{"id":72114,"date":"2025-07-29T11:23:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=72114"},"modified":"2025-07-29T11:23:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:23:17","slug":"im-getting-that-true-balance-dak-prescotts-perspective-as-a-dad-and-longest-tenured-cowboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=72114","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I&#8217;m getting that true balance&#8217;: Dak Prescott&#8217;s perspective as a dad and longest-tenured Cowboy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/i\/columnists\/full\/archer_todd.png&amp;h=80&amp;w=80&amp;scale=crop\" alt=\"'I'm getting that true balance': Dak Prescott's perspective as a dad and longest-tenured Cowboy\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/>\n<p>Todd ArcherJul 29, 2025, 06:00 AM ET<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Close<\/p>\n<ul>Todd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>OXNARD, Calif. &#8212; The first practice of Dallas Cowboys training camp ends, and Dak Prescott immediately walks over to the fence behind one of the end zones.<\/p>\n<p>There, he greets his fianc\u00e9e, Sarah Jane Ramos, and their daughters, MJ and Aurora, who is a newborn. For 15 minutes Prescott sits with his family, occasionally chasing a giggling MJ.<\/p>\n<p>For those brief moments, he is not the quarterback of &#8220;America&#8217;s Team.&#8221; He&#8217;s just a girl dad.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2016, his rookie year, Prescott would see Jason Witten play with his four children, including his sons, C.J. (a freshman linebacker at Rice) and Cooper (also a linebacker, and one of the top prep recruits in the Class of 2027). Prescott was a fourth-round pick just trying to get a job, but he ended that summer as the Cowboys&#8217; starting quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>Now the longest-tenured Cowboy, Prescott, who turns 32 on Tuesday, has perspective.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m getting that true balance,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s healthy. Now when I get to get away from this building and get away from here, my mind gets to leave it, where in the past it didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that could be detrimental at times. [Now] it&#8217;s no overthinking things, thinking too much about the things you want.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As Prescott enters Year 10, there is just one thing he wants: a Super Bowl. He is unafraid to say it, despite knowing he has a 2-5 postseason record, and the Cowboys have not advanced to an NFC Championship Game or won a Lombardi Trophy since 1995.<\/p>\n<p>He was named the NFL&#8217;s Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year in 2022. He has made the Pro Bowl three times. He was the runner-up in MVP voting in 2023. He holds the team&#8217;s single-season record for touchdown passes (37), and this year he could become the franchise&#8217;s all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What I&#8217;ve done or accomplished really doesn&#8217;t hold any weight with me, so I can&#8217;t say not having it weighs me down or anything,&#8221; Prescott said. &#8220;That&#8217;s the f&#8212;ing motivation, right? That&#8217;s the truth in your stomach. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s in your gut is wanting that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what pushes me to be better every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prescott is healthy after missing nine games in 2024 because of a right hamstring avulsion that required surgery. But there will be limitations put on him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now that he&#8217;s in the over-30 club, we&#8217;re going to be smart with some of the things we do with him,&#8221; coach Brian Schottenheimer said. &#8220;He is anti-that. He wants to do as much as possible. Luckily, we have the trump card with him on that. In all seriousness, Dak understands there is a smart way to train.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although Dak&#8217;s not going to like it as much, he&#8217;s very aware that we&#8217;re going to be intelligent with what he does.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He doesn&#8217;t give every handoff during individual drills with running backs. He doesn&#8217;t throw every pass to receivers for on-air drills. When the full offense goes through a series of drills over bags, Prescott is a &#8220;hype man,&#8221; encouraging them all in a funny way, such as acting as if he is riding a horse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What I have to do is be myself and have fun at practice and enjoy my teammates. I was told not to do those drills just from health. So, hell, I&#8217;m not about to sit there, cross my arms and watch,&#8221; Prescott said. &#8220;The whole point of the drill is to get some juice going, get the guys going and get our energy high to start practice. If I have to be the hype man, that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m going to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So far in camp, Prescott has worked more under center than in the shotgun. Schottenheimer and quarterbacks coach Steve Shimko have made a subtle adjustment to Prescott&#8217;s footwork when he is in the shotgun. His &#8220;here we go&#8221; cadence remains, but there are other cadences now too.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This guy is a perfectionist. For a guy that has the accomplishments and has done the things he&#8217;s done, he reminds me so much of being around [former NFL QB] Andrew Luck,&#8221; Schottenheimer said. &#8220;A guy that&#8217;s had great success but is willing to try anything you throw his way. &#8230; &#8216;Hey, coach me hard. I can do that. Let me show you I can do that.&#8217; I think it&#8217;s that willingness and that hunger to [say] &#8216;Challenge me coach. Challenge me to do different things.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, however, Prescott will be measured by Super Bowls won or not won. It&#8217;s a fact of life he accepted long ago.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn&#8217;t care that he was not in the top-10 quarterbacks in an ESPN survey of league executives, coaches and scouts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Motivated? That&#8217;s temporary,&#8221; he said when asked if not being on the list motivated him. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever really cared about a list. I was, what, the ninth or so guy when I was taken [in the draft]. The list changes [for] every person you ask. The list changes every year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With injuries, obviously the list should change. As young, new players come in, the list is going to change. It&#8217;s not something I really give weight to. I know who I am. I&#8217;m confident in who I am. It&#8217;s about me just continuing to get better, healthy, and grow &#8212; and make sure I&#8217;m the best player, quarterback and leader I can be for this team. That&#8217;s the list I care about.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was asked what did motivate him now, and his answer lasted nearly two minutes. It centered around winning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ten [years] in and ready to play another 10, but I want [to win] first and foremost now. And that is the urgency that I carry with just the love and passion of this game,&#8221; Prescott said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not only wanting to win for myself, but wanting to win for this organization. It&#8217;s been well damn long enough. &#8230; We&#8217;ve got to keep that at the forefront of our mind. That&#8217;s why I said Tyler Smith saying [the expectation is to win a Super Bowl], Schotty saying that guy&#8217;s not backing down from that. Yeah, look it in the face, look it in the eyes, and do whatever you can.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When one thinks something, it&#8217;s good, but when two think it, it&#8217;s powerful. When we can get a hundred guys to think it, it can happen. So that&#8217;s what it&#8217;s about.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The quarterback enters Year 10 with the Cowboys, and he is focused on health, family and winning a Super Bowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":72115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;I&#039;m getting that true balance&#039;: Dak Prescott&#039;s perspective as a dad and longest-tenured Cowboy - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=72114\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;I&#039;m getting that true balance&#039;: Dak Prescott&#039;s perspective as a dad and longest-tenured Cowboy - 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