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FRISCO, Texas — Dak Prescott challenged Dallas Cowboys fans Thursday to keep San Francisco 49ers fans from taking over AT&T Stadium on Sunday. The 7-1 49ers visit a Dallas team that is 1-2 in Arlington this season.
The Cowboys beat the Washington Commanders 37-20 at home on Sept. 20, then lost there to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-16 on Oct. 8 and to the Arizona Cardinals 33-30 in overtime on Nov. 1. Dallas also lost 34-31 to the Baltimore Ravens in Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 27, and it is 3-2 in road games after Sunday’s 27-23 win over the Indianapolis Colts.
San Francisco has won the last four meetings, including playoff wins after the 2021 and 2022 seasons. The first of those playoff games, a 23-17 wild-card win in January 2022, was played at AT&T Stadium.
Dallas has played six of its nine games away from AT&T Stadium, counting the Rio de Janeiro game, so the silent cadence is not foreign to the Cowboys. They will still get a couple of reps at it this week.
“I wouldn’t be surprised for one, and then two, yeah, I mean, we’ll get some work in just our silent,” Prescott said. “I mean, obviously, we’ve been on the road a lot this season.”
“We’ll prepare for anything and everything, and so I just challenge Cowboy fans to not let that happen,” Prescott continued. “To show up, support, and understand what they mean to this game.”
Winning at AT&T Stadium has been the hard part for Dallas this season. At Indianapolis, Prescott led a four-play, 65-yard drive in 29 seconds for the winning touchdown.
“We got to win. Simple as that,” Prescott explained. “I think Schotty says it best out of the game: the best way to learn to win is to win. And so last week getting into that game the way it ended, and having to go down and having to win, and defense having to get a stop. That’s real, and that’s what games are about.”
“And so for me, it’s about understanding that they’re going to come down to the last drive, and if they don’t, cool, like we’ll worry about that then,” Prescott added. “But expect them to come down to the last drive on either side of the ball, and we’ve got to go make the plays to win, and ultimately that’s what the NFL is about, and that’s what makes it great. And so we’ve got to expect a four-quarter game, if not more, and plan to make the plays when they’re needed to be made.”
Dak Prescott Wants First Back-To-Back Wins Against San Francisco
Dallas has not won consecutive games this season. The win at Indianapolis followed the overtime loss to Arizona, and the Oct. 26 win at Philadelphia came after losses to Tampa Bay and the Green Bay Packers.
The teams last met on Oct. 27, 2024, when San Francisco won 30-24, and Prescott expects the 49ers to bring the same level of physicality to Arlington.
“I think it’s easy. I mean, for me, I’m always right where my feet are, and I know those last years don’t serve anything for this,” Prescott said. “I mean, you’re talking new coaches and a lot of new players since just the last time we played them, and so it’s easy for me. And just understanding that the rival is still there, they’re going to try to come in with a level of physicality that we can’t say what we’re going to match, but we’ve got to bring our own physicality and start this thing fast and understand the kind of game it’s going to be.”
San Francisco beat the Las Vegas Raiders coming out of its bye and leads the NFC. A win over a team that good would carry real momentum for Dallas, Prescott said.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Prescott said. “I mean, playing as good a team, right? I think they’re one or two seed right now in the NFC. Yeah, and then having an opportunity to get them here at home and can’t ask for anything much better, especially where we are and where we’ve been right now in our season. And yeah, as I said, momentum’s real. It’s great to get a win last week, but this is a real chance, real challenge, and a real opportunity for us to capitalize on.”
Both of the 49ers’ playoff wins over Dallas came with Prescott at quarterback, and he has not hidden that he wants to beat them.
“I mean, I want to beat them absolutely, and I’m not naive to what’s happened or my history against them,” Prescott said. “So, but to put that on the rest of these guys, to put that on the locker room, I think that’s stupid. This is about us going in and getting a win, and us trying to win this game and get some momentum going and get back-to-back wins for the first time this season and build off of that.”
“And so, what a great opportunity to get to do it against a 7-1 team, 7-1, right? Just so happens that it be the Niners,” Prescott continued. “So, yeah, obviously I want to get a win, and everybody and anybody in this building does for sure for a bunch of different reasons. But at the end of the day, it’s a 7-1 team coming in here, and we’ve got an opportunity to beat them. We’ve got to go do everything we can to get that done.”
A win over the 7-1 49ers would give Dallas its first winning streak of the season. CeeDee Lamb, who caught 10 passes for 195 yards and a touchdown at Indianapolis, knows a lot of people would be surprised by it.
“It would just prove us right,” Lamb said. “Just of how we think of ourselves throughout this building. A lot of people would be shocked, obviously, because of the record and things that have happened leading up to this game, but for us, we know we haven’t played our best game, and we just got to go out there and do that.”
“I feel like we play complementary football,” Lamb continued. “Defense gets stops, offense go score the ball. We will probably be having a different conversation.”
The New York Giants (5-2-1) lead the NFC East and faced the Commanders (2-5-1) on Thursday night. Washington coach Dan Quinn was the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator from 2021 to 2023.
“I’m going to cheer for DQ all day long,” Prescott said. “There’s a bunch of games left, and we’ve got to still play them, so no worry in that sense of what they’re doing. But yeah, you obviously want them to lose, and you’re going to cheer for the other team to get that done.”
Fred Warner Sets San Francisco’s Defense
San Francisco forced five turnovers against Las Vegas, and linebacker Fred Warner recovered one of the fumbles. Dallas lost two fumbles at Indianapolis.
Warner reads the offensive line’s splits and the back’s alignment before setting San Francisco’s calls, Prescott said.
“Yeah, good bit,” Prescott said. “I mean, obviously, he’s the best probably linebacker in the NFL right now. And you just said it, the way he plays the game mentally of reading the splits, reading the back, whether he’s in the near and the far, making his different calls. And they’re simple defense because he can get them in what they need to be and they play fast and they play hard, and so yeah, there’s a little bit of a chess match there, but it’s no different than the play callers calling the plays, and at the end of the day, it’s about execution.”
Cowboys offensive coordinator Klayton Adams said part of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan’s approach has been keeping the same defense no matter who comes in as coordinator, because Warner understands all of it.
“Well, I’m not the authority on all-time linebackers by any means, but I was in the division with him for a couple years,” Adams said. “You don’t very often see the inside linebacker making secondary adjustments, and that’s unique with Fred Warner. A lot of times, those guys just get to play back there because he’s so on top of the adjustments, which also, I think, is part of the brilliance by Kyle of saying that regardless of who comes in here, we’re running this defense, because some of that is, Fred Warner understands all that stuff.”
“That’s not to say there’s not nuance. They change a little bit every year, but he knows what everybody’s supposed to do at such a high level that he’s able to communicate it,” Adams continued. “And the 10 other guys on defense play much more freely because of the way that he plays.”
Linebacker DeMarvion Overshown was a full participant in practice Thursday after missing the Colts game with hamstring and back injuries. For Overshown, Warner is the prototype for anyone coming into the league at linebacker.
“The utmost respect for him,” Overshown said. “I feel like since he came into this league, he’s been a dog. He’s been somebody that you gotta scout during the week, you got to know where 54 is. You got to be aware when you’re carrying the ball. He’s just like the prototype linebacker. When you want to come into this league and be a great linebacker, you look at 54. You look at Fred and what he’s done to change the game, especially how the linebacker position is played from sideline to sideline.”
“I’d like to say he opened up the doors for guys like me with my body type to come in, play four downs of football,” Overshown continued. “So I got the utmost respect for him. It’s gonna be good watching them play, but it’s a battle at the end of the day. I want to, we want to come out as the linebacker unit that showed up and made the plays.”
The Cowboys (4-5) host the 49ers on Sunday at AT&T Stadium. Kickoff is set for 3:25 p.m. CT on Fox.
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