Cowboys Quarterback Dak Prescott on the NFC East: ‘It Is as Long as We Win’

Dak Prescott gave everyone the line they wanted, then took half of it back. Asked about the division after the Dallas Cowboys beat the Eagles in Philadelphia, the quarterback said the NFC East is “right in front of us,” the phrase that ran across the recaps. The next sentence is the one that tells you how he plays the position: “It is as long as we win.”

That clause is the whole quote. Prescott was not staking a claim. He was pointing at a trapdoor. “And if you lose another game, then you’re probably checking to see what New York’s doing,” he said. “You’re probably checking and watching the other teams more than we should.” A quarterback who talks like that is telling you where his discipline lives: in the next snap, not in the standings.

The NFC East is open because nobody has walked through the door

The consensus read is that Dallas got back on track, and the scoreboard supports it. The context explains why Prescott chose his words so carefully. Before this week, the NFC East had become the first division since the merger to go winless in consecutive weeks in which all four of its teams played, as the Commanders’ own weekly division review noted. Philadelphia, a Super Bowl winner under Nick Sirianni not long ago, has lost Jalen Hurts for the season to blood clots and has now dropped five straight. Washington sat out the week on a bye at 1-4-1. The New York Giants lead at 4-2-1.

That is how a 3-4 team becomes the favorite. ESPN Analytics now gives Dallas a 57% chance of winning the division, and the win lifted the Cowboys to 2-1 in division games. The prize sits in front of them because the field stepped aside, and Prescott did not mistake one for the other. He had called this a “must win” game before kickoff, and he played it like one.

How the Cowboys found the balance they kept promising

The method mattered more than the margin. Dallas arrived 31st in the league in rushing, at 76 yards a game, according to the team’s own site, with Prescott coming off 54 pass attempts in the loss to Green Bay. In Philadelphia, Javonte Williams carried 25 times for a career-high 155 yards, and the offense finally breathed. Prescott needed only 27 throws: 15 completions, 212 yards, two touchdowns to CeeDee Lamb and one to George Pickens, whose toe-tap at the back of the end zone Prescott called “one of the best catches and toe-taps I’ve seen in a long time.” ESPN noted it was the first time since 1983 that Dallas topped 200 yards both rushing and passing against the Eagles.

The game turned at the moment it threatened to slip. Philadelphia led 21-20 in the third quarter after rookie Makai Lemon caught the first touchdown of his NFL career. Dallas answered with 18 unanswered points, starting with a 16-yard touchdown to Lamb and a two-point conversion Prescott ran in himself. Brandon Aubrey added a field goal, DeMarvion Overshown intercepted Tanner McKee on a fourth-quarter drive, and Williams finished it from 2 yards out with 2:21 left. The Eagles never sacked Prescott and never hit him. It was the Cowboys’ first win in Philadelphia since January 2022.

Schottenheimer took the heat, and Prescott stood next to him

The win also bought Brian Schottenheimer a quieter week. The head coach, who calls the plays, had said during the week, “I know how great of a coach I am,” despite a 9-13-1 record, and described himself as an “elite playcaller” on 105.3 The Fan, ESPN reported. After the game he kept his answers short. Asked whether he was OK, he said: “I’m great. Excited for our guys.”

Prescott said he noticed a “definitely hungry, pissed-off version of Schotty.” Then he closed ranks: “We’ve got his back. He knows that.” It is the same reflex as the division line. Protect the room, and keep the noise outside it.

The defense is the unfinished part. The Eagles scored touchdowns on the opening drive of each half, the second an 84-yard march that ate almost 10 minutes, with a backup quarterback and a hobbled Saquon Barkley. Against a healthier offense, those drives cost more.

Why the Cardinals game is the real test of Prescott’s NFC East line

Which brings the condition back to the front. Dallas has not won back-to-back games since a three-game streak in Weeks 11 to 13 last season, according to ESPN. The next chance comes Sunday against the 2-5 Arizona Cardinals at AT&T Stadium, the first of two straight home games. “Momentum’s real,” Prescott said, adding later in the same answer: “You get two in a row, you start stacking.”

He has already said what a loss to Arizona would mean. The Cowboys would spend the next week doing the thing their quarterback warned against: checking on New York.

Tags: Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, Dak Prescott, Javonte Williams, NFC East