Dak Prescott poised to become Cowboys' career passing leader

FRISCO, Texas -- With 160 yards Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott would become the franchise's career passing leader.

Tony Romo, Prescott's predecessor, had 34,183 yards in his career. Prescott is at 34,024 yards.

"I'm humbled. Thankful to be healthy and to be in this position to do it," Prescott said. "I was on the production call [with Fox], and they asked me the same thing, 'Would I have thought this 10 years ago?' And I said, 'Yeah, I was very arrogant as a rookie.' When you've played in this game long enough and you can stay healthy, with my expectations of what my play is, that's supposed to happen. So just thankful, humbled, super grateful to be playing a game I love at this high of a level."

Earlier in the season, Prescott became the Cowboys' leader in completions (now 3,033). He is second in attempts (4,521) to Troy Aikman, third in wins with 80 behind Aikman and Roger Staubach, and second in touchdown passes to Romo (247 to 234).

He entered the season with the best completion percentage in team history and has upped that to 67.1%. Of the marks he has set so far, that is the one in which he takes the most pride.

"It's hard to do every year, each game," Prescott said. "... I just go into every game honestly trying to get 80[%], and that's such a steep number, but that's what I want. I think I've told y'all that after games, any incompletion I don't like unless it's a good one [where] I have to throw it away and have to live to the next play."

Coach Brian Schottenheimer was unaware how close Prescott was to the mark.

"He's obviously not walking around talking to me about it because his focus is this football team," Schottenheimer said. "If we do what we're capable of doing, I believe he will achieve that milestone. I know what he really wants. It's not his name individually in the record books. It's his name collectively with this group of young men, his teammates, his brothers, doing something much, much better than just having individual accolades."

Remembering a brother

This will be the Cowboys' first home game since the passing of Marshawn Kneeland.

The team will wear T-shirts with Kneeland's likeness on them for warmups. Before kickoff, a tribute video will be played and there will be a moment of silence. Members of his family and his girlfriend, Catalina Mancera, are scheduled to be in attendance.

Things are not back to normal, but the routine of the practice week has been settling.

"I'll be honest with you, my assistant, Laura, came in, and I was blaring my music in my office," Schottenheimer said. "I'm a big music guy. And she kinda was tongue-in-cheek being silly, but she's like, 'It's great to see you playing your music loud.' That kind of made me chuckle because I'm feeling more back to myself."

Players continue to say they will honor Kneeland with how they play.

"Marshawn, he's something that's rooted in us," linebacker DeMarvion Overshown said. "We might have his shirt on us, but he's here. He's here. The way that we attack and practice, we wake up with that, like, all right, this is what Marshawn would be doing. ... It's going to always be, we moving forward with Marshawn, that'll never change."

A different look

Special teams coordinator Nick Sorensen knows the Cowboys were fortunate on Monday against the Las Vegas Raiders.

After the Raiders scored to make it 33-16, they opted for an onside kick using punter AJ Cole instead of the traditional attempt with a kicker. Cole skied a punt high in the air, and the Cowboys alertly called for a fair catch.

One problem: They didn't actually catch it. George Pickens backed away. KaVontae Turpin did not come up to make the catch either. The Raiders could have caught the ball and retained possession.

Pickens was able to recover the ball after it hit the ground.

"It shows how good GP's hands are off of that reaction to catch it off the bounce," Sorensen said. "That's a free ball. The cool thing is when you fair-catch, it's not like they can say go catch it because there is a fair catch interference [penalty]."

Sorensen said that teams have used that type of free kick in the last two years and that they cover the scenario in their meetings and walkthroughs.

"That's one of those, it doesn't happen often, so we'll revisit it, remind the guys," Sorensen said.