that Dallas was serious about winning it all after flirting with it all in 2007 and falling short despite being the top seed in the NFC. Romo missed nearly a month, and the whole season came crashing down because Johnson was comically bad when the Cowboys needed him for three starts.
Dallas then traded for one quarterback and drafted another when Jon Kitna and Stephen McGee were added for 2009 — a season in which they didn’t need a backup because Romo was healthy the whole year. Kitna came over after being the starter on some bad Lions teams and instantly became exactly what Dallas needed as a backup — someone who not only could play well in a pinch but also be the caddie Romo was looking for. He had to play after Romo’s collarbone break in 2010 and honestly probably played as well as any backup Dallas has had in ages — until a rookie from Mississippi State put up an all-time year in 2016. More on that later.
Kyle Orton took the baton in 2012 when he signed a three-year deal to back up Romo after the retirement of Kitna. Orton seemed like another smart and savvy signing, but he wasn’t called into duty until the finale in 2013, when the team needed a good home performance against the Eagles in Week 17 after Romo hurt his back. They did not receive one at all from Orton, lost that game and missed the playoffs. Then, before Orton’s final season, he bizarrely threatened to retire and would not even communicate with the organization in the offseason. This appeared to be a reaction to their signing of Brandon Weeden as the third-string QB, but perhaps Orton properly sniffed out the plan to replace him in the final year of his deal. Regardless, Orton was cut in July (he quickly signed on with Buffalo and played a lot in 2014), and Weeden replaced him as the backup and would be the team’s backup QB in 2014-15. Weeden proved to have almost nothing in terms of delivering the ball down the field when called upon during Romo’s brief injury in 2014 and his massive one in 2015 in Philadelphia.
Weeden was called upon big time in 2015, needing to replace Romo for another collarbone/clavicle break, and he played poorly and was replaced with Matt Cassel, whom the Cowboys had to trade for in mid-September with Buffalo (coincidentally enough).
About 2015: Like 2010 before it and 2020 after it, that was the year the Cowboys needed a backup QB to save them. Much like in 2020, the Cowboys had no real good option, it would be revealed, and they would dream of a Kitna-type performer and not find one. They would dig and dig and — again, like in 2020 — would have four quarterbacks start games in a horribly lost season.
Pass plays by backup Dallas QBs
| YEAR | NO. |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 430 |
| 2011 | 58 |
| 2012 | 10 |
| 2013 | 52 |
| 2014 | 48 |
| 2015 | 459 |
| 2016 | 29 |
| 2017 | 5 |
| 2018 | 0 |
| 2019 | 0 |
| 2020 | 484 |
The chart tells the story. You never know when you will need a backup QB, but for Dallas, it seems that every five years they go from not needing one at all to needing one for nearly a full season.
Now, the graphic also fudges on 2016, because for the sake of stats, we credit Prescott with being the “starter” that year. But that season could also be in the red, too. Romo was the presumed starter going in, and Prescott was the third quarterback entering that training camp. First, backup Kellen Moore’s career ended on the Oxnard practice field, and within two weeks, Romo’s career effectively ended in Seattle.
But Dallas found gold again with Prescott. People forget the absurdity of finding a decade-long starter as an undrafted free agent in Romo and then stumbling right into another (we assume) decade-long starter as a late fourth-round compensatory pick in Prescott. People talk about the good fortune San Francisco and Green Bay enjoyed with consecutive great quarterbacks, but they paid decent prices for their guys. For Dallas to pay nothing and then next-to-nothing for the original purchase prices on Romo and Prescott, two quarterbacks who could take them from at least 2006 to 2024, is definitely understated. At the same time, the value reaped will never be nationally discussed if the best thing they ever do is win a few wild-card games. Romo’s story is written, but perhaps Prescott can break through with some more chapters.
Prescott missed virtually zero snaps between 2016 and his ankle breaking in 2020, when he was carted off in Week 5. That was when we discovered that Dalton and friends had almost no chance. It was surely made worse with no offseason and minimal training camps without preseason games. But it happened, and nobody looked prepared.
So please forgive me if I ponder the curiosity of what 2021 will hold. Dalton is in Chicago to serve as a place-warmer for Justin Fields. The Cowboys have three quarterbacks listed behind Prescott and none has forged much of an identity in the NFL. Meanwhile, Dallas continues to at least flirt with bringing in a fourth name to add to the fun, as former Mike McCarthy backup Brett Hundley visited Dallas for a workout a few weeks back. Let’s have a quick look at each of the candidates:
Cooper Rush (Tim Heitman / USA Today)
Garrett Gilbert — No. 3, age 30, 6-4, 230 pounds
The former Texas/SMU star showed a massive arm and a real ability to see the secondary when he was on display back in November in his upset bid over the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers. For reasons I never really grasped, the Cowboys did not allow him to return to the field after that and allowed Dalton to engineer several wins that probably boosted morale but also accomplished little other than push the Cowboys’ draft pick down the first round. Gilbert seems to have the best grasp on how to win a game in the NFL but also is the oldest and has the highest cap number at $835,000, with none of it guaranteed. I assume there is something I must not know because this seems like the best backup candidate, but the Cowboys also seem far less convinced than I am.
Ben DiNucci — No. 7, age 24, 6-2, 215
DiNucci was done no favors on a rough night in Philadelphia when he was absolutely thrown to the wolves on national television. I don’t think people can grasp how little work a third-string QB gets in today’s NFL beyond the offseason programs (and 2020 had none), and then he was probably being planned a full redshirt/developmental season. Instead, in Week 5, Prescott was lost. In Week 7, Dalton was lost. So here comes DiNucci in Week 8 with basically no practice reps before that Tuesday, and he was sent out with a low-level version of the offensive line. Then, the Cowboys were pretty terrified of the challenge, so they employed nothing but desperation trick plays and sleight-of-hand ideas that never allowed him to get comfortable. And he looked hilariously lousy and bordering on incapable. This was the opposite of putting him in a position to succeed, but it also might have been unavoidable. Trust me, he was much more competent at James Madison and has a very interesting skill set. I also realize he was a seventh-round pick and not someone to count on highly, but he has been poisoned by that display in Philadelphia to much of the public. He makes $850,000 in Year 2 of his rookie deal.
Cooper Rush — No. 10, age 27, 6-3, 225
The Cowboys simply cannot shake their relationship with Rush, who has basically been in the building since 2017. He was Prescott’s main backup in almost all three of those subsequent years and never really had to play much. His arm performances in those preseason games were underwhelming, but it appears his grasp of the offense under Moore has been a real key, and the comfort level he has presented must not hurt, either. I assumed when he went with Jason Garrett to New York in 2020 that this would be the end here, but Dallas brought him back midseason and added him to the mix. Can he make all the throws? I don’t believe so. But if you are looking for an expert on what Moore wants from his quarterbacks and also a bit of a Moore type himself, maybe we shouldn’t be shocked if he becomes a mainstay here, too. He is on a one-year deal for $920,000.
The three pictures I paint for you of these potential backups are similar. Cheap, unproven and a bit of a risk relative to someone like Kitna or even Dalton. But when you pay your starter $40 million, your backup is unlikely to take up any space at all on the cap. All of them are within $100,000 of each other and at the low end of the QB pay scale.
Is this the Cowboys’ ultimate plan and is it a good one? Well, the answers to those two questions are probably yes and no. But, as with so much in the NFL or buying products online, you find out that you need the product coverage only when it is too late to change your mind.
