OXNARD, Calif. – To be perfectly frank, it's been hard to sum up the vibe of this first week of training camp.
It might be better to let the leader of the team describe the battle that's playing out on these practice fields.
"Just watching practice over these eight practices or so, you can say that it's back and forth," said Dak Prescott. "They win a drill, we win a drill. They might win one day, but we come back and respond the next day."
That's more or less the gist as the Cowboys inch toward their first preseason game. As the practices have piled up, there appears to be a stalemate between a talented offense and a defense that is quite capable of stopping them.
"I can't say we've been out here beating up on them, and I damn sure wouldn't say they're beating up on us," Prescott said.
Instead, it's been a hard-fought week. Saturday evening, the defense completely stymied the offense in an impressive set of red zone drills. Sunday, during the annual Blue/White Scrimmage, Prescott had success in finding the likes of Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb, although he also saw one of his red zone passes intercepted by Xavier Woods – Woods' third interception of this training camp.
"This defense is good. They're going to do that," Prescott said. "They're going to frustrate me, they're going to frustrate a bunch of quarterbacks that we play throughout the season."
That's the purpose of training camp, after all. Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones said Prescott came to camp with the intention of working on his deep ball, and his throws during training camp bear that out.
Those throws haven't all been good, to be sure – but that's kind of the point.
"I've had a couple turnovers, but it's simply just trying throws – when to make throws, when to try them. The whole risk versus reward thing," Prescott said. "I'm getting better, and at the end of the day that's what I'm trying to do."
It makes things hard to decipher from the outside perspective, but it's pretty entertaining. And if the big picture looks a little muddy because of the competition, there's always a bright side to consider.
"I'm a half-full guy, so I go to sleep with visions of sugar plums over the side that won that day, and I think we're going to get it done because of that side," Jones said. "I never look at the other side."
