The Pro Football writers of America has selected Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott as its winner of the 2026 Good Guy Award.
Prescott was praised for his dealings with local and national media during the 2025 season.
Prescott, the 22nd Good Guy Award winner, is the first member of the Cowboys franchise to win the award.
Other finalists for the Good Guy Award were Browns guard Joel Bitonio and Bears safety Kevin Byard III.
The Good Guy Award is given to an NFL player for his qualities and professional style in helping pro football writers do their jobs. The award has been presented annually by the PFWA since 2005.
Prescott, a finalist for the Good Guy Award for the second time in the past three seasons (2024, 2026), is one of the more accessible players in the league, especially at the quarterback position. He fulfills his regular media obligations and then some, and he also chats with local media in an off-the-record format to provide context. The Dallas PFWA chapter named their local Good Guy award for Prescott – the chapter’s award recipient in 2017 and 2019 – starting with the 2025 presentation.
Cowboys offensive lineman Tyler Smith has been a guard for most of his career, but he has at times played left tackle, including the final three games of last season. This year, there’s been no official announcement about where Smith will play, but he says he’s confident the team will have him in the right place.
Smith said he sought out head coach Brian Schottenheimer to talk about his future, and he was satisfied with Schottenheimer’s answers.
“We had great conversations about it,” Smith told DallasCowboys.com. “I have an understanding of what it is. That’s the most I can ask for is to just have that understanding early on. Obviously, I’ve got the utmost faith that we’re going to go out there and we’re going to do what we’re going to do. Ultimately, I’ll be in the position I need to be in. I’m good with where we’re at.”
All indications are that Smith would prefer to play left guard, and that’s where the Cowboys prefer him to play, too — if Tyler Guyton is healthy enough to start at left tackle. But if Guyton, who has struggled to stay healthy so far in his NFL career, gets hurt again, it may be time for Smith to slide over to left tackle again.
As the expectations grow for the 2026 Cowboys, every second counts.
Coach Brian Schottenheimer knows it.
Via Neal Franklin of the Dallas Morning News, Schottenheimer is selling his house because it’s too far away from work. And because he wants something closer than 30 minutes away from the team’s headquarters, Schottenheimer’s current home in McKinney was put on the market for a mere $3.8 million.
It was listed on April 17. A buyer has already been found.
There’s no indication that Schottenheimer has found another place. Hopefully, it will be owl proof.
The deeper message is that Schottenheimer has prioritized getting the most out of every day. With 10 out of 32 teams changing coaches after the 2025 season, the NFL has never been more of a year-to-year proposition.
Which makes selling a house in order to move closer to work always better than selling a house to move out of town.
It’s one thing to ask Jerry Jones to install grass at AT&T Stadium, or to get him to temporarily not call it “AT&T Stadium.” Blocking out the sun would presumably be a bridge too far.
Not for the FIFA World Cup.
Via Margaret Fleming of Front Office Sports, Jerry World will block the sun for at least one of its nine World Cup matches. A FIFA spokesperson said blackout curtains will be used for an early-evening game to be played there.
It’s a sore subject for Jones. After receiver CeeDee Lamb said that the stadium should use curtains to keep the sun out of football players’ eyes, Jones went off.
“By the way, we know where the sun is going to be when we flip the coin, so we do know where the damn sun is going to be in our own stadium,” Jones said. “Let’s just tear the damn stadium down and build another one. Are you kidding me?”
Jones, who bent over backwards for soccer’s governing body, wasn’t about to refuse to accommodate the request.
It’s just another example of the bizarre double standard that some NFL owners will apply to players in a different sport.
Which should make Lamb and all Cowboys players turn Jones’s quote back against him: “Are you kidding me?”
Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens signed the non-exclusive franchise tag, but he hasn’t attended the team’s voluntary offseason workouts. It’s likely an indication that he isn’t happy playing on the one-year, $27.3 million tag that is fully guaranteed, and the Cowboys have made it clear they won’t negotiate on a long-term deal this year.
Pickens’ 1,429 yards and nine touchdowns justified the tag, but no other team has moved to attempt a trade with the Cowboys. The Cowboys — and every other team that might be interested in Pickens — is looking for an encore before committing the $30 million-plus per season it’s going to take to sign Pickens long term.
“This is great from our view,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports. “For him as well, it lets him really extend what he’s got going right now in light of the fact that . . . when we got him, we got him for no other reason than because there was a long-term question. Through next year and this year, he’ll answer all those questions.”
His inconsistency in Pittsburgh was the reason the Steelers offloaded a talented wide receiver for only a third-round pick. His habitual tardiness continued in Dallas, although he lived up to his potential on the field.
Now, it’s figuring out how much a team is willing to commit and for how long.
Nine wide receivers make more than $30 million annually, led by Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s $42.150 million average.
The Cowboys expect Pickens, in his second season with Dak Prescott, to show up and show out.
“We will expect more earlier,” Jones told Epstein. “He will expect more. That he not only build on where he got to last year, the preparation will be out there happening as a major part in any series or any game. So I think from the get-go, he will have more to give in the plans of what we’re doing early and late in the season.”
