‘No consolation’ for Cowboys after crushing loss, but there’s always next season for Dak Prescott – Yahoo Sports
ARLINGTON, Texas – Throughout AT&T Stadium, the televisions were flashing messages imploring everyone to “please take shelter.” Local weathermen kept shouting about tornadoes, flash floods and general downpours. This was the storm after the storm. Once the Super Bowl dream season washed out in Dallas, down came the Texas rain.
Jerry Jones was talking in a corner of the Cowboys’ locker room, sweat on his brow and disappointment in his eyes. The game was lost and lost and lost and then tied and then lost and then tied and then finally lost for good, just like that.
Green Bay 34, Dallas 31, the legend of Aaron Rodgers continued, the one concerning Dak Prescott born.
The last part was of minimal solace for Jones, at least initially. There has been but one playoff victory here since the glory days of the 1990s. The standard is not to be involved in playoff classics, but to win them. These are the Cowboys, Super Bowl or bust even in the most unlikely of seasons.
“There’s no good,” the team owner said. “There’s no consolation. There is no reason to talk consolation.”
The mood across the locker room gave credence to his words. There were 100-yard stares, bloodshot eyes and an occasional cry of frustration. Lockers were cleaned out as towels piled up. Rodgers beat them twice in the final two minutes, including a memorable 36-yard pass with three seconds remaining that set up a second Mason Crosby game-wining, 50-plus-yard field goal, this one truly, finally settling things here.
That left the Dallas bench taking a knee and throwing helmets and shaking their heads in disgust.
A season out of nowhere, a 13-3 restoration campaign on the back of a couple rookie offensive stars, ended in supreme frustration. Never mind the 21-3 deficit they climbed back from or the two tying fourth-quarter drives that nearly forced overtime, this was a room as shocked as it was saddened.
“When you have a championship-caliber team and you wind up losing, it’s not something you can easily accept,” running back Ezekiel Elliott (125 yards) said softly, himself tucked in a corner of the room.
“This,” Prescott said, “is a terrible feeling.”
Prescott, the rookie out of Mississippi State whose unexpected arrival changed the trajectory of the franchise, had just gone 24-for-38 for 302 yards and three touchdowns. More notably he’d stepped in the glare of a Cowboys playoff game, stepped across from the decorated Rodgers and was never rattled. In the dramatic fourth quarter, he led three scoring drives by going 10-for-14 for 114 yards and two touchdowns, while also rushing for a two-point conversion.
No, this wasn’t the moment for moral victories, but when you go from 4-12 to this, when you discover a QB with this kind of moxie, there is something to be taken from it. Throughout the season there was endless debate (even if much of it was stupid) about returning Tony Romo to the starting lineup. Prescott subbed an injured Romo in the preseason and never relinquished the job. Yet even into the second half here Sunday night, Romo was trending on Twitter.
If nothing else, that is done. Romo will play elsewhere next season, a Cowboys great replaced by the next great Cowboy.
“We don’t have to get into that tonight,” Jones said.
It meant little to Prescott, who looked afterward like he wanted to go somewhere and throw up – “as low as it can get at this point.” That said, he was proud about how the entire team never quit, never doubted, never looked past the next snap. “We’re going to keep fighting,” he said. “We kept believing in each other. We kept believing we were going to make the next play. We kept believing the defense was going to make stops.”
That was what pleased Jones the most. He’s 74 now and a bit more of a figurehead than in the past. His son Stephen has a greater say in things. Still, Jones calls the final shots, and time has made him increasingly desperate to win again. Jones has been searching for two decades for not just the talent, but also the tenacity that won him those three Super Bowls, especially at the quarterback position.
Jones stuck with Romo for years believing he had it, even if the playoff victories didn’t follow. He once coveted Johnny Manziel in the draft because he confused overconfidence with competency. The Cowboys eventually found it all in an understated, unappreciated draft pick.
Sunday was merely the chance for Prescott to prove what he was about.
“The second half gave him the opportunity to go against real uphill odds and he did and he didn’t blink,” Jones said. “And he played in a way that can win championships.
“And so I know a lot more about our team after that second half of play than I did coming into this game. … I know more about – and it’s positive – what’s in store for our future. I know a lot more because of our second half. It wasn’t that I had questions about it, it’s just I saw them really buck up and not quit and use their skills [in] really sensitive times.”
“We talk a lot about the word ‘fight,’ ” coach Jason Garrett said. ” ‘Fight’ is an important word for us. It’s the foundation of our entire program. It’s fighting to be your best. It’s fighting to live up to the standards that have been set – high standards. And, maybe most importantly, it’s about fighting for each other.”
The minutes were spinning by now. The mourning process had begun. The stadium was emptying, fans scampering to their cars as the rain slapped the pavement harder and harder. Wind gusts and blots of red were all over the radar on TV. Look at that supercell there, the weathermen said. It was all kinds of bad.
No solace on a stormy night here. No consolation prize at the end of a Cowboys season. Please take shelter the warnings kept saying, but no one seemed too interested in that. Everyone was already talking about next year, next time, the next chance.
“Start that tomorrow,” Garrett promised.
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