Cooper Rush gave Cowboys fans hope — and a thrill ride

Pa Martin Rogers
FOX sports commentator

Fast, with no shortage of sentimental sadness, Big Cooper Rush The adventures of 2022 will come to an end.

And when it happens, one of the most pleasant unexpected chapters of these unpredictable times in National Football League will be in the books, a pretty great vignette about one injured thumb, two QBs, three key events and four big wins.

There may be another peak week for Dallas Cowboysdramatic finish against the NFC East leader Philadelphia Eagles5-0, the only undefeated team remaining in pro football.

Or maybe it’s already done when Duck PrescottThe digital healing is progressing enough that he can return to his original duties and stop the cute, quirky but never real discussions about a potential quarterback battle.

If so, it was one heck of a ride.

They could make a pretty good movie script based on a backup quarterback who successfully intervenes in a fight when a superstar is lost, right? What is it, they already did? More than one, you say?

Okay, ditch that idea. In any case, Rush is the type of down-to-earth character best suited to football stadiums in Inglewood (where the Cowboys beat Los Angeles Rams on Sunday) than Hollywood studios anyway.

An uninvited 28-year-old young man from the village of Central Michigan no one envisioned a suitable leadoff man when Prescott’s right thumb was broken enough to require surgical repair during the team’s season-opening loss Tampa Bay Buccaneersbut has proven himself to be more than a great understudy.

He’ll never have the shooting prowess of Prescott, but he’s played mostly error-free over the past month — a big chunk of his stat line is a big zero in the INT column — in wins over Cincinnati Bengals, New York Giants, Commanders of Washington and Rams.

Ultimately going with Rush when Prescott was injured was the first of the three related developments mentioned above, as it initially looked deep within the realm of possibility that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones might be looking for a higher profile.

The second decision was the selection of Jones, who brazenly spread the quarterback controversy a few weeks ago, which was either a brazen PR stunt, an attempt to bolster Rush’s credibility, or a combination of the two. In any case, it certainly didn’t do any harm.

And finally, once Rush demonstrated that his deputy skills were surprisingly exemplary, the last part could fall into place. If things weren’t going so smoothly on the field, the temptation to rush Prescutt back under center would be clear and present. Such attempts to cheat time, as we have seen, rarely end well.

Instead, Dallas finds itself in terrific shape. Prescott’s only hidden concern is whether he’ll be able to put as much spin on the pigskin as he could before the surgery. If it takes another week? No problem.

If Prescott does reappear, with every chance to reach 100 percent, he will do so with the team in a better position, whatever happens this weekend, than the situation he left exactly a month ago. This is the definition of a backup job with honors.

“Dak is the No. 1 quarterback,” Jones told reporters over the weekend. “Dak’s our guy. But isn’t it great that someone came in and played well enough for us to ask that question?”

Should the Cowboys go back to Dak Prescott despite the success of Cooper Rush? | SAFE

Cooper Rush is now 5-0 as a starter. Skip Bayless decides whether the Cowboys should go back to Dak or stick with Cooper Rush.

When the time comes, Rush will simply go back to what he’s done before, which is to back up Prescott and be the best No. 2 possible. There will be no sense of injustice, that’s how football works.

Simply put, Prescott is the more experienced and proven player, which is why he gets paid $40 million a year and is the face of the franchise. Rush has greatly increased his own stock to the point where at some point he could land a starting gig elsewhere or simply become perhaps the best backup Dallas has ever seen. Hyperbole? The numbers, at some level, bear this out. No other Cowboys QB has ever won their first five starts.

There is the purity of what Rush has achieved, the sheer neatness of what he has done exceptionally well. If sometime in the future a QB goes down with an injury and his backup is elevated to the starting position and tasked with keeping things afloat, every injured coach, owner and fan will want their own version of Cooper Rush and a piece of what he brought to the Cowboys .

And where he took them.

From the brink of despair to a record better than 27 other teams. Defeats both the 2021 Super Bowl contenders and the gritty, resilient and confident Giants (which is still amazing to write about). Hope has returned to the Cowboy Nation.

What an effort. What a story. What a prop. And for Cowboys fans who have lived and breathed his journey, what a Rush.

Martin Rogers is a FOX Sports columnist and contributor to the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.

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