FRISCO, Texas — Ever since Dallas Cowboys face-of-the-franchise quarterback Dak Prescott went down for the season in Week 9 against the Atlanta Falcons with a hamstring tear, eight-year veteran backup Cooper Rush has been the starter.
In the leadup to the Cowboys’ (7-9) season finale at AT&T Stadium against the Washington Commanders, head coach Mike McCarthy has changed his tune. Dallas was all in on starting Rush when the team was still mathematically alive to reach the postseason. The Cowboys are 4-4 in his eight starts since Week 10, and he has completed 61.3% of his passes while averaging 209.6 passing yards per game. Rush’s 11-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio since Week 10 is tied for 17th in the NFL with MVP candidate Josh Allen, but his passer rating in this stretch is just 86.6, 25th among the league’s 32 qualified quarterbacks in this span.
Now, there’s a chance Trey Lance, the 2021 third overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers, could be in the mix for serious play time on Sunday. Rush, 31, and Lance, 24, are both set to be free agents in March.
“I really like what Cooper’s done,” McCarthy said Monday. “I think we all have to recognize the job that he’s done to this point. This is the time that you do think about not only the quarterback positions, all positions. We want to make sure that we do have information on our young players. Frankly, we probably have plenty because of just how much they played so. We’re not really looking to answer those kinds of questions right now, so we’ll talk about that moving forward. I’d like to be in a position where everybody plays. I think that would be practical. How we make it happen and how we put it together, the game plan, that’s what we’ll be doing here the next 36 hours.”
Lance has completed five of his seven passes this season for 22 yards and an interception while rushing for 15 yards on five carries in mop-up duty. However, that’s not all Lance, and by extension, the entire Cowboys quarterback room behind Prescott is being judged upon in the 2024 season’s final week.
“I think the biggest thing when you look at the quarterback position here, when I’m putting together an evaluation, I have the benefit of being with them every day,” McCarthy said Thursday. “I spent a tremendous amount of time with them. I make sure that I’m on top of it like what we do in quarterback school. [Quarterbacks coach] Scott Tolzien has done an incredible job staying on top of the fundamentals and everything is calculated. I would say they’ve all improved. I think Cooper would stand here and say he’s playing the best ball of his career and I know Trey is definitely improving and it’s been good to have Will [Grier] back.”
The last time Lance received serious run was Dallas’ preseason finale against the Los Angeles Chargers. That day he threw for 323 passing yards, a passing touchdown and five interceptions while completing 33 of his 49 passes. Lance also ran for 90 yards and a touchdown — a 46-yard read-option sprint — on 11 carries.
“Yeah, a lot,” Lance said of how much he’s learned since the preseason finale in August. “Honestly, any time you turn the ball over that many times, it’s easier to smile talking about it now than it was going back four months ago or whatever it was. Yeah, I learned a ton from it. Made mistakes, learned from them. Some good things, some bad things that’s how it goes.”
If given the opportunity, Lance sees himself as capable of being an NFL starting quarterback.
“Yeah absolutely, no doubt,” Lance said. … “I think if you don’t think that about yourself, then you got no chance, and I truly believe that in my heart. I feel like it’s just where you draw your confidence from, what you have your faith in. I feel like I’ve worked to get to this point, and I’m not going to stop until that opportunity comes, and I’m able to make the most of it.”
Once McCarthy was put on the spot Thursday in regards to his Week 18 starting quarterback, he ducked the question.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” McCarthy said Thursday. “We’re looking at this as a competition between football operations. We’re going to stay the course.”
Rush, who has been Prescott’s backup for almost his entire career, isn’t phased by the uncertainty of it all. That’s just the life of a backup quarterback at the NFL level.
“Especially how I’ve come up in the NFL, it’s always an eval,” Rush said Thursday. “Every practice, every game. It’s nothing new.”
Rush says he hadn’t been told there’s been a quarterback change, and he hasn’t noticed a difference in terms of how the Cowboys have been operating with him as their starter since Week 10, the first week after Prescott suffered his season-ending hamstring tear.
“I haven’t been told anything different,” Rush said. “It’s been pretty business as usual. So just going out through the week. Kind of a normal week.”
While there’s plenty of reasons for Dallas to want to get a closer look at what Lance can do in regular-season action, Rush would love nothing more than to be treated as the full-time starter for one more week. CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones reported on Thursday that Rush will receive $500,000 in incentives if he plays 55% of the team’s snaps in 2024. Entering Week 18, he’s played 52.5% of the Cowboys’ offensive snaps. Dallas averages 64.3 offensive snaps per game this season, the seventh-highest rate in the league this season. If he plays at least 65 snaps, that should be enough to get him his $500,000. If he doesn’t, he’ll receive $250,000 for playing over 45% of the Cowboys’ offensive snaps.
“Yeah, they’re [incentives] in the contract for a reason, times like this,” Rush said. “You’ll see what happens. … Those are always fun parts of the contracts.”
