FRISCO, Texas – Dak Prescott hasn't yet returned to full practice from a shoulder strain sustained in practice July 28, but Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones isn't concerned at all about the starting quarterback's availability for the Sept. 9 season opener at Tampa Bay.
"I wouldn't be nervous this morning as to where he is in his recovery. He's there," Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan. "I'd like for him to have this week of practice just to get ready to play Tampa, but of course we've got two and a half weeks. But the bottom line is he's there."
With an abundance of caution, the Cowboys have kept Prescott out of team drills (and preseason games) and restricted his throwing volume over the past four weeks. Gradually his workload has increased. He went through a successful pre-game routine of about 50 throws before kickoff Saturday against Houston, and head coach Mike McCarthy expects him to do more in practice this week, though it remains to be seen if he'll get any reps in competitive drills.
"When he wants to right now he can let it go and does," Jones said. "A lot of those exercises that he does as well as the actually throwing the ball, that'll increase as each day goes by, each practice goes by, that'll increase as we go toward Tampa.
"It's interesting to note, though, that if he'd had to, he could've finished a game. If he'd had to, he could've gone out in my mind the next week and played. But since we're over 17 games away from potentially even being in the playoffs and hopefully several games in the playoffs, it just doesn't make any sense. Just slightly evaluating it says, give it a little rest."
Jones said the current restrictions in Prescott's current workload are "100%" about preventing the injury from resurfacing later in the season.
"I have no compunction about him going out there and playing against Tampa, or for that matter playing early," Jones said. "I just want to do everything we can so that there's no issues as we go on through the season because we didn't give it a little rest in the offseason."
