It was a rough night for quarterback Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, October 8 — and the event staff at AT&T Stadium wasn’t afraid to let them know.
An unidentified man yelled “embarrassing!” at Prescott, 33, as he was making his way into the locker room following the Cowboys’ 24-16 home loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, giving Tampa their first victory of the season. The individual was a third-party contractor, according to ESPN.
“When he said it, I just happened to look at him, and at that point, he looked away,” Prescott told reporters on Thursday about the interaction, which went viral on social media. “And when I turned my head back, he said something else. And so that’s the part that, just as a man or as just a person, feel free to speak your mind — just speak it. Don’t cower away from the reaction that you’re going to get.”
The quarterback added, “If you’re saying it’s embarrassing, say it’s embarrassing. If you’re saying it to me, then say it to me. Don’t go back on it. So that’s all that was, and [I] hate that it’s even being talked about, to be honest with you.”
There was plenty more to discuss on Thursday night, with the Cowboys losing a home game to a Tampa Bay team that started undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels at quarterback.
Prescott admitted the game was “one we’re supposed to have on paper.”
“I think [head coach Brian Schottenheimer] said it best in the locker room, ‘In this league, you’ve got to win the games you’re supposed to win,” Prescott said. “And when a winless team comes into your home stadium in a Thursday night primetime game, yeah, we’re supposed to win that.”
The loss dropped the Cowboys to 2-3 on the season, staring at a 10-day break before they travel to Green Bay to face the Packers on Sunday, October 18.
“We’re going to make some decisions that we believe will give us the best chance to pick back up and play well next week,” Schottenheimer, 52, told reporters after the game. “We’re five games in, didn’t plan on being 2-3. Disappointed by that for sure, but we’re just getting started. There’s a lot of football left, and we got to play better. We know that.”
He added, “We believe in what we’re doing. We believe that we have good players, good coaches, and we believe the solution is in this room.”
