‘Dak Prescott 20 Carries a Game!’ Cowboys Joke About Clickbait

“I don’t know where the hell that came from.” - McCarthy.

FRISCO - The minicamp-closing question was initially all about the 2021-closing play, the I’ll-fated Dak Prescott run that left the Dallas Cowboys short on yards, short on time, and short on the scoreboard.

Coach Mike McCarthy addressed the issue in detail (again), as he did repeatedly following that playoff loss to the Niners.

“At the end of the day,” McCarthy said after a lengthy X’s-and-O’s explanation. “We want to be better at the teaching and the training at it.”

So, came another media query, “Are you saying, ‘We didn’t handle it wrong and we’ll continue to do it the same way’?”

A patient McCarthy grinned.

“No,” the coach replied. “Now please don’t make that a headline because I’m not ‘running Dak 20 times,’ either, OK?

“I don’t know where the hell that came from.”

McCarthy is of course referring to this week’s revelation that a fully healthy and leaner quarterback Dak Prescott will this year be used more as a runner than he was in 2021 while dealing with the ankle surgery rehab and then an injured calf.

And maybe it was Dak’s own joke about “running 20 times a game” that somehow got skewed by some random media outlet, with its headline catching the coach’s eye.

And the coach’s playful ire.

But no, the parsing, misinterpretation and misapplication of McCarthy’s words does not mean Dak will in 2022 lead the Cowboys in carries. Nor does it mean the months-ago stubbornness about that final botched play being the fault of anybody but the Cowboys is still the mindset here.

The Cowboys goofed. The Cowboys lost. They know it.

“When you go back and review all things – “Hey, how can we be better on this play?” Obviously that’s the accountability of it … As far as the thought and design, because I don’t want to open this can of worms again … We will be better is our focus. That needs to be the headline. ‘We will be better’.”

And that’s no joke.

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