Who is Cooper Rush? Meet the Backup Quarterback Jerry Jones Has Tasked With Saving the Cowboys Season

As if things couldn’t get any worse for the Dallas Cowboys following their disgusting 19-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1, now they’ll be forced to go forward with veteran Cooper Rush at quarterback.

With Dad Prescott being out for the foreseeable future with a fractured right thumb, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that the Cowboys will ‘likely’ not be pursuing another QB via trade or free agency, meaning the onus will fall on Rush.

“As of now, Cowboys do not plan to pursue significant trade for a QB barring unforeseen change, per source,” Fowler wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “Cowboys won’t take any possibility completely off table, but with Dak Prescott’s improved timeline and Cooper Rush’s familiarity with offense, team feels it can be patient.”

Who is Cooper Rush?

Last season, Rush was also forced to fill in for an injured Prescott, playing in the team’s game against the Minnesota Vikings on Halloween of last year. In that game, Rush actually impressed, completing Rush 24-of-40 pass attempts for 325 yards and a touchdown, beating Minnesota 20-16.

Rush — a product of Central Michigan — has been relegated to third string duty during most of his four years as a member of the Cowboys, but his familiarity with the personnel and offensive scheme has the organization confident that he’s likely the best option right now.

“He can play at a level that we can win ball games,” Jones Jori Epstein of USA TODAY Sports. “The main thing about him as a backup quarterback is we didn’t have to alter the offense to have him. That’s a good thing to have continuity. That’s the main reason he won the job. Just count on him. He threw a couple of good balls out there.”

It might not really come down to a question of whether or not Rush can play at a competent level, but rather whether or not it really matters who’s throwing passes given the current state of the Cowboys.

Before being injured, Prescott clearly struggled without Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup in his offense. He threw for just 134 yards and had an interception while being constantly under siege from a tough Buccaneers defensive front.

In replacement duty, Rush completed seven of his 13 passes for 64 yards.

While Rush might be a virtual unknown, the always-intriguing Jones is going into this situation with an overly optimistic mindset. He even likened the situation to when Prescott was slung into duty for an injured Tony Romo during Week 1 of his rookie season.

“Candidly, we have to look at it, and I don’t see this in the horizon, but I’m going to use it as an example, of how I felt when Tony Romo went down against Seattle,” Jones told Epstein. “And how I felt two and a half, three months later, when you had to make a decision whether Tony was starting or Dak.”

Rush will have his first opportunity to silence the many critics when the Cowboys host Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday afternoon.

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