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Jerry Jones explains why Cowboys won't place QB Dak Prescott on IR

The Dallas Cowboys will be without franchise quarterback Dak Prescott for the foreseeable future following surgery to repair a fractured thumb.

DALLAS — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says the team will not be placing quarterback Dak Prescott on injured reserve following surgery to repair his fractured thumb on his throwing hand.

The Cowboys' owner, president, and general manager joined "Shan & RJ" on 105.3 "The Fan" [KRLD-FM] on Tuesday to talk about where the organization is at backup quarterback and why they decided to not put Prescott on injured reserve.

"Our situation with Dak, of course, has caused us to focus a lot of time and attention on several things to think about there," said Jones. "I think what we’re going to do here is we won’t be putting him on IR, which means that we want him to be a consideration for playing within the next four games. We will not put him on IR."

Jones indicated that the team felt "very good after surgery," which Prescott had on Monday, and that the 29-year-old "has a real chance to be back out there throwing the ball real quick.”

"If we thought he wasn’t going to be ready to go for four games, after four games, we would be putting him on injured reserve," Jones said. "We’re not doing that. We think he can come in and play. So, we don’t want to not have him out there practicing. We want him getting prepared. We’ll see how he handles this thing, how it heals, mainly his strength, how he can grip the ball, what his status is. That’s not being an optimist. The proof is we got a good surgery, got good technique, and feel better about it than we did the other night.”

The Cowboys are willing to let backup quarterbacks Cooper Rush and Will Grier determine the club's fate under center while Prescott heals. Jones declared that there are no trades on the table to acquire a veteran quarterback.

"Those guys know the offense well," Jones said. "They’ve had a lot of reps in it, and consequently give us our best shot. It’s unlikely since we don’t have any potential of trade pending — not pending, but in the mill — it’s unlikely that you have a veteran quarterback that could get back in here and be ready to play as well as those guys can play, even if you thought you might have a talent advantage."

Even though the injury to Prescott has been the biggest storyline to come out of Week 1 for the Cowboys, Jones believes it is a distraction for how the team played in the 19-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at AT&T Stadium.

"I think that Dak’s injury certainly has taken center front and is a little bit of a red herring, relative if you want to use that term, relative to focusing on the way we played," Jones said. "We have to play better. We had a better training camp than we showed. I want to give Tampa really a lot of credit, but we think they’re a good team, a real good team, and we did not play well."

Do you think the Cowboys would be better off looking for another quarterback during Dak’s absence? Share your thoughts with Mark on Twitter @therealmarklane.

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