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Williams is still young at 27 years old. But he’s far beyond being some wide-eyed kid as far as his NFL experience is concerned. He was playing in the first game of his fifth season. So he knew what his next job was, and what direction he should have headed.
His mission was fundamental: Sprint toward the sideline. Get as much yardage as possible while still stopping the clock, and preserve whatever shot remains at a long game-winning field-goal attempt or Hail Mary.
It was 3rd-and-10, and if he turned and ran decisively, Williams had room to make a beeline for both the first-down marker and the giant white line signifying safety. That’s how it looked, at least, with the freeze-framed evidence revealing enough real estate between Williams and Giants cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie:
In the waning moments, potential game-winning drives are centered on keeping hope alive. You need to keep giving yourself chances, however slim the odds of success may feel. A first down with the clock stopped would have gifted the Cowboys another shot to run a quick play to the sideline, and then attempt a long field goal.
Or they could have heaved a deep ball toward the end zone, and we’ve seen that prayer answered before. Instead, Williams erased those long odds by turning upfield and getting tackled inbounds. He left the Cowboys with no odds at all and only the bitter taste of a season-opening 20-19 defeat.
It was a loss that becomes even harder to swallow after the performance of rookie Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
He wasn’t spectacular, and that’s reflected in the standard statistical QB measuring sticks. Completing 55.6 percent of 45 pass attempts and finishing with 227 yards (5.0 yards per attempt) doesn’t exactly pop off the page.
That surface-level judgment is understandable. But it also says plenty about how quickly the expectations around Prescott ballooned after he spent the month of August making impressive throws against vanilla defenses, and sometimes second-team units.
The bar for regular-season success needed to be realigned. Prescott was facing a Giants defense that was completely overhauled during the 2016 offseason. And more importantly, he was facing an NFL defense that had weeks to plan for him.
How would he mentally and physically navigate an authentic test in a regular-season game? Could he counteract the NFL blitz packages and coverages? And would he successfully fight an inner battle by moving on from the mistakes a fourth-round rookie will surely make?
Those are the questions Prescott began to weave through Sunday. He started to answer them all emphatically, and with the same flare he showed in the preseason.
You know those overall numbers that seemed pretty meh? That wasn’t the case in the first quarter, as Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted:
The Cowboys scored points on each of their first three drives, two of which were lengthy 15-play conquests.
The problem is those points came in small servings. The Cowboys offense stalled in the red zone, and so did Prescott. Even though it dominated the time of possession for much of the first half—at one point owning that part of the scoreboard by an incredible margin of 14 minutes, per Newsday’s Bob Glauber—Dallas still mustered only nine first-half points.
They entered the locker room trailing and eventually ended the game that way, too, in part because of red-zone woes. Prescott was outgunned in the area of the field where it's preferred to walk away with seven points instead of three.
ESPN Stats & Information had the final damage report:
So yes, there was some sputtering from Prescott as the game moved along. Progress can look like that. It’s not linear with one sharp rise and no potholes to swerve around, as a rookie once considered raw takes the helm under the searing Cowboys spotlight.
For Prescott, progress in the regular season so far looks like ongoing learning that’s frequently dotted with athletic brilliance without any crippling turnovers.
The last part there is key, as we’re still waiting on Prescott to take his first regular-season sack. His next interception will also be his first, even though a rookie picked on Day 3 was asked to attempt 45 passes during his NFL debut. He did all that while leading an offense that convert 59 percent of its third-down attempts.
Can he successfully steal Tony Romo’s job and make him the 2016 version of Drew Bledsoe? The mere thought is premature, but as NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported, the door is slightly open.
“He’s only gonna get better,” Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant told Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. “He’s the ultimate competitor. He’s gonna be a monster. That’s what we all believe.”
The final result Sunday wasn’t what the Cowboys wanted as their short-term and possibly long-term replacement quarterback took over for the first time. But that shouldn’t completely overshadow the strong foundation built throughout August and now one week of regular-season NFL action.
Going forward, Prescott needs to learn from his weak moments while building on the strong points shown when he rewinds the game film. Or put another way: He needs to keep developing and adapting.
Read more Dallas Cowboys news on BleacherReport.com
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