Dak Prescott made the Cowboys' tough decision even tougher with a win over the Packers
The bye week is supposed to be a relaxing time – a chance for players and coaches to clear their heads, rest their bodies, and get away from the chaos of the NFL for a bit.
It's hard to see the Cowboys getting any peace and quiet over the next week, though.
Dallas has the best possible kind of quarterback controversy — the coaching staff has to choose between two All-Pro caliber players who haven't done a thing to disqualify themselves from the starting job.
Tony Romo is eligible to return to the team's roster next Monday, following the bye, and the biggest question in football is if he'll be the Cowboys' starting quarterback upon his return.
Romo played exceptionally the last time he was on the field for a full season, in 2014, completing 70 percent of his passes, throwing for 3,705 yards, 34 touchdowns to nine interceptions, and posting a 113.2 quarterback rating.
Should Dak Prescott continue to put up stats at his current clip, he'd finish the year with 3,886 yards on 68 percent passing with a 6-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
It's hard to find a difference. This is a tough choice — there's no clear correct answer and no obvious wrong answer either.
It's also a choice that Prescott made significantly tougher Sunday.
With Prescott at the helm, the Cowboys beat the Packers 30-16. Prescott threw his first interception of the season, and he also had a lost fumble in the first half, but there were multiple touchdown drives -- two for 75 yards and one for 97 yards -- that were methodical and impressive.
It takes a special performance to outduel Aaron Rodgers, but that's exactly what Prescott did Sunday.
Success is a difficult thing to find in the NFL, and winning ecosystems can be fragile. No team knows that better than the Cowboys, who saw their 2015 season crumble when Romo was injured. Would the Cowboys coaching staff opt to pull a quarterback who has been at the helm for five wins out of the first six games? Would they upset what is a winning symbiosis between the pass and run game and offense and defense by changing the quarterback?
Prescott, the rookie, wasn't expected to do this well — he's a fourth-round pick, after all. But he's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's not a placeholder. If the Cowboys put him back on the bench, they'd be inviting criticism and speculation after every poor throw by Romo, even if there aren't many of them to be found.
They'd be upsetting the ecosystem.
But keep Prescott in and you run the inherent risk that comes with a rookie quarterback — Prescott has been good to this point, but no one knows how long it will last. It could be forever, it could end in a week. Do you pull him at the first sign of a hiccup? Had Romo been healthy for Sunday's game, would he have gone in after Prescott's interception?
There's no right answer, there's no wrong answer — and Prescott didn't provide any additional clarity to the situation Sunday.
The Cowboys' Super Bowl hopes might ride on the choice that's made in a bye week.
So much for relaxation.
A little @dak.
— NFL (@NFL) October 16, 2016
A little @Brice_Butler...
One BEAUTIFUL @DallasCowboys TD. #DALvsGB https://t.co/BuCRgAlNRJ
Hello, @dak.
— NFL (@NFL) October 16, 2016
Hello, @Bease11.
Hello, END ZONE.#DallasCowboys #DALvsGB https://t.co/QDyzvKwwuh
