Even in agony, Dak exudes great strength

ARLINGTON — Dak Prescott made himself vulnerable, over and over again, and looked stronger every time he did.

He exposed his body time after time standing in the pocket under pressure, and he racked up yards like no Cowboys quarterback before him.

He exposed his soul when he talked honestly about grief and depression, and who knows how many people that helped?

He exposed his financial future when he decided to play on a one-year franchise tag rather than accept a longer deal that undervalued him, and this was the risk of a man confident he’d eventually prove his true worth.

And then, Sunday afternoon, he made himself vulnerable once again, on what would qualify as a routine running play if any such

thing existed in one of the most brutally violent sports in the world.

But this time his cleat snagged the turf, and a tackler kept tugging on the body that Prescott kept putting on the line, and then there was a gruesome twist and a terrible snap, and then AT&T Stadium let out a loud gasp followed by a horrifying silence.

“Instantly, I turned away,” Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb said.

Everybody wanted to do the same. They wanted to turn away because of the sheer brutality, yes. But they wanted to turn away especially because it happened to this man, who had endured such unthinkable tragedy with such inspirational dignity.

The Cowboys later announced Prescott’s injury, suffered in the third quarter of a 37-34 victory over the Giants, as a compound fracture and dislocation of his right ankle. But nobody needed an official diagnosis, or confirmation that he was headed to a local hospital for immediate surgery, to recognize the gravity of what had happened.

“There was a flood of emotion, even from (the Giants’) bench,” said Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy, one of dozens of men from both sidelines who

congregated around Prescott as he was fitted with a stabilizing boot and lifted onto a cart.

His former coach Jason Garrett, now a coordinator for New York, leaned in to say something, and one by one almost all of Prescott’s teammates reached out to touch him, embrace him, cry with him.

There were tears on their faces, and there were tears on Prescott’s, and somehow this man who had made himself vulnerable over and over looked tougher than ever.

No, he was not invincible. But as he bit down on a towel and saluted the Giants’ bench and raised his right fist into the air as the cart rushed him away while the crowd chanted his name, he was telling everyone that he would get through this, that he would be fine.

Will he be the same quarterback he was before? Will he even play again? We cannot know that for sure yet, just as we cannot know if he’ll ever get the nine-figure deal most people thought he had coming.

What we do know is this was another reminder that the NFL is a harsh business, and that no player ever should be blamed for fighting for every penny he can get, when he can get it. In a league where few contracts are guaranteed, it doesn’t make much sense to cheer the guy on the cart and boo the guy

holding out for a fair deal.

Prescott, to be clear, didn’t hold out. Not only has he started all 68 games since he joined the league, he almost never has missed a practice. He did it while commanding immense respect from those in his locker room, as well as the quarterback he replaced (Tony Romo, coincidentally, was on the call Sunday for CBS).

In college he lost his mother to cancer, and this year he revealed he lost a brother to suicide, and when he opened up about these things there were buffoons who claimed the quarterback of America’s team shouldn’t show such weakness.

Shame on them for not recognizing toughness when it was staring them in the face. There’s no way they don’t see it now.

Around Prescott, as usual, there is optimism. On Sunday evening his other brother posted a photo of the quarterback smiling from his hospital bed. Lamb said he sent Prescott a text promising to “hold it down until we get to see him again on the field.”

“This will all be part of his great story,” McCarthy said.

No matter how it ends, it will be about both vulnerability and strength. And how he had the latter all along.