49ers Hangover? Cowboys Dak Prescott: 'I Still Think About It'

Despite Tom Brady and the Bucs in front of them, Dallas is still looking back at what went wrong last January against San Francisco.

Future Hall-of-Fame coach and straightforward football philosopher Bill Belichick never peers beyond his blinders.

Ask the forever New England Patriots' boss about anything - last week, next year, what he had for breakfast - and his answer will invariably be ... "We're on to (insert next opponent)."

Though the Dallas Cowboys would obviously love to duplicate Belichick's six Super Bowls, they're not prepared to follow his uber-focused mental blueprint. For example, quarterback Dak Prescott admitted in an interview with ESPN this week that he often relives the excruciating Wild Card loss to the San Francisco 49ers last January.

We won't gore you with the painful details about the most chaotic, crushing, non-play in Cowboys' playoff history. But Prescott will.

"I still think about it and relive it every and now then, honestly," Prescott said. "It's reflection, and in a way I never want to forget it."

Prescott seemingly has enough on his plate in the wake of preseason.

His team committed an ungodly 35 penalties in three games, including 22 by players who will likely see action on most Sundays. ("We know we could be a way better team if we could get rid of these penalties," he said.) He's entering the season healthy, but without one of his top receivers (Amari Cooper) and best blockers (Tyron Smith) from last year's team that went 12-5 and won the NFC East. And in the first two games of the season, he'll square off against quarterbacks who played in the last two Super Bowls in Tampa Bay's Tom Brady and the Bengals' Joe Burrow.

But, unlike Belichick, in order to move forward Prescott needs to look back.

The Cowboys - rightfully so - can blame a bungling batch of referees for helping them lose to San Francisco. But Dak says it's not just the start of that playoff loss that still eats at him.

"The high confidence we had going into the game, and to lose in such an odd and unfortunate way ... , "he said. "With something like that you have to reflect on it in order to move forward and get better. We've got to learn from the way we started that game. Didn’t come out with enough juice and energy, and we allowed them to beat us early and it showed physically throughout the game. Coach (Mike McCarthy) told us after the game to remember this feeling. It hurt then and it hurt for a while."

Just two weeks from the season opener, the Cowboys are not simply "on to Tampa Bay." Not yet. And maybe not ever.