During the Week 1 Sunday Night Football matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cowboys star quarterback Dak Prescott went down with a hand injury. Now, he’s going to have to undergo surgery and could miss nearly half the season.
A timeline from overnight: Cowboys’ QB Dak Prescott is scheduled to have surgery on his right thumb today and is expected to miss 6-8 weeks, multiple sources told ESPN’s @toddarcher.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 12, 2022
It’s a massive hit to a team that seemed poised to compete for the NFC East crown heading into the 2022 NFL season. Now, with Prescott shut down for the foreseeable future, Cooper Rush is expected to take on the starting quarterback duties for the Cowboys.
However, former Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith recently took to social media to tell former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick to “stay ready” and that the Cowboys need him.
@Kaepernick7 #Cowboys need ya champ let’s gooo! Stay ready you ain’t got to get ready!
— JR Smith (@TheRealJRSmith) September 12, 2022
While teams often do look for unsigned veterans in the case of emergencies such as this one, there is ample proof at this point that the NFL has somewhat passed Kaepernick by. As many NFL fans know, Kaepernick created controversy during his playing days after he decided to kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence against Black communities in America.
While many applauded his form of protest, others seemed incensed by it. His last season in the NFL was the 2016 campaign, and many believe that the NFL blackballed him, essentially ending his career due to his political stance.
Though the climate surrounding protests and police violence may be different now than it was back in 2016, it doesn’t mean that Kaepernick will get his chance to return to the NFL. Perhaps the biggest reason why at this point is his age. He’s 34 years old, and he hasn’t thrown a football on an NFL field in over half a decade.
It would certainly be an incredible story if he made an NFL comeback, but that possibility seems more rooted in fantasy than reality.
The more realistic results of Prescott’s injury are Rush taking on the quarterback duties or the Cowboys going out and trading for a veteran that is already on an NFL roster. San Francisco 49ers backup Jimmy Garoppolo has already been pegged as a real possibility for the Cowboys.
Only time will tell if the Cowboys do make such a move.
