Dak Dissed? Patriots' Bill Belichick Forgets Prescott in Cowboys Scouting Report

It's not exactly former Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells refusing to call Terrell Owens by name - instead always referring to him as "the player" - but it is at least peculiar that the only person in America not breathlessly dissecting Dak Prescott's underwhelming performance in last week's upset loss to the Arizona Cardinals is ... Sunday's opposing head coach.

Somehow, meticulous and legendary New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick prepared a lengthy Cowboys scouting report this week that didn't have a yellow highlighter on Prescott.

In his Wednesday press-conference preview of the Cowboys, Belichick gushed about Dallas for five full minutes. In all, he mentioned - by name - 21 players, coaches and front-office personnel. Curiously, Belichick didn't utter a single word about the high-profile quarterback.

When the Patriots hosted the Cowboys two years ago, Belichick opened his press conference with “Dak’s Dak.” In that Dallas 35-29 win in Foxboro, Prescott threw for 445 yards and three touchdowns, including the game-winner in overtime to CeeDee Lamb.

Maybe - likely? - this omission was scripted, because it's so glaringly obvious what Prescott means to Dallas. And, after all, the Cowboys are saturated with other stars on both sides of the ball. (Belichick so gushed over Parsons, in fact, that he compared him to legendary Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor before slightly walking the hyperbole back.)

For what it's worth, Belichick's Dak-less diatribe about the Cowboys included mentions of:

Jerry Jones. Stephen Jones. Mike McCarthy. Dan Quinn. John Fassel. KaVontae Turpin. Tony Pollard. Lamb. Brandin Cooks. Parsons. DeMarcus Lawrence. Osa Odighizuwa. Stephon Gilmore. Malik Hooker. DaRon Bland. Jourdan Lewis. Leighton Vander Esch. Jayron Kearse. Brandon Aubrey. C.J. Goodwin. Mazi Smith.

"It’s always interesting to look at Dallas," said Belichick, who only got around to mentioning Prescott when he was asked. "Obviously a really good football team. They’ve been good for quite a while. You can see why they have the consistency that they’ve had, and Mike (coach McCarthy) kind of, I’d say, changed things up a little bit this year. And it looks like that’s working out pretty well, too.

“There you have it. That’s Dallas.”