Fourth-year quarterback Trey Lance played all 93 offensive snaps for the Dallas Cowboys in their preseason finale against the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday night, and for 86 of them, the 3rd overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft gave Jerry Jones and the rest of the Cowboys front office enough reason to believe that he was prepared to enter the 2024 season as the backup to Dak Prescott. Lance's performance included a 46-yard touchdown run, an 11-yard touchdown pass to rookie 6th round pick Ryan Flournoy, and a 2024 preseason high 323 passing yards.
The only problem is, there are seven unaccounted for snaps here, and those seven ranged from problematic to disastrous. In the 26-19 loss to the Chargers, Lance also fumbled twice — Dallas recovered both — and threw a whopping five interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown late in the 4th quarter by Chargers linebacker Tre'Mon Morris-Brash.
After the game, Dallas Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones spoke about Lance's outing, noting that he saw enough good to make up for the bad.
“I saw some good, and I saw some things you’d like to have back,” Jones said after the game, per Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk. “I hate that those five interceptions are going to be a stat on a game that I couldn’t have asked for more reps and a better situation to watch him play. He needed that, because the one thing he’s missing more than anything is the lack of reps, much less NFL reps.”
In three seasons in the NFL, Trey Lance has made just four regular season starts and only has 102 pass attempts to his name. He didn't take a single snap for Dallas last season after the Cowboys acquired him from the 49ers for a 4th-round pick. If the Cowboys have it their way, Lance won't see the field in 2024 either, even if they do truly believe he's made a tremendous amount of progress from the start of training camp.
“I think the main thing is the improvement from over the last six weeks. That’s impressive. Very impressive,” Jones said of Lance. “What you’re looking for is the arrow going up? And it’s going up dramatically really every practice and every game. So, I’m going to use that word because he’s doing a lot of things that he wasn’t doing as well early that he’s doing well now.”
Trey Lance remains Cowboys' Dak Prescott safety net
For as sour as Cowboys fans could be with how disappointing last year's Playoff exit was or how rocky Dak Prescott's postseason track record has been, anyone who is in too big of a hurry to replace Prescott with Trey Lance, Cooper Rush, or hell, Tony Romo for that matter, needs to take a deep breath and reconsider what they're saying. Just remember, if you're on the side that Skip Bayless is on, you're likely wrong.
After all, we are talking about a guy who has had a .500 or better record in all seven seasons he's played at least 12 games. Yes, the postseason success, or lack thereof, has been a recurring problem, but Prescott is 73-41 as the starter in Dallas — don't look now, but he's only 22 wins away from passing Troy Aikman as the winningest quarterback in Cowboys history — and he's coming off a season in which he finished 2nd in MVP voting behind Lamar Jackson. You don't just throw that away… especially if a guy like Trey Lance isn't giving you really, really good reason to.
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