Cooper Rush has given Cowboys fans hope — and an exhilarating ride

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Soon enough, and with no shortage of sentimental sadness, the Great Cooper Rush Adventure of 2022 will come to an end.

And when it does, one of the most enjoyably unexpected chapters of these unpredictable times in the National Football League will be in the books, a rather delightful vignette about one hurt thumb, two QBs, three key developments and four big wins.

Maybe there is one more Rush week for the Dallas Cowboys, a dramatic conclusion against the NFC East-leading Philadelphia Eagles, at 5-0 the only undefeated team left in pro football.

Or maybe it is done already, if Dak Prescott’s digital healing progresses enough for him to return to starting duties and quash the cute, quaint, but never-actually-real discussions about a potential quarterback battle.

If so, it has been a heck of a ride.

They could make a pretty good movie script based around a back-up quarterback who steps successfully into the fray when the superstar goes down hurt, couldn’t they? What’s that, they already did? More than one, you say?

Fine, scratch that idea. In any case, Rush is the kind of down-to-the-earth character best suited to football stadiums in Inglewood (where the Cowboys beat the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday) than studio lots in Hollywood in any case.

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The undrafted 28-year-old out of Central Michigan was no one’s idea of a suitable leading man when Prescott’s right thumb was fractured to the point of surgical repair in the season-opening defeat to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but has proved himself to be a more than admirable stunt double.

He’ll never have the big-throw prowess of Prescott, but he has played largely mistake-free over the past month — the standout portion of his stat line being a big, fat zero in the INT column — in victories over the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Giants, Washington Commanders and the Rams.

Definitively going with Rush once Prescott got hurt formed the first of the three relevant happenings mentioned at the top, as it initially looked deep within the realm of possibility that a higher profile stop-gap could have been sought by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Decision two was Jones’ choice to cheekily float a quarterback controversy out there a few weeks back, which was either brazen PR, an attempt to embolden Rush’s confidence, or a combination of both. Either way, it certainly didn’t do any harm.

And finally, once Rush had shown his deputizing skills to be surprisingly exemplary, the final piece could fall into place. If things had not gone so smoothly on the field, the temptation to hurry Prescott back under center would have been clear and present. Such attempts to cheat time, as we have seen, rarely go well.

Instead, Dallas finds itself in tremendous shape. Prescott’s only latent concern is if he can generate as much spin onto the pigskin as he could pre-op. If it takes one more week? No problem.

When Prescott does re-emerge, having been given every chance to get to 100 percent, he will do so with the team in a better position, whatever happens this weekend, than the situation he left exactly a month ago. That’s the definition of summa cum laude back-up work, right there.

“Dak is the No. 1 quarterback,” Jones told reporters last weekend. “Dak is our guy. But isn’t it great that somebody came in and played well enough so that we can ask that question?”

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When the time comes, Rush will simply go back to doing what he did before, namely, trying to support Prescott and be the best No. 2 possible. There will be no sense of unfairness about it, this is how football works.

Prescott, quite simply, is the more proficient and proven player, which is why he gets paid $40 million a year and is the face of the franchise. Rush has boosted his own stock immensely, to a degree where he might get a starting gig elsewhere at some stage, or just be perhaps the best darn reserve Dallas has ever seen. Hyperbole? The numbers, on some level, back it up. No other Cowboys QB has ever won his first five starts.

There is a purity of what Rush has accomplished, the raw neatness of having done a job exceptionally well. When a QB goes down injured at some time in the future, and a backup is elevated to the main position and tasked with keeping things afloat, every affected coach, owner and fan will be wishing for their own version of Cooper Rush and a slice of what he has brought to the Cowboys.

And where he has taken them.

From the brink of despair to a record better than that of 27 other teams. Wins over both the 2021 Super Bowl participants, plus the surging, resilient, confident Giants (which still feels weird to write). Hope restored to Cowboy Nation.

What an effort. What a story. What a back-up. And, for Cowboys fans who have lived and breathed his journey, what a Rush.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.