Did Patriots' Bill Belichick Snub Cowboys' Dak Prescott?
When asked about facing Micah Parsons Sunday in Arlington, New England Patriots' quarterback Mac Jones said the Dallas Cowboys' star defender is "the best player we've gone against so far."
Pats coach Bill Belichick so gushed over Parsons, in fact, that he compared him to legendary Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor before slightly walking the hyperbole back.
As one of the best teams in the NFL the past two seasons, the Parsons-led Cowboys are saturated with stars. When asked to preview this week's opponent, Belichick gushed about them for five full minutes.
In all, he mentioned - by name - 21 players, coaches and front-office personnel. Curiously, Belichick didn't utter a single word about the Cowboys' high-profile quarterback, Dak Prescott.
When the Patriots played the Cowboys two years ago, Belichick opened his press conference with “Dak’s Dak.” In that Dallas 35-29 win in Foxboro, Prescott threw for 445 yards and three touchdowns, including the game-winner in overtime to CeeDee Lamb.
Maybe Wednesday's omission was scripted, because it's so obvious what Prescott means to Dallas.
Still, it feels weird that the only person in America not breathlessly dissecting Dak's season and performance in last week's upset loss to the Cardinals is Sunday's opposing head coach.
For what it's worth, Belichick's Dak-less diatribe about the Cowboys included mentions of:
Jerry Jones. Stephen Jones. Mike McCarthy. Dan Quinn. John Fassel. KaVontae Turpin. Tony Pollard. Lamb. Brandin Cooks. Parsons. DeMarcus Lawrence. Osa Odighizuwa. Stephon Gilmore. Malik Hooker. DaRon Bland. Jourdan Lewis. Leighton Vander Esch. Jayron Kearse. Brandon Aubrey. C.J. Goodwin. Mazi Smith.
"It’s always interesting to look at Dallas," Belichick said. "Obviously a really good football team. They’ve been good for quite a while. You can see why they have the consistency that they’ve had, and Mike’s kind of, I’d say changed things up a little bit this year. And it looks like that’s working out pretty well too.
“There you have it. That’s Dallas.”
