Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott will undergo season-ending surgery on his partially torn hamstring, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan. The surgery will take place Wednesday in New York, Jones said.
Prescott suffered the injury in the Cowboys’ Week 9 loss to the Atlanta Falcons at the end of the third quarter. He walked off the field unassisted after he “felt something pull” in his hamstring. Prescott later described the injury as “something I’ve never felt.”
The 3-6 Cowboys were already planning to be without their franchise QB for multiple weeks. Prescott was sidelined with the injury for Dallas’ game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday — a 34-6 loss that featured a sputtering Cowboys offense with Cooper Rush and Trey Lance both seeing time under center.
Dallas now knows it’ll close out the remainder of its injury-riddled season led by its backups (Will Grier is also being added to the team’s practice squad), while Prescott concludes his 2024 campaign. He finishes the season completing 185 of 286 passes for 1,978 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Prescott’s 64.7 completion percentage is his lowest since 2017, while his 3.8 percent touchdown rate and 2.8 percent interception rate are the worst and second-worst of his career, respectively. His eight interceptions are the most he’s thrown through the first eight games of a season since 2022.
Prescott didn’t want surgery, but needs it
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas that Prescott “doesn’t want surgery” and that he “wants to be on the field and go for it.”
Covering Prescott for his entire nine-year Cowboys career, it’s not a surprise that he’d like to fight through this injury to get back on the field as soon as possible, even though the three-win Cowboys appear to be headed for one of their worst finishes in the last 15 years. But this seems to be a case where medical professionals will have to protect Prescott from himself. If returning too early could make the injury worse, it makes sense to do whatever is best for the long haul.
Prescott is only 31. He’s under contract with the Cowboys for four more seasons. He has hopes of remaining in Dallas beyond his current deal. Whatever is best for Prescott’s future is the best decision here. I might feel a little different if this was a Super Bowl-caliber team. Maybe hold out hope of him returning in the final weeks of the regular season. But we have clearly seen through nearly the first half of the season that this is far from a championship contender. Let Rush and Lance finish out the season. — Jon Machota, Cowboys beat writer
Was this news expected?
A season-ending injury only formally and officially determines Prescott’s fate this season, which was headed in a season-ending direction anyway. The Cowboys have already been playing themselves out of postseason contention, and that was with Prescott under center.
Even if he was out for the minimum four weeks that injured reserve would require, the Cowboys would have likely been in a spot in the standings where it would have made no sense for him to return to the field. The biggest change here isn’t on the “season-ending” element of the news but more so the fact that the hamstring requires surgery, even though Prescott was hoping to recover without the need for another trip to the operating table. — Saad Yousuf, Cowboys beat writer
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
