Dak Prescott’s status for Sunday is the subject of conflicting reports on Saturday

Whether Dak Prescott will play or not kind of depends on who you believe.

The Dallas Cowboys are back from their bye this week and preparing for the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night. While the Vikings have been the focus of the team’s coaching staff this week, just about every Cowboys fan has spent time this week wondering, speculating, and debating whether or not they think quarterback Dak Prescott (who suffered a calf strain against the New England Patriots two weeks ago) will play.

The exact status of Prescott remains in doubt and Saturday brought a report that this will be a true “game-time” decision, but consider that reports/speculations swirled in a number of different ways all throughout gameday eve.

Going in chronological order here. Calvin Watkins from The Dallas Morning News noted that he believes Prescott will play on Sunday night.

This came after the report that Dak’s status would be a true game-time decision which fed the notion that he will in fact play on Sunday night.

What’s more is that next in sequence, Dak was photographed by the mothership boarding the plane to leave for Minnesota. Obviously this isn’t concrete proof of anything as he could very well attend the game without playing in it, but he clearly isn’t staying at home.

Any Cowboys fan who got their hopes up that Prescott would play on Sunday night saw them tempered when Michael Gehlken (also of The Dallas Morning News by the way) tweeted that it would “surprise many close to the situation” if Prescott “started” on Sunday night.

It would not be ridiculous for Prescott to play without seeing a majority of the team’s reps. He is the unquestioned starter, extremely experienced, and one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. The wording of this tweet is interesting though in that the surprise would be if Prescott “started”, but perhaps we are all so exhausted from this story that we are now reading that into it.

While this might be reading too much into it but one theory that exists is that the Cowboys could dress Prescott and “start” Cooper Rush and try to pull off victory without risking the long-term health of their actual starting quarterback. An in-uniform Prescott would give them the option to insert the quarterback if needed (playoff seeding, and everything that is at risk with a loss).

Soon enough we will have our answer.