Dak Prescott Camp Update — August 31: No Backup Named Behind Him
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
The initial fifty-three keeps Dak Prescott, Sam Howell and Joe Milton with no backup announced, per Nick Eatman at the team's website, after Howell's finale — twelve of eighteen for a hundred fifty-five yards, two touchdowns and an interception — flipped the race. Dallas also traded for tackle Broderick Jones the day before cutting down.
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Dak Prescott is on the initial 53, named in Nick Eatman's cutdown report at DallasCowboys.com — no quarterback appears anywhere in Eatman's move-by-move accounting — and so are both of his backups, because Dallas declined to choose between them. The finale is why. Joe Milton started Friday's 27 to 24 loss to New Orleans and went eight of 15 for 92 yards; Sam Howell relieved him and went 12 of 18 for a hundred 55 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, including a game-tying drive on which he completed all five passes and ran in the two-point conversion, per Kurt Daniels at the team's website. Eatman wrote that the comeback, plus a two-million-dollar roster guarantee, made Howell effectively uncuttable — "Sam Howell just took someone's spot." Schottenheimer had called the race "neck and neck" before the deadline, and Jerry Jones floated keeping both, saying avoiding negative plays matters most at the position, per Tommy Yarrish at the team's website. So Dallas kept three quarterbacks and announced no second-stringer — the race resolved into a non-resolution.
The bigger Prescott news may be in front of him. On Saturday, Dallas traded for Broderick Jones — a former Pittsburgh first-round pick who played all 603 of his snaps at left tackle last season — sending third- and sixth-round picks for Jones and a fourth, per Yarrish. A day later, on cutdown day itself, the Cowboys sent tackle Nate Thomas to Houston for a seventh-round pick in 20 27, and Schottenheimer confirmed Tyler Guyton keeps the starting left tackle job — "Tyler's playing really, really well," per Yarrish.
Prescott's own preseason ended the way it ran: without a snap. That answers last week's watch line cleanly, in the negative — and it means the first-team target split, the question sitting under the Lamb, Pickens and Ferguson files all August, produced no evidence the entire preseason. Holding him out was a plan, and the plan ran to completion with no injury reporting attached to his name at any point.
The June case on Prescott was the throwing itself — one of the league's three most accurate passers by completion rate over expectation, on heavy volume, with two alpha receivers — against structural cautions about an age-33 season and no rushing cushion. Camp's final week touched none of it. The quarterback is set, the blind side has a new option behind the starter, and everything measurable now waits on the opener. We'll be back on this file as it comes into view.
_Data via nflverse._
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