Getty Cowboys OC Kellen Moore, QB Dak Prescott
Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy on Thursday confirmed the team is seeking an experienced backup to pair with “keystone” quarterback Dak Prescott.
McCarthy further stated that Dallas has spoken to unnamed “veteran quarterbacks” in the wake of Andy Dalton’s free-agent defection to Chicago, and that “competition” at the position will be stressed despite Prescott landing a record-setting $160 million contract.
“It’s definitely a position we’ll continue to look at,” he told reporters during a press conference at The Star.
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Slim Pickings
Technically, the Cowboys don’t need to sign anyone as there are three in-house QBs — Garrett Gilbert, Ben DiNucci, Cooper Rush — who could compete to become Prescott’s clipboard-holder. Failing that, the club can burn a pick on a passer in next month’s draft.
The market was littered with name cache at the start of free agency, but the likes of Dalton, Ryan Fitzpatrick (Washington), Mitchell Trubisky (Buffalo), Tyrod Taylor (Houston), Jacoby Brissett (Miami), and even Joe Flacco (New York Jets) have since found new homes.
Former Cowboys rival Alex Smith, the 2020 NFL Comeback Player of the Year, is easily the top remaining option. Others include Colt McCoy, Matt Barkley, Nick Mullens, and … you get the point.
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Insider Speculation
One team expert feels the Cowboys may replace Dalton with Smith, who surprisingly has drawn little interest since his March 5 release from the Football Team.
“Alex Smith … knows this system because he knows all the systems,” Mike Fisher of CowboysSI.com said Wednesday. “[He] has played with [Cowboys head coach] Mike McCarthy when he was a rookie in San Francisco and is even admired by Dak Prescott. I think Alex Smith is a really good fit if you could find him affordable.
“If you want to really commit to being good, you need to recognize the backup quarterback is the 12th starter in the NFL. And with all due respect to all those other names, in terms of trying to bus-drive the Cowboys to a win if Dak Prescott ever goes down, Alex Smith is that guy.”
Smith suffered a career-threatening leg injury in Washington in 2018 that nearly resulted in amputation. Seventeen surgeries later, after sitting out the 2019 campaign, he made his return to the gridiron last October. The three-time Pro Bowler played in eight games (six starts), completing 168 of 252 passes for 1,582 yards, six touchdowns, and eight interceptions, leading Washington to an improbable NFC East title.
Smith’s incredible comeback journey deeply inspired Prescott, who sustained his own lower-body malady in 2020, compound-fracturing and dislocating his right ankle. Nearly fully recovered, he devoted a chunk of his contract-signing presser to commending Smith’s perseverance — a characteristic he aims to replicate.
“Even sitting there, holding my leg or whatever on the field, trying to put it back into place, or later on being in the hospital and waking up from surgery, that’s just what God’s thrown at me,” Prescott told reporters on March 10, via Pro Football Talk. “If you’ve known my life, if you’ve known my story, whatever circumstance that is, I’m going to take it with a smile and be thankful that God has put me in this position to overcome it, to be an example to others. So never in a million years [did he think his career was finished].
“And I have to thank, honestly, Alex Smith. Because at that moment when you’re sitting there and you have an injury like that or you come out of surgery, to see somebody who’s already done it and did it actually in worse circumstances, that allowed my mind just to go to straight, ‘Hey, I can do this. I’m going to beat this. It’s just a matter of time. What are the doctors saying? But I’m going to beat this.’ So I have to thank Alex for somebody who’s overcome that and won Comeback Player of the Year, and congrats to him.”
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Follow Zack Kelberman on Twitter: @KelbermanNFL