Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has historically responded from a bad performance or a loss with a pretty good game.
It’s something inside of him that is driven to make amends. He called it an addiction to winning.
“Yeah, just the taste that it leaves in your mouth all week long,” Prescott said. “And it’s just about wanting to feel that win again. That’s the addictive drug part about it, right? It’s trying to get that high of getting that win, of getting that locker room feeling and then when you compare that with the locker room Sunday, they’re not even comparable.
“You just want to do everything you can to make sure you’re putting your team and yourself in the position to get back to that feeling.”
That is certainly Prescott’s mindset heading into Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Falcons after experiencing one of the worst performances of his career in the 30-16 loss to the Denver Broncos last week.
Prescott completed 19 of 39 passes for 232 yards with two meaningless touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
But he was just 5 of 14 in the first half (35.7%), the worst first-half completion percentage of his career. He was 6 of 19 for 79 after three quarters before finishing 13 of 20 for 153 yards in garbage time.
Prescott was undone by several dropped passes from his receivers and some poor blocking up front but he also missed a lot of throws that he normally makes.
Prescott is admittedly hurt by his poor play and has been properly motivated to redeem himself against the Falcons.
“A loss is a loss. They all suck. When you don’t play as well as I expect to play, yeah, it hurts,” he said. “You’ve got to come out here and you’ve got to use that as motivation, use that as a way to find a way to get better. Find a way to get better whether it’s on the field or off the field, in my preparation, make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Prescott says the calf strain that kept him off the field against the Minnesota Vikings had nothing to do with his poor play. He said he was 100% and ready to go.
But he does admit that his fundamentals and footwork were sloppy against the Broncos, which could be attributed to the missed practice time due to the calf strain.
“He [Dak] definitely felt like his timing was off a bit,” receiver Amari Cooper said. “Dak is huge on practice. He’s a big practice guy. Obviously he really didn’t get to practice like he wanted to so he felt like that affected his game. So he’s practicing now, so we should be fine.”
Prescott said his poor timing and bad mechanics were evident after watching the film on the flubbed pass to wide open receiver Cedrick Wilson on fourth-and-2 in the first quarter.
“I didn’t get my lower half underneath and tried to change my arm angle and when you add those two, that’s exactly what you get,” Prescott said.
It contributed to accuracy issues throughout the game.
So those are things he has honed in on this week in practice.
“I think my footwork was poor in that game and I think it may have come from the lack of it over the last few weeks,” Prescott said. “I wasn’t driving my throws. None of that was clean. It took film and I realized I wasn’t getting my feet in the ground, wasn’t sitting on my back leg like I normally do and that’s what this week was, getting back to work and making sure I did that.”
