DALLAS — A Cowboys team that had braced itself for life without Dak Prescott until the second half of the season is now operating on the premise he’ll be able to return in October.
This accelerated time frame is based on the type of fracture he suffered.
Surgery revealed that Prescott suffered an extra-articular fracture to his right thumb in the team’s season-opening loss to Tampa Bay, a person with knowledge of the procedure said. This is a fracture that occurs above the wrist joint and doesn’t extend into the joint itself.
This injury typically carries a four-to-six-week time frame for recovery. That’s why owner Jerry Jones declared on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM] Tuesday morning that the club won’t place Prescott on injured reserve, a move that would force the quarterback to miss at least four games before returning.
“If we thought he wasn’t going to be ready to go for four games, after four games, we would be putting him on injured reserve,” Jones said. “We’re not doing that. We think he can come in and play.”
Keeping Prescott on the active roster means there’s an element of hope in the organization that he could return for the team’s game against the LA Rams on Oct. 9. A more likely target would seem to be the Cowboys’ division showdown in Philadelphia that next week.
“We feel very good after surgery, after listening to the medical people that Dak has a real chance to be back out there throwing the ball pretty quick,” Jones said.
It’s a much more palatable timetable than the one the club faced before the surgery.
Club officials initially feared that Prescott suffered an intra-articular fracture, one that affects the wrist joint and means the distal radius is fractured. The return from this injury is six to eight weeks, which is why there was concern he would be out through the bye and not return until the team’s game against Green Bay on Nov. 13.
Now, he’ll be back well before the bye.
“I was told it was much cleaner than it could have been,” Prescott told reporters after the loss to the Buccaneers. “It’s unfortunate, but I’ll do what I’ve always done when adversity comes. Take it on headfirst.”
