Why Dak Prescott believes the Cowboys just have to win 1000%…even though he always beats the Giants

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – Calling a Week 4 game against a sub-.500 team a “must-win” might sound dramatic.

But when the Dallas Cowboys took a moment to reflect on the misery that would come from going home at 1-3, the nickname didn’t seem so inappropriate.

It wasn’t just about the expectation that they would beat the New York Giants, because, well, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has done nothing else in eight straight seasons and 13 games.

It was about the noise that grew louder after the New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens soundly outplayed the Cowboys in their own building.

This was about the reality that there is a young locker room in the age of social media does They hear the outside noise, even if the team management would be happy if they didn’t.

After head coaches Mike McCarthy and Dak Prescott discussed in a recent conversation how naive it would be to hope they could ask players to silence the noise, they realized they would be better off begging their star-studded locker room not to to engage with the emotional wave of narratives from outside, even when exposed to them.

They need to show more to fully gain the trust of the league. But their best chance of going that route was to start this 10-day stretch between games with a win.

So allow Prescott to make his admission after the Cowboys beat the Giants 20-15.

“This was one thousand percent a must,” Prescott said on the way to the team bus. “We like it better before a long weekend. But at the end of the day… it’s a process. We will not become complacent. We’re not going to get too upset about what we did tonight. It’s about building and finding out what we can do better at all stages.

“But with a win it’s a lot easier.”

The Prescott-to-Lamb connection makes all the difference

Prescott was one of the first to point out a moment where he could have done better.

The Cowboys opened Thursday night’s contest with a three-pointer and paved the way for the Giants to get on the field first with a field goal.

Prescott reviewed film of the first drive on the sidelines between series and realized: wide receiver CeeDee Lamb was a more viable option on the game’s second play than he thought. Second-year cornerback Deonte Banks was in coverage, but the double coverage that the $34 million-a-year receiver has seen so often this season wasn’t as noticeable on this look.

“After that I said, ‘I’m just going to play fast, trust my feet, trust my eyes,'” Prescott said.

On the second drive, the Cowboys did.

Prescott didn’t just give to Lamb a Opportunity on the next drive – he gave Lamb five, also on a running play. The star receiver caught all four of Prescott’s passes for 30 yards and did a jet sweep for another 10 yards. Now the receiver who wished he had better control of his emotions in Sunday’s loss to the Ravens was engaged, and the entire team could feel it when Lamb’s attention opened up. When running back Rico Dowdle scored the first touchdown .

“I understand how important he is to get the offense going and do what he does to boost his confidence,” Prescott told Yahoo Sports. “When he’s in a good mood, everyone else is just because he’s so energetic.”

The Cowboys again held the Giants to a field goal on their second drive, setting up an end zone-less night for New York.

Prescott was happy to have the narrow lead, but still wanted to include Lamb more – especially if the receiver could manipulate a single cover.

So when the Giants sent a blitz on first-and-10 with 9:25 left in the first quarter, Prescott misled the safety with his eyes as Lamb beat Banks off the line. He was careful not to overshoot the ball for safety reasons, but instead trusted Lamb to operate in space. The result was a 55-yard touchdown.

“He managed to get him the ball and broke the tackle,” Prescott said. “It felt good to get him off to a fast start.”

The Cowboys couldn’t get far away from the Giants as Dallas took penalty after penalty, disrupted its rhythm and created awkward third-and-long situations en route to going 3 of 10 on third-down conversions. Dallas accepted 89 penalty yards on 11 flags on a night that saw several more flags rejected or misplaced.

The offense moved the ball well enough to still score, and the defense stopped the run well enough to limit the Giants to five field goals. But Prescott knew his team wasn’t reaching its full potential as he completed 22 of 27 passes for 221 yards, two touchdowns and a passer rating of 125.5 as the Cowboys scored just 20 points.

“If you take away a few penalties and things like that, the result is a lot different,” Prescott said. “We are a completely different world.”

At 2-2, what do the Cowboys need to capitalize on this?

There was a calmness in the Cowboys’ locker room after the game that didn’t quite reach the level of solemnity.

Lamb said there was “more joy” after “a period where everyone is kind of tense” following a two-game losing streak.

But the relief was more palpable than the exuberance.

“Winning is important … but it wasn’t perfect,” edge rusher Micah Parsons said. “I don’t want to come over anymore. I want real victories. I want to win consistently. And we have a tough matchup coming up next week (against Pittsburgh).”

The Cowboys consoled themselves with a drastically improved run defense for at least a week, allowing just 26 total yards and 1.1 yards per carry after back-to-back weeks, yielding 190 and 274 rushing yards, respectively.

The Giants’ rushing attack may not intimidate the league like previous opponents Alvin Kamara and Derrick Henry, but New York still rushed for 129 and then 112 yards in the last two games.

Reducing that number by nearly five times made sense since the Giants only had 26 yards on the ground. The players hoped that performance reflected an increasing comfort level in their first season under Mike Zimmer’s system, as the coordinator preaches spacing discipline and stopping the run to earn the right to rush the passer.

“We knew right at the start of training camp why they brought coach Zimmer,” cornerback Jourdan Lewis told Yahoo Sports. “We need to be more patchy and stop the run.”

Next up: The Cowboys offense hopes to solidify the defense without penalties and inches in the run game to allow for play-action and bootlegs in the passing game. The Cowboys defense wants to impact the passer more than the group did on a night where Daniel Jones completed 29 of 40 pass attempts for 281 yards, including 12 of 15 for 115 yards to star rookie Malik Nabers.

Dallas held off New York with an interception to seal the game.

The team took a few hits on defense as edge rushers DeMarcus Lawrence and Parsons will both miss time after leaving Thursday’s game with injuries. Parsons reportedly has a severe ankle sprain and Lawrence has a foot injury. Both will likely be out until after the team’s bye in Week 7.

This contest will be back in the spotlight as Dallas travels to a Sunday Night Football game against the currently 3-0 Steelers that is sure to reinforce the Cowboys narrative in one direction or another.

Prescott will implore his teammates to stay level in the hustle and bustle. He will also know how difficult it is.

“If the guys want to learn about themselves on this team, hopefully it’s all positive,” Prescott said. “Keep their confidence and just allow them to build momentum. (I’ve) played on a lot of different teams, and some of them just got hot when you got going. That’s what we want to do.

“Get hot at the right time, build up.”

He hopes a visit to New York on Thursday night will be the start, even though he knows not everyone agrees on the significance of the victory. Prescott remembers the Giants beating him in his first professional game, and again later in the 2016 season, when he beat every other team he faced that season. He hasn’t lost to the Giants since – but should that negate the power of the win?

“Shit, give it credit,” Prescott said. “Not everyone beats the Giants all the time.”