FRISCO, TX – The Dallas Cowboys (4-2) and back in AT&T Stadium after two weeks on the road to host the Detroit Lions (1-4) on Sunday. Kick off is at noon.
All the focus this week has been on no. 4. Dak Prescott is rested, healed, and ready to go. The Cowboys have been without their starting quarterback since week 1 when he injured his thumb late in the fourth quarter against the Bucs.
Prescott’s offense has looked slightly different than what he is used to from last year with a developing WR Noah Brown, a healthy WR Michael Gallup, and a rising star in rookie TE Jake Ferguson.
Brown has really shown improvement for this Dallas offense. He is currently second in targets for the Cowboys and averages 48.2 yards per game.
Prescott has been without Gallup since January after Gallup went down with a torn ACL. These two haven’t connected on a pass in nine months and they seem to be avoiding each other on the field caused by injuries to both parties.
Dalton Schultz has been injured and did not play against the Eagles, rookie TE Jake Ferguson took over for him and did a tremendous job. He scored his first NFL touchdown and finished the game with four catches for 40 total yards.
“Yeah it was awesome. Leading up to that play I was like alright this one is mine.” Ferguson told us after practice on Wednesday afternoon.
“I was like alright I just scored my first NFL touchdown and it felt pretty good.” Ferguson said.
Due to Prescott having a lot of new bodies out there on the field that he is not used to, beside CeeDee Lamb, Head Coach Mike McCarthy said the plan is for Prescott to go through a 40-50 throw passing session after practice with the perimeter players on Wednesday. He completed that and Coach McCarthy said it was successful and he looked good. The same plan is in the works for Prescott following practice on Thursday.
McCarthy is big on not letting Prescott throw too many passes and overwork himself this week.
“It’s a challenge to grab that in this short a period of time,” Mike McCarthy said. “That’s why it think really putting a ceiling on the workload is important. Because Lord knows he’d throw 140 yesterday if we let him.” McCarthy said in the Thursday morning press conference.
The Lions defense is the worst in the league in every category and gives up five touchdowns a game. Some would say this is a perfect game for Prescott’s return so he can get comfortable with his offense and get his feet wet.
The only thing going for the Lions is their offense’s ability to score points. Before getting completely shut out by the Patriots two weeks ago Detroit was averaging 35 points per game. QB Jared Goff has thrown 11 touchdowns so far this season and Detroit as a whole racks up over 400 yards of total offense per game.
Dallas’s defense struggled against the Eagles but are still a top tier defense, ranked third in the NFL. Through week five the Cowboys only allowed two touchdowns per game on average to their opponents. With the pass rush that the Cowboys have, Goff isn’t gonna have as much time to throw as he is used to.
Detroit is coming off a bye week and are well rested so despite the 1-4 record the Lions will put points on the board if Dallas allows it. The Cowboys can not take this Detroit team lightly.
These two teams will go head to head on Sunday in AT&T Stadium at 12:00 PM CST.
