ARLINGTON, Texas – Through four games, Dak Prescott isn't just having a career season. He's on pace to shatter single-season NFL and Cowboys passing records.
He couldn't care less.
"I care about one stat, and that's to win," Prescott said after Sunday's 49-38 loss to the Cleveland Browns at AT&T Stadium. "When we don't do that, no other stats matter."
The Cowboys are 1-3 through the first quarter of the 2020 season. Hardly the start that a team with Super Bowl aspirations expects.
Prescott leads all NFL quarterbacks with 1,690 passing yards after four games. Seattle's Russell Wilson is a distant second at 1,285. At this rate, Prescott is on pace for 6,760 yards. That would destroy Peyton Manning's all-time single-season passing record of 5,477 set in 2013.
"I'd give all those yards back for a different record," Prescott said.
Sunday, Prescott posted a career-high 502 passing yards, four short of Tony Romo's 506-yard record against Manning's Broncos team in 2013. Prescott also tied Ryan Fitzpatrick for the longest streak of 400-yard games in NFL history (three) and became the first player ever to post 450 yards in three straight games. Just like the Cowboys' Week 2 win over Atlanta and Week 3 loss to Seattle, the offense roared back to make things interesting late.
Too late again this week.
The Cowboys' defense gave up a franchise-record 307 rushing yards in the loss, but Prescott was focused more on the offense's three turnovers. Similar to the Seattle game, back-to-back fumbles in the second quarter (one by Prescott on a sack-strip and one by running back Ezekiel Elliott) led to a pair of Browns touchdowns. Cleveland took a 28-14 lead, the start of a 34-0 run, and never looked back.
"We're just making mistakes over and over again," Prescott said. "We keep hurting ourselves on offense and putting our defense in a bad spot and not starting fast enough.
"We put our defense in a compromising situation. That's just unacceptable, and that's not complementary football. It eventually hurts you and gets you down in the game, and then we're forced to play outside of the way we want to play."
Wide receiver Amari Cooper blamed himself for Prescott's interception at the Browns' 4-yard line in the final two minutes with the offense trying to cut Cleveland's lead to one score again.
"I just overthought the play," Cooper said. "I'm supposed to run a quick slant and catch the ball. … I'm supposed to take that one step and look for the ball."
A month into the season, there's still time for the Cowboys to clean up issues in every area. But the time is now with two more home games in a row coming up.
"I've got all the confidence in this team, each unit that we have," Prescott said. "I've seen the way that we prepare throughout the week, so it just doesn't make sense and doesn't add up right now. But I believe in the men that we have, the great leaders and coaches that we have. We'll have it fixed."
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The Cowboys are back at AT&T Stadium next Sunday, October 11th to take on their rivals, the New York Giants. A limited number of tickets are on sale now. Get yours now before they sell out!
Details on all of the health and safety procedures you can expect at AT&T Stadium this season can be viewed at www.DallasCowboys.com/safestadium.
