When August rolls around, Milton should spice up exhibition football for the Cowboys.
It’s nice to have a backup quarterback. For the Dallas Cowboys, we won’t know if they fall into that category or not until we get a good glimpse of second-year player Joe Milton III. In April, the Cowboys traded a fifth-round pick to acquire Milton from the Patriots. Dallas also got a seventh-round pick in return. After being taken in the sixth round in the 2024 draft, Milton played one game for New England last year. He performed well, but the Patriots had a crowded quarterback room after using a third overall pick on Drake Maye and signing Joshua Dobbs to a two-year, $8 million deal.
Milton will get a better opportunity in Dallas as the team doesn’t have Cooper Rush or Trey Lance, both left in free agency. Currently, Will Grier is the next man in line for the job, meaning the job is Milton’s to lose.
Even though Milton was a sixth-round pick and the Patriots gave him up for next to nothing, the idea of what he’s capable of brings a little bit of excitement to the backup quarterback position. Between his mobility and his one-game performance last year, there is some intrigue. Can he be a guy who can keep the boat afloat should Dak Prescott miss some games? Is he a guy who has enough playmaking ability to allow the offense to hum if Prescott is out of action for an extended amount of time? That is something that we’ll have to wait to find out, but in the meantime, we’ll be treated to some added excitement come the preseason. How many times have we been able to say that?
Today, we’ll examine some backups in years past who, whether they turned out or not, provided us with some level of interest during the preseason. Full disclosure, I didn’t care much about the preseason during my younger years as a fan, so this only goes back about 20 years. If you have preseason stories that go back further, we’d love to hear them.
TREY LANCE
Yes, this time last year, we prepared for the Trey Lance experiment. The Cowboys used a fourth-round pick to acquire him from San Francisco, so the hope was that something would click for this young quarterback. Sadly, that was not the case. Lance didn’t look good in the preseason, and even though Prescott was lost for half the season, he didn’t get a chance to play any real snaps until the season finale. And when he did play, he looked like he did in the preseason, which was a quarterback who still wasn’t ready to play at the NFL level. Lance is gone now, but for a brief moment, he put a little curiosity in August football.
MIKE WHITE
Before he was on the Amazing Race, Survivor, or creating captivating episodes of the White Lotus, Mike White was a quarterback for the Cowboys. Okay, maybe we’re talking about a different Mike White, but either way, there was mystery, there was a struggle of power, and there was murder. Wait, no. There was no murder. Like with Lance, fans were just hoping for something more than Cooper Rush, and similarly, they didn’t get it. White struggled in his preseason games and didn’t even make the team the following season. His career didn’t end as he had a few impressive moments as the backup quarterback of the New York Jets, which left us fans wondering if the Cowboys gave him enough time to develop. In the end, he was just a guy with a strong arm who didn’t make enough good decisions to keep him on the roster.
DAK PRESCOTT
The Prescott story has always been an interesting one. When he first arrived, he was buried on the depth chart behind Tony Romo, Kellen Moore, and Jameill Showers. Yes, Jameill Showers. It didn’t take long for the coaching staff to adore Dak, and a foot injury in practice took out Moore, leaving Prescott with the lion’s share of preseason action. And boy, he didn’t disappoint. Prescott was outstanding during the preseason and for the first time ever, fans felt a sense of security should something happen to Romo. Sadly, that moment came much faster than expected as Romo was injured in the dress rehearsal preseason game, leaving Dak with the key to the offense. And the rest is history. We didn’t know at the time that we were witnessing a changing of the guard in Dallas, but many were excited to see what Prescott was capable of, and it didn’t end after the preseason.
TONY ROMO
Another odd story, Romo joined the team as an undrafted free agent. Honestly, the memory of him early on is fuzzy, as it’s hard even thinking about what he did in his first couple of years on the team. Buried on the depth chart and a survivor of roster cuts because of his supposed potential, Romo was just an afterthought. In fact, had it not been for Quincy Carter bein released following substance abuse allegations, we might not have ever witnessed the Romo era in Dallas.
Gradually, he started making plays in the preseason, and by the time 2006 rolled around, the interest was gaining traction. He didn’t disappoint. He put together his second-straight splashy preseason and quickly became a fan favorite after it was apparent that Drew Bledsoe wasn’t the guy. Romo replaced Bledsoe after six games and never looked back. It took a while, but this UDFA from Eastern Illinois gave us something to cheer for in the preseason.
Those are four examples over the last 20 years. A couple of them turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, but a couple turned out unexpectedly well. Where will Milton fall in this group? We don’t need him to have this great origin story like Dak and Romo, but it would be nice if he did better than Lance and White. Something in between would work out just fine. Whatever he eventually amounts to is unknown, but for now, he’ll bring some fun to the preseason come August.
