The Dallas Cowboys beat the New York Giants 37-34 and moved into first place on Sunday.

Unfortunately, that was a costly win due to the injury to quarterback Dak Prescott.

Prescott suffered a compound fracture of his right ankle in the third quarter of Sundays game. The Cowboys quarterback was immediately taken to the hospital for surgery that night and will be out for 4-6 months. That timeline puts him in line to return by training camp 2021 and possibly sooner depending on his recovery. 

Prescott ends his season with 1690 passing yards and 9 touchdowns and will hope to sign a long term contract this offseason. 

In other injury news, Trysten Hill suffered a torn ACL and will be out for the rest of season. The Cowboys have now lost their QB, RT, LT. two starting LB and have been without two of their top corners for the majority of the season. 

With that being said, they are starting to get healthier on defense. Anthony Brown returned Sunday against the Giants.

Leighton Vander Esch could be back as soon as Monday night against the Arizona Cardinals after practicing Thursday.

Sean Lee should be back within the next couple of weeks and Chidobe Awuzie should return in the near future as well. 

STOCK UP 

Michael Gallup 

Michael Gallup brought in 4 catches for 73 yards on Sunday afternoon. That doesn’t look that impressive unless you watched the game and saw the two catches he made on the final possession to set the Cowboys up for the game winning FG. 

Gallup managed to keep his feet in bounds as he was falling out of bounds for a 19 yard gain for the first catch. On the second catch, Gallup was sent on a “Go” route and he couldn’t quite grab the ball cleanly when he jumped. But on his way down, he was able to catch it and put the Cowboys in field goal range.

Gallup ranks third in the NFL in yards per reception with 21 yards per catch and for the season, he has 14 catches for 275 yards.

STOCK DOWN 

Xavier Woods

Xavier Woods finds his stock trending in the wrong direction due to his comments last week before the team took on the Giants. 

When Woods was asked about the teams effort on defense after another lackluster performance against the Cleveland Browns, he stated, “Our effort’s been good, I mean, on certain plays some guys, I mean, me included, there may be a lack, but overall the effort is there. I mean, you don’t expect, we’re in the NFL, you don’t expect guys full speed for 70 plays.” 

For anyone who has played football, I think you understand what he’s trying to say. However, there is a time and place for everything. After giving up 300 yards rushing and 146 points in 4 games isn’t the time to publicly say that the team may not be giving 100% effort every play.

The Giants came to Dallas and put up 34 points after not scoring 20 points in a game in their first four games. I tend to believe that there is a talent issue on the team but effort is something that doesn’t take talent. The defense needs to step up without Dak back there at quarterback.