Mike McCarthy, Dak Prescott comment on Terence Steele's performance in loss to Eagles

The Dallas Cowboys made mistakes on multiple fronts on Sunday in the narrow loss to the Eagles but one of the most glaring issues came at right tackle. Terence Steele, still relatively fresh off of a severe knee injury that abruptly ended his 2022 season, allowed 12 pressures with four sacks on QB Dak Prescott, according to ProFootballFocus. The performance was a far cry from those that earned him credit as “one of the NFL’s best right tackles” by that same analytics group one year ago.

Though the offensive line failed to hold up in some crucial moments on Sunday, Prescott didn’t dig into Steele when asked about the RT’s outing.

“Terence would be the first to tell you that he wants to play better and I know he’s going to play better,” Prescott said on Tuesday. “He’s a guy who’s faced this adversity before. You talk about early in his career, undrafted free agent, he had to step in for guys immediately and didn’t have the success or maybe didn’t play to his standards early and then got it going, had some great years under him.

“He’s not going to allow one game to put him down in a dump and he’s not going to allow one game to dictate the way he plays the rest of the season. Something we’ll talk about is trusting in each other. Obviously, I’m using my feet, I’m getting out of the pocket. Use your athleticism. He’ll do that as we move forward and things will be fine.

Steele working his way back from injury

Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy opted to play Steele on 100% of the offensive snaps, despite the fourth-year lineman’s struggles. Though McCarthy said Steele wouldn’t use his injury as an excuse, the skipper acknowledged the reality of the situation.

“Like anything, anytime anyone has a major joint injury, that first year back, it’s a challenge,” McCarthy said, via Michael Gehlken. “There are things he has to continue to work through because of the injury…But yes, it wasn’t his best game…

“He is definitely still fighting back a little bit from the injury.”

The former undrafted free agent out of Texas Tech allowed just one sack last season, according to PFF. It’s not often an undrafted free agent lands a big-money extension after just three seasons in the NFL. And yet, that’s exactly what Steele accomplished when he signed a five-year, $86.8 million deal, which included $50 million guaranteed, this summer.