The Dallas Cowboys need a backup to Dak Prescott, and the perfect veteran is right there for the taking.
After a season that went about as poorly as it could, the Dallas Cowboys are looking to treat 2021 less as a bounce-back year and more as a revenge tour.
Dak Prescott will be back, Dan Quinn was hired to revamp a tremendously bad defense, and the NFC East looks like one of the most winnable divisions in football. Dallas has pieces in place to ensure a repeat of last year’s disaster out season doesn’t happen again, but there’s always room for more improvement.
Notably, the Cowboys quarterback room was one of the worst in the league last season. After Dak was lost for the year, the combination of Andy Dalton, Garrett Gilbert, and Ben DiNucci didn’t exactly scream Super Bowl Champions, and the end result of the Cowboys season makes a lot more sense when considering those factors.
Rectifying that goes beyond just having Dak back, as adding a veteran to the quarterback room to both serve as a backup and a sounding board on the sideline is crucial for success in 2021.
Cowboys News: Nick Foles is the perfect Dak Prescott backup QB
How perfect would this be?
Foles makes his triumphant return (again) to the NFC East, but this time it’s not with the Eagles but as part of the Cowboys plan to dismantle their rival. Using an Eagles legend against them would be the very epitome of twisting the knife, because it has all the markings of a plan that would work.
Dak doesn’t need to have a veteran quarterback behind to further his development. Had he not suffered that horrifying ankle injury last season, there’s a pretty decent chance that he would have been in the MVP conversation at the end of the season.
But that ankle injury was illuminating, as it highlighted just how desperately the Cowboys need to ensure quarterback depth behind their star, and talented depth at that.
Foles struggled in Chicago but a lot of that can be attributed to the system he was playing rather than diminishing returns. Matt Nagy was so bad at calling plays that, before he gave them up entire to Bill Lazor, Foles essentially threw him under the bus for giving him plays the quarterback knew wouldn’t work.
Mike McCarthy took it on the chin last year for his coaching, but he’s still in another universe compared to Nagy. If it came down to it, Foles would be able to run McCarthy’s offense more effectively than he did in Chicago because it’s:
1. A better system
2. There are way more weapons
3. McCarthy sort of knows what he’s doing, at least more than Nagy apparently did
This is all assuming Foles would need to play. If Dak stays healthy, Foles plays a veteran backup role that can only help make the quarterback room smarter. He’s established over his career that he’s a high-IQ quarterback who knows the game and can be a perfect sounding board for assessing and figuring out offensive flow.
The Cowboys were exposed as being one-dimensional at quarterback last year, but it’s a problem that is not only easily solved but can be done by also sticking it to a division rival.