Blogging The Boys
It is Day 81 of our 100-day countdown to kickoff. We are looking back at the 100 most iconic games in Dallas Cowboys history. The countdown will leads us right up to the opening game of 2026. Our look back doesn’t depend on just one criteria for our rankings. We take into consideration things like how big the game was for the organization, how memorable the game was, games that had unusual events take place, games that are a part of NFL lore, Cowboys firsts, and games where the Cowboys just plain dominated. Variety is the spice of life and we have all different kind of Cowboys games to review. At the bottom, we’ll link each day of the countdown so you can go back and check out any you missed.
We move to Day 81 of our 100-day countdown to kickoff, where we revisit one of the rare Cowboys losses that still feels like the beginning of something important. The scoreboard says the Giants beat the Cowboys 20-19 in Week 1 of the 2016 season. The larger story, however, was this was the day the Dak Prescott era officially began. A fourth-round rookie quarterback, forced into the lineup because of Tony Romo’s preseason back injury, walked into the opener under enormous pressure and looked like he belonged.
The circumstances were almost impossible to ignore. Romo had suffered a compression fracture in his back during the preseason, Kellen Moore went to injured reserve after breaking his ankle in practice, and that left Prescott to start the opener. Dallas also had rookie Ezekiel Elliott in the backfield, making Prescott and Elliott the Cowboys’ first rookie quarterback-running back duo to start an opener since Roger Staubach and Calvin Hill in 1969.
Prescott’s debut was not flashy, but it was composed. He completed 25 of 45 passes for 227 yards, did not throw an interception, and repeatedly helped Dallas move the ball into scoring range. The problem was finishing. The Cowboys settled for Dan Bailey field goals again and again, with Bailey connecting from 23, 56, 25, and 54 yards. Elliott scored the Cowboys’ only touchdown on an eight-yard run in the third quarter, but Dallas never found the passing-game breakthrough it needed.
The Giants did just enough offensively behind Eli Manning. Manning threw three touchdown passes, including a 15-yarder to Larry Donnell, a nine-yarder to rookie Sterling Shepard, and the decisive three-yard touchdown to Victor Cruz in the fourth quarter. Cruz’s score was especially emotional for New York, as it came in his first regular-season game in nearly two years.
Dallas still had a chance to steal it. Trailing by one in the final seconds, Prescott hit Terrance Williams near the sideline, putting the Cowboys close to long field-goal range. But Williams turned upfield instead of immediately getting out of bounds, and the clock expired before Dallas could...
