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FOR THE WIN
NFL

The Dallas Cowboys have another brutal decision to make at QB

Andy Nesbitt
For The Win

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The past few days have been pretty serious and stressful with the 2020 election playing out at all hours of the day. Sports, and just about everything else, have rightly taken a back seat as we wait and watch to see who will win - Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

But let's get away from that for a bit and get into some football, specifically the Dallas Cowboys and their quarterback situation heading into a matchup with the 7-0 Steelers in Dallas on Sunday.

With Dak Prescott done for the season and Andy Dalton being placed on the COVID-19 reserve list earlier this week, Mike McCarthy announced on Wednesday that rookie Ben DiNucci will not be the starting quarterback Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

DiNucci had NFL fans making tons of jokes about his hilariously bad sidearm pass in last Sunday night's loss to the Eagles. Then after the game, in which his fumble led to a pivotal TD return for Philadelphia, he admitted that "this NFL thing, it's hard."

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The Ben DiNucci era in Dallas was apparently a short one, and rightfully so as the seventh-round pick out of James Madison was pretty bad, and in well over his head at this level.

So who is McCarthy handing the keys to the offense to? He's not sure yet but he's going to let Garrett Gilbert and Cooper Rush battle it out in practice to earn the job.

Garrett Gilbert and Cooper Rush? Those two guys weren't even on the Cowboys' 55-man roster at the start of the season.

Yikes.

McCarthy broke down his decision, via USA Today's Jori Epstein:

"The decision was made to go with the two experienced quarterbacks. With the opponent that we're playing, we need some more experience at that position. Obviously, Garrett Gilbert has been here for a couple of weeks. He's had a chance to play in preseason games. Just has more experience. And no different with Coop. Coop played last year, is very familiar with the system. Kellen Moore has a lot of confidence there."

Let's go through that thing line by line:

The first line:

"The decision was made to go with the two experienced quarterbacks."

Makes sense, until you realize Gilbert nor Rush have any real experience.

Gilbert has appeared in a total of six games since being drafted in the sixth round of the 2014 draft by the then St. Louis Rams. He's thrown a total of six passes during those six years, has never started a game, and has bounced around seven different teams during his career.

Rush joined the Cowboys in 2017 as an undrafted free agent and has thrown just three passes in a NFL game, all in the same one back in 2017.

DiNucci threw 40 passes last week! He had 180 yards passing, too!

The second line:

"With the opponent that we're playing, we need some more experience at that position."

Yes, playing the unbeaten Steelers and their terrific defense is quite a challenge but no, you don't have more experience at that position.

The third line:

"Obviously, Garrett Gilbert has been here for a couple of weeks."

I thought the end of that line was going to be something much more substantial.

I was wrong.

The fourth line:

"He's had a chance to play in preseason games."

Oh man, he's had the chance to play in preseason games!? Well, not this year since there were no preseason games. But, whatever.

The fifth line:

"Just has more experience."

I guess "more" is technically correct but if I have three pennies and you have six pennies you aren't really bragging about have much more than I have.

The sixth and seventh lines:

"And no different with Coop. Coop played last year, is very familiar with the system."

The word "played" here is being very generous.

The eighth line:

"Kellen Moore has a lot of confidence there."

Again, "a lot" really isn't that much.

So there you have it. The Dallas Cowboys' difficult season continues and it could get even worse Sunday at home.

Quick hits: Best Jimmie Johnson stories… Fantasy football advice… Fitzpatrick's short shorts… And more.

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

- Michelle Martinelli has NASCAR drivers share their favorite Jimmie Johnson stories and they are all pretty awesome.

- Charles Curtis has his Week 9 fantasy football studs, duds, and sleepers.

- Ryan Fitzpatrick broke out some really short shorts in tribute to his former teammate who was traded away this week.

- Hemal Jhaveri brilliantly breaks down a horrible Gap ad.

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