Dak Prescott injury odds fallout: Cowboys' playoff chances drop 20 percent via SportsLine Projection Model

The Dallas Cowboys had about as bad as a Sunday night as possible in Week 1. Not only did they lose 19-3 at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but they also lost starting quarterback Dak Prescott for 6-8 weeks due to a right thumb injury that will require surgery today. The SportsLine Projection Model has dropped the chances of the Cowboys making the playoffs from 55.9% to 35.5%. The books are slowly reposting Dallas futures, but their spread for Sunday's home game vs. Cincinnati has shifted from a lookahead of Cowboys -2.5 to Bengals -7.

Prescott was injured in the fourth quarter when he hit the hand of outside linebacker Shaq Barrett while throwing a pass. Prescott completed 14 of 29 passes for 134 yards, was picked once and sacked twice while the Cowboys were held without a touchdown in a season-opener for the first time since 2001. If Prescott meets the short end of the projected recovery timeline he could miss as few as five games: Sunday vs. the Bengals, Week 3 at the Giants, Week 4 vs. the Commanders, Week 5 at the Rams and Week 6 at the Eagles.

In his place, Cooper Rush was 7-for 13 for 64 yards and took two sacks – he'll be the starter going forward, having initally beaten out Will Grier for the backup spot. Rush is 1-0 as an NFL starter, leading a comeback win at the Vikings last year.

Prescott has missed 12 games over the past two seasons combined after missing none from 2016-19. Dallas is 5-7 in those 12 and averaging 21.0 points. This injury will certainly not help the job security of head coach Mike McCarthy. We'll have updated "first coach to be fired" odds later this week. Prescott had been given season totals of over/under 4,350.5 passing yards and 31.5 touchdowns. Obviously, he'll be going Under those now.

There has been some chatter online about the Cowboys perhaps trading for Jimmy Garoppolo, but why would the 49ers give him up after watching Trey Lance struggle in Chicago on Sunday? Dallas does have a fair amount of salary cap space to work with if they do want to upgrade on Rush. There's also been some chatter about Cam Newton and Ryan Fitzpatrick.

A few Cowboys futures we have seen updated so far: The team's odds have shifted from +2200 to +5000 to win Super Bowl 57 and +145 to +550 to win the NFC East. Philadelphia is the -180 favorite in the East.

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