“It’s Christmas, I’m going to enjoy Christmas, man,” Schottenheimer said when asked about playing Prescott next week. “I’m going to have some eggnog and I’ll deal with that when I get looking back at the film.”
Last week, Prescott said that he would fight Schottenheimer for the chance to play this week against the Commanders on Christmas, and while he’s more understanding of the circumstances with one game remaining and taking a lot of hits, he still plans to try and push his first-year head coach to let him close out the season on the field.
“I’ll have some fight back,” Prescott said. “Again it depends on how it comes – what’s the purpose, what’s the reason? Obviously I understand being approached about it… the conversations we’ve already had about it are for me to play. With the season being where it is, trying to make sure we finish 8-8-1, that’s important, that’s important to me, a lot of pride in that. I want to go out there and I want to win most importantly. Me starting I feel like gives us the best chance obviously. I want to play.”
In Prescott’s eyes, there’s a noticeable contrast between finishing the year 7-9-1 instead of 8-8-1.
“Big difference,” Prescott said. “A lot of pride, I think that’s another reason I want to play. In a season of me being healthy, I’ve never had, in all of my life, career, a season under .500. So that tie’s going to come into play really well. It’s a huge difference.”
In his first career game played on Christmas Day, Prescott completed 19 of his 37 passing attempts for 307 yards and two touchdowns. Most of his production came on throws that were 10+ yards down the field (180 yards), but he was 6 of 16 on such throws and has some he certainly wants back.
“Definitely wasn’t my sharpest…” Prescott said. “A couple of them, they did a good job of putting the top on it. I wanted to be greedy early and I honestly had some of my shots, [and] missed them.”
Prescott recalled multiple throws where he missed CeeDee Lamb, who was targeted 10 times but only had five catches for 46 yards. The disconnect there was for a variety of reasons, and both he and Lamb were frustrated with themselves because of the bar they set for themselves.
“One or two of them, I had a little note for him. The other ones, ‘my fault, bro, I missed you,'” Prescott said. “Simple as that, and that was on me, wasn’t a great play, wasn’t great feet, whatever it was that led to the miss. But then there was one or two that I would say [was] communication, not necessarily verbal, but just body language and something that we’ll keep working and getting better at.”
“We know we have such high standards, both of us do. You’re talking about the best receiver in this organization maybe ever in CeeDee Lamb. He wants to catch every ball that’s thrown his way, and that’s what we believe can happen. And so when it’s not, it’s frustration there, but that frustration only allows us to go back to work and get better.”
Dallas’ run game set a career best in rushing yards in a game with 211 and the Cowboys were six-for-six on fourth down, two points of emphasis that Brian Schottenheimer had pointed out for the offense coming into the week.
“It was big,” Prescott said of the Cowboys’ success on fourth downs. “I think just one, knowing going into this game, knowing these short yardage [situations] just talking with Schotty, we’re going to be going for it. A few of those third downs he even told me, ‘Hey, you got two downs here.’ I think that allows you to set up the third down to feel confident about it. And then just the playcalling, obviously we’ve got make throws and execute, but he did a great job on all those fourth downs on the play calls… for us able to get that, go six for six, was huge in this win.”
On Dallas’ opening three possessions, the Cowboys once again started off hot with three straight touchdown drives. After that, they added just nine points the rest of the way. It got the job done, but Prescott still knows that a lot was left on the table.
“It was important just to get that lead, make them play from behind, but we’ve got to do a better job of finishing,” Prescott said. “This game could’ve stayed lopsided. We’ve got to do a better job on offense of getting that done.”
The offense will look to close the year out strong next week against the New York Giants, but will enjoy this victory especially with it coming on a holiday in Christmas.
“Winning’s fun, winning’s great, especially when you get to do it on Christmas, you get to do it to end a three-game losing streak, and you get a division game on top of that,” Prescott said.” It’s all fun, winning’s fun, it’s what you do it for. We wanted to end that losing streak and wanted to make sure we can finish this game and next week on a high note in getting wins and taking good momentum into the offseason.”
