Dak Prescott participated in a full practice, including 11-on-11 drills, for the first time since his season-ending right ankle injury last October. He said last month he “buried” any remaining thoughts of the injury on the dance floor May 5 while celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
Those thoughts remained buried Thursday, the Cowboys quarterback said, as he completed 11 of 16 passes during team drills.
“There was no part of practice that I thought about my ankle, thought about any physical thing holding me back, to be honest with you,” Prescott said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.
Prescott is eager to return to game action.
He likely won’t play in the Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 5 against the Steelers, but Prescott expects to get preseason snaps. In 2019, the last time the NFL had an exhibition season, Prescott played nine snaps in the first game, 13 in the second and nine in the third before sitting out the final week.
“I definitely want to play,” Prescott said. “As far as giving you a number or quantity of how much I need to, I just want to obviously get back out there and get some reps before it’s real. Just to have a live defense coming at me, hopefully not take too many licks because I have great protection, but that’s part of the game, and I think it would obviously be great to get up from that, wipe it off and be just another process of burying the injury. I think it will be huge.”
Prescott was carted off the field Oct. 11 with a compound fracture and dislocation of his right ankle, which required immediate surgery. He required a second surgery in December to strengthen the ankle.
But he’s back and has vowed to be better than ever.
“He looks no different today than my experience with him in live training camp action last year,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “That’s the consistent comparable I think for everybody that’s been involved with his rehab. As we go into padded practices, I think clearly that will be a threshold that he’ll get over, particularly with the bodies around him as we get into the team work. I watched him closely in the team work live by design. He didn’t flinch. It looked like he never left. So that’s a good point.”
