Dak hoping to tidy up offense after ‘housecleaning’ approach during the bye

James D. Smith/©2024 James D. Smith/Dallas Cowboys13 October 2024: Dak Prescott (4) of the Dallas Cowboys during their regular season 47-9 loss to the Detroit Lions at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Photo by James D. Smith/Dallas Cowboys

FRISCO, Texas – Six games into the season, Dallas’ offense hasn’t looked like the top five unit they were in the category a season ago. Heading on the road to San Francisco, the Cowboys are coming after doing some housekeeping to diagnose their shortcomings.

“You go back and you look at those six weeks and you clean your house and you figure out what you’ve done wrong,” Prescott said. “What you need to get better, what haven’t you done, and I would say it was great.”

Prescott shoulders a lot of the cleaning on his own shoulders and knows the spots around the house that need to be polished the rest of the season for the Cowboys to get to where they want to go. It all starts with his mindset.

Dak Prescott: I Like To Work

“I’d say I’ve played average, and average isn’t good enough right now by any means, it’s never been good enough for me,” Prescott said. “I can’t say that I’ve been happy or excited after any of these games that I’ve played but understanding that there’s more plays out there for me to make, whether it’s in the design or not, I’m capable of it.”

It was a busy bye week for Prescott, who got engaged to his now-fiancé, Sarah Jane, and still found time to get in work at the facility and on his own. While some players prefer to disconnect and get away from football as much as they can during their time off, Prescott isn’t wired that way and spent time working both at the facility and at home.

“I can’t be stagnant. It’s hard for me to be, so I’ve got to work,” Prescott said. “If there’s times that there’s a couple hours within the day that I can fit it in, especially whether it’s the bye or whatever, I’m going to make sure that I can do that.”

Part of that time was dedicated to getting his connection back with CeeDee Lamb, something the Cowboys offense has been craving desperately after exploding onto the scene in 2023. And it sounds like the extra week has paid off.

“I can just tell you now, it’s been better in these last couple of days.” Prescott said.

While a lot of the attention has gone to the Lamb-Prescott connection, Dak fand Jake Ferguson feel like they need to also do a better job of getting on the same page after their second-year bond led to 761 yards and five touchdowns. Prescott views Ferguson as a leader of this team, and a much-needed aggressor for Sunday night.

“When you talk about being physical, aggression, communicating, he’s a guy that you can turn to and he’s going to do that,” Prescott said. “I know after last year playing this team that we’re about to play, it felt like we got bullied and we said, we’re going to come out this game and we need some aggressors. And he was the guy that we turned to, took on that responsibility very proudly.”

Prescott knows that in order to get this machine back to where it’s been at its best, he needs to both do more and play better. He’ll have a chance to do that Sunday night against the 49ers, where he looks for this third career win over the San Francisco in six games played against them, and Dallas’ first win against the red and gold since 2020.