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Todd Archer, ESPN Staff Writer
FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys are sticking with Cooper Rush as their starting quarterback for next Monday night’s home game against the Houston Texans.
“We have a lot of faith in Cooper,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “Like I stood up here last week, everybody believes in him. How can you not based off the way he’s performed? But that fumble and the recovery attempt, that was off to a rough start. Just felt like he never really got into a rhythm.”
In Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, Rush completed 13-of-26 passes for 45 yards and lost two fumbles. He also was sacked once. Most importantly, the Cowboys did not score a touchdown in their first game without Dak Prescott.
Rush’s 1.96 yards per attempt tied for the fourth lowest by any quarterback since 1990 with a minimum of 20 attempts. The last quarterback with a lower yards per attempt was the Denver Broncos‘ Peyton Manning in 2015 against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“Everybody has confidence in Coop,” offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said. “Again, it wasn’t our best performance yesterday as an offense, for sure. Wasn’t all him. We’re all involved in that.”
Rush was replaced by Trey Lance for good in the fourth quarter on Sunday after Lance took two snaps in the third quarter. Lance finished with 21 yards on 4-of-6 passing. He was sacked twice and intercepted once. He also ran three times for 17 yards in his first regular-season action since being acquired by the Cowboys in 2023.
“We got him in there that first series, trying to give us a spark, and then got to the third down and I just felt he didn’t have reps in that particular situational work,” McCarthy said of Lance. “But then gave him some series based on where we were; thought he did some good things. And definitely some things he can learn from. It was good to get him out there.”