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Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys began the 2021-2022 season with hopes of getting "America's Team" back to the pinnacle of success, a return trip to the Super Bowl.
But along the way, there were just enough bumps in the road to derail their wagon off the track and into the abyss known as an early playoff loss (23-17 to the San Francisco 49ers).
Prescott was recently a guest on The Rich Eisen Show, where he spoke about the struggles the Cowboys faced in not advancing further this season and whether or not a calf injury he suffered in Week 6 against the New England Patriots was the cause of his decline in play as the season progressed.
“I wouldn’t say it lingered as long as people gave me the excuse of it,” said Prescott on the Rich Eisen Show on Thursday. “I went through a period of time during the season where I just didn’t play my best ball.”
The calf injury was significant enough to cause the star quarterback to miss a Week 8 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. Despite the Pro Bowl quarterback's slight decline in performance after the injury, he refuses to place blame on the injury.
How can the Dallas Cowboys advance further next season?
For many, the outcome for Dallas next season lies well in the hands (or clipboard) of head coach Mike McCarthy. The team made strides from the 2020-2021 season to the 2021-2022 season as both the offense and defense saw significant improvements.
However, McCarthy, who has been known to have time-management issues, may have made another untimely blunder during the last drive of Dallas' Wild-Card loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
With no timeouts and the team needing a touchdown to win, Dallas called a quarterback draw (which is a run play for the quarterback) up the middle of the defense.
The problem is that with no timeouts, if Prescott doesn't score, which he didn't, there is a great chance that time could expire (which it did) before the next play can be called.
This was just one example of several in the game from Mike McCarthy of how time mismanagement can and will cause a team to lose.
Despite having an MVP caliber season from Prescott and a defense led by AP Defensive Rookie of the Year Micah Parsons, Dallas will only advance further next season if head coach Mike McCarthy can adjust and do a much better job at managing time and specific game situations.
