Trey Lance's first Cowboys drive nearly ended in severe disaster for Dak Prescott

It was clear before Sunday that the Dallas Cowboys are a bad football team. With no Dak Prescott, who has dominated the NFC East in his career, there was little hope Dallas would be competitive against the Philadelphia Eagles, let alone beat their division rival.

Cooper Rush played about as bad as fans could've imagined. Rush dropped back to pass 23 times and threw for 45 yards. He averaged an astounding 2.0 yards per attempt. His 21.1% success rate in the first half was the sixth-worst by any starting quarterback in the last three seasons.

And yet, it took until the fourth quarter for the Cowboys to hand the keys to Trey Lance, who actually made a brief cameo at the end of the third quarter but was quickly subbed out much to the chagrin of fans.

Lance hit tight end Jake Ferguson on one of his first dropbacks, but Ferguson fumbled and Eagles safety Reed Blankenship recovered. Lance shoved Blankenship out of bounds but his hustle nearly ended in disaster as Blankenship crashed into a nearby Prescott on the sideline.

Trey Lance nearly accidentally injured Dak Prescott after a Cowboys fumble

Thankfully, Prescott was only grazed by the out-of-control Blankenship and was seemingly able to brace himself before falling.

Prescott's right hamstring tendon is partially torn off the bone. Given the speed at which the play unfolded, it was likely impossible for a hobbled Prescott to get out of the line of fire in real time. Regardless, though, why is he that close to the sideline?

That is completely negligent on the part of Prescott and the organization. It stands to reason Prescott's hamstring tightened up on him while he tried to evade the Eagles defender. That alone is troubling, but this could have been much worse for the Cowboys quarterback.

Imagine if Blankenship had crashed into Prescott's knee. We could be talking about a catastrophic knee injury on top of his hamstring, which potentially needs season-ending surgery to repair.

Prescott likely advocated to be on the sideline for the game. That's the kind of teammate he is. However, he shouldn't have been anywhere close to the field of play. It is utterly dumbfounding that the franchise's $240 million quarterback was in harms way, but again this is a team that can't get out of its own way.

The Cowboys are lucky that Prescott was merely bumped into, but this sequence was inches away from being a complete disaster.

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