OXNARD, Calif. – After a UFC fight a few months ago, Cowboys QB Dak Prescott remembers running into Dallas’ new OLB Von Miller in Las Vegas.
"Hey man, it's about time, Dak," Miller said he told Prescott during that visit. "It's about time. You've got to break through with one of these teams, you've got to break through one of these years. I think this year you'll be able to do it. You've got everybody to do it."
It's something that Prescott has heard countless times over the course of his career, and again as he heads into his 11th season as the quarterback of the Cowboys. The 2026 season is no different in terms of the expectations Prescott has placed on himself in all his previous years.
"It is time to break through," Prescott said. "I've said it before, we can't do it by ourselves, but we are asked to make up at times. We are responsible for what the position you put your team in. So I don't take much into it."
"[The media] and you people who understand me now, know me, I'm harder on myself that anyone is in high expectations and standards and goals. So when I hear it these days, I'm more just like, 'cool,' and 'you're right.' I can't even say that that's inspiring or motivating me, because I'm moved and founded by much deeper. So hell yeah, absolutely I'm ready to win."
Prescott and the Cowboys will get their chance to start winning on September 13 when they open the regular season on Sunday Night Football against the Giants. Over the last three and a half weeks at training camp in Oxnard, Prescott feels they've taken the right steps towards achieving that goal.
"It's been a successful camp," Prescott said. "You can't hang your hat on everything we did is exactly what we're going to do, we're going to move forward and this is the team and we don't need to get any better, because that's absolutely not true. We've still got two more weeks of training camp. I'd say a successful start to training camp, right where we need to be in the sense of growing."
At the beginning of Dallas' 20th training camp in Oxnard, head coach Brian Schottenheimer said he wanted to see more physicality from his team during their time on the west coast. From Prescott's perspective, they accomplished that goal.
"I think it's been physical," Prescott said. "And at the end of the day, that's what football is. If you're not physical, you're not truly loving to hit somebody, to lower your pads, to deliver the hit, then you're definitely in the wrong business or you're not gonna make it long. It's got to be physical."
"You want to be the best team, you want to be a running team, it starts with the physicality up front. Then again, the small guys have to block. They always say you can tell a team's character from how the little guys hit and how the big guys run. That's something that I know we've tried to take a lot of pride in, and these guys have shown it."
With physicality, at times, comes chippiness, which was evident in Dallas’ joint practice against the Saints. Prescott recognized the urgency that he and his teammates have, but that it must be controlled.
"We've got a lot of guys that have a lot to prove, on a team that feels like we've got a lot to prove," Prescott said. "So I think when you've got that, emotions are gonna be high, the passion's gonna show, but at the end of the day, you've got to live on the edge and not go over the edge. We can be physical, we can be passionate, we can be aggressive, but it all has to be led from a disciplined standpoint."
Training camp in Oxnard may be over, but Prescott was quick to point out the team still has two weeks left to do back on home turf at the Star in Frisco, beginning with practices on August 25 and 26. Dallas' second preseason game takes place on Saturday against the Arizona Cardinals.
