In 2019, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescot finished with a career-high 4,902 passing yards. He’s considerably behind that number in 2025, with 4,482.
But it’s still enough to lead the league. If Prescott hangs on for one more week, he’ll be the first Cowboys player to finish a season with the most passing yards of any NFL quarterback.
Dak doesn’t have much of a cushion. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford trails by only 34 yards, with 4,448.
Lions quarterback Jared Goff is third with 4,233. Patriots quarterback Drake Maye ranks fourth, with 4,203.
During Prescott’s career-best season, he finished second to then-Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston, who threw for 5,109 yards. Prescott will see Winston on Sunday, when the Cowboys finish the season with a game against Winston’s Giants.
As the final sands slip out from the top of the hourglass on the Matt Eberflus tenure as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator, the Cowboys have a clear objective for the new year.
“We got to get an identity on the defensive side of the football,” co-owner Stephen Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “I don’t think we ever established what we were as a defense. We really weren’t a team that created turnovers. We didn’t get the ball. We gave up a lot of explosive [plays]. At times it felt like we were [stopping] the run. But we just got a lot of work to do on that side of the ball. I think everybody knows that. We’ll go all in.”
“All in”? Not all in. Not again.
Of course, it’s one thing to vow to go “all in” as to free agency, where cap dollars are tight and the Cowboys are often even tighter. It’s another to go all in as to the coaching staff, especially when Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores is about to be available to make a lateral move.
“Bottom line, we need an identity on the defensive side of the ball,” Jones said. “I don’t think we established that this year. Whether it’s Coach [Matt] Eberflus or whoever it is, we have to create an identity. I think everybody would say that Coach [Brian] Schottenheimer has a ton of energy, he’s very authentic and has an identity. We’ve got to play to that in all three phases. I think we did in one phase this year. I don’t know that we established that in the other two phases.”
That’s hardly an endorsement of Eberflus. Anytime anyone says “whether it’s [the current employee] or whoever it is,” bet on whoever.
Assuming that the Cowboys will offer enough to get “whoever” a/k/a Flores to take the job.
Cowboys running back Javonte Williams had already been ruled out for Sunday’s regular-season finale, due to shoulder and neck injuries. The Cowboys have officially cleared his roster spot by putting him on injured reserve.
In other moves, the Cowboys also put running back Malik Davis and guard T.J. Bass on IR. Cornerback Josh Butler and running back Phil Mafah were activated from injured reserve.
Also linebacker Justin Barron was signed from the practice squad, and offensive lineman Nick Leverett was elevated from the practice squad.
Williams, a second-round pick of the Broncos in 2021, signed a one-year, $3 million contract in the 2025 offseason. In 16 games, he had a career-high 1,201 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns. He added 137 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
He’s due to be a free agent again in March.
The absence of Williams and Davis puts Jaydon Blue into the likely starting spot for Week 18 at the Giants. The 2025 fifth-round pick has 45 offensive snaps, and 22 carries for 65 yards in four regular-season games.
Javonte Williams’ season is done.
The Cowboys ruled out the running and four others for Sunday’s season finale against the Giants.
Williams played only 25 of 92 snaps in the Christmas Day win over the Commanders, leaving with shoulder and neck injuries. He did not practice this week.
Williams ends his first — and maybe only — season with the Cowboys with 252 rushes for 1,201 yards and 11 touchdowns. All are career bests.
The Cowboys also ruled out offensive guard T.J. Bass (knee), running back Malik Davis (calf/eye), linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (concussion) and cornerback Shavon Revel (concussion/neck).
Rookie running back Jaydon Blue will see his first extensive action of the season. He has played only 45 offensive snaps and nine on special teams, with 22 carries for 65 yards.
The Cowboys list cornerback Josh Butler (knee), running back Phil Mafah (shoulder) and defensive end Payton Tuner (ribs) as questionable. All three appear ready to play if the Cowboys activate them from injured reserve on Saturday.
It seems likely, with the injuries to Williams and Davis, that Mafah will make his NFL debut on Sunday. He is a rookie seventh-round pick.
Tight end Jake Ferguson (calf), right guard Tyler Booker (ankle) and left tackle Tyler Smith (knee) do not have an injury designation.
After Thursday’s comments from Cowboys defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus caught the eye of former Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons, Parsons defended his reaction to Eberflus linking the team’s defensive performance to the sudden departure of Parsons via late August trade.
“Y’all want me to feel bad?” Parsons posted on Twitter. “Jerry Jones slandered my name to Cowboys media and national media for months. So I do think I can react to comment if I want to!”
In his usual Friday appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Jones addressed Parsons’s remarks.
“I wish Micah the very best,” Jones said, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “I’d love to have Micah on the team. But we just couldn’t afford him. We wanted four or five players more than we did him. But he’s outstanding. I understand his sensitivity and can even understand these comments.”
They say business isn’t personal. But the Parsons business became personal, once Parsons refused to reduce to writing the deal he supposedly agreed to in direct conversations with Jones. In turn, Jones refused to negotiate with Parsons’s agent, David Mulugheta.
The Cowboys, in our view, had banked on Parsons playing under his fifth-year option, kicking the can to 2026 for a possible franchise-tag dance. When it became clear that Parsons would refuse to practice or play due to a back injury, the Cowboys decided to get what they could for Parsons, in lieu of paying him a market-level deal that would have been much more expensive than the fifth-year option now and the franchise tag later.
Along the way, things were said. Feathers were ruffled. That’s how Jones, first, tried to get what he wanted and, second, played the P.R. game when it became clear that the only move was to move on from Parsons.
More than two months after the trade happened, Jones took a clear shot at Parsons while praising former Cowboys Michael Irvin and DeMarcus Ware.
“Not one time, not even in the hottest of days and two-a-days in August in Texas, between eleven in the morning or when they quit practicing or four in the afternoon, did I never see any one of these two go over and lay on a damn training table in front of a million people,” Jones said. “Never. It’s not in their makeup. . . . It’s just not in their makeup. . .
“And you’d like to think if you’re going to be [paying] the highest that’s ever been paid for something in football, you could get that. And when you don’t have it and you pay the highest that’s ever been in football, you really got a problem.”
Jones was still trying to justify trading Parsons. And, yes, that included slandering his name by suggesting that Parsons isn’t worthy to be the highest-paid defensive player in football, tying it to the fact that he was taking a stand to get the contract Jones refused to give him.
For Parsons, it’s understandably personal. For Jones, it’s all business. And his business interests required him to make it personal with Parsons. Which explains why Jones isn’t bothered by Parsons’s natural reaction to Jerry’s tactics.
Still, the message to other players should be obvious. Starting with receiver George Pickens.
If you don’t do what Jerry wants you to do, he’ll eventually slander your name, too.
