S.I.’s Albert Breer on Dak’s Supreme Confidence Heading into Cowboys’ Season

Dak Prescott gave Albert Breer ten minutes at Cowboys camp. Breer came away thinking it might have been the most efficient ten-minute conversation of his career.

"He's all about efficiency, is he not?" Rich said.

Efficiency was the least of it. What Breer described on the show was a quarterback who has stopped hedging.

"It's just like you sense with him just a belief and a security in where he is and a security in what's around him and his place in the league and the Cowboys' place now," the Sports Illustrated reporter said.

Then there was the shirt. Prescott wore a Super Bowl 30 shirt to camp, which is not subtle, because Super Bowl 30 is the last one Dallas won. Breer did the math out loud and it lands like a punch: that is half the Super Bowl era ago, with the league now at 60.

Breer asked him about it. Prescott did not dodge.

"He basically said it's obvious that that's our goal. So why shouldn't we just say it?"

That is the whole argument, and it is a good one. Prescott's reasoning, as Breer relayed it, was that the conversation is going to happen with or without him. Everybody is going to be talking about the Cowboys and their expectations in September, October and November, whether they are winning or losing. That is the job description in Dallas.

So why not start the conversation on his own terms in July.

The part that will interest people who have watched this franchise chase vibes before is what Breer found around the building. He noted the organization has rolled the dice plenty over the years in the character department. Not this time.

"That was the one thing that really stuck out," Breer said. "Like every conversation I had with any of the people working there was just how good a place the locker room seems to be right now."

Brian Schottenheimer said last year he wanted to build the best culture in sports. Breer admitted that reads as a hokey line. He also said they are serious about it, and pointed at the roster moves to back it: Kenny Clark, Quinnen Williams, a trade for Rashan Gary, and Caleb Downs coming in.

Rich agreed with the read, and said he had told Breer the same thing back at the combine. He felt like he was talking to a ten-year veteran.

Breer's one hesitation is the least romantic one available, and probably the correct one.

"I think a lot of it for them is going to be based on health," he said. "I don't know that they've got the depth across the board that say a Seattle does. But if they can stay healthy, I think they have a chance."

That is where Dallas sits at the end of July. A quarterback who has decided to say the quiet part first, a locker room that scouts and staffers keep describing in the same glowing terms, a haul of veteran defenders, and a margin for error that depends entirely on the training room.

Prescott seems fine with all of it. He wore the shirt.