The percentages of this return are almost as good as The Cowboys in the playoffsbut at this point, playing Trey Lance carries minimal risk.

A a business that was never a good thing The idea now has the perfect opportunity to see if it can be salvaged. The hamstring injury suffered by Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in their loss at Atlanta creates an opportunity they shouldn’t pass up.

Cooper Rush will be the starting quarterback on Sunday when the Cowboys host the Philadelphia Eagles, and Lance will be QB2. Starting Lance would be an insult to the rest of the team, but playing some of it isn’t.

The Cowboys are 3-5 and 7.5 point underdogs against Philadelphia. They may win a game or two without Dak, but everyone on the team knows the score. The 2024 season has turned into player development and evaluating coaches and talent for 2025. The season is now focused on contracts.

The 49ers selected Spear with the third overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft because they thought he could play. The same team exchange him three years later to the Cowboys for their 2024 fourth-round pick because they didn’t think he could.

The Cowboys were probably the only team to offer the 49ers anything in exchange for a player they were going to cut because they were down on Brock Purdy.

Lance doesn’t have that label, but he’s one of the biggest busts in recent draft history. He’s had some injuries to deal with, but he’s appeared in a total of eight NFL games since entering the league, zero with the Cowboys. His last touchdown pass was in 2021.

He attempted 217 career passes, enough for the 49ers to believe they didn’t need to see No. 218.

There are good reasons why the 49ers drafted him. The Cowboys must understand these reasons, in a game that counts. The only real tape they have of Lance is from preseason games, and it’s not great.

Lance replacing Prescott as this team’s starting quarterback was never a realistic part of a storyline; Lance becoming a number 2, or perhaps a trade piece, had legs. No big legs. Little legs.

They might as well widen their lens to see if Lance is a useful NFL player.

The Cowboys will not exercise the fifth year of his career rookie contractand so far they have paid him mainly to watch football rather than play it. There was never a good time. This has never been necessary.

This is the most opportune moment.

“Last year was a completely different story. I feel ready if that opportunity (to play) presents itself at some point,” Lance told reporters at the Frisco Star on Wednesday. “I feel like I’m in a really good place right now, with a full year under my belt.”

Historically, rotating quarterbacks in an NFL game never works. It’s an idea born out of desperate circumstances and good players.

In 1971, Cowboys coach Tom Landry I did it but with quarterbacks who were Pro Bowlers. That season, Landry announced that Craig Morton would start odd-numbered games and Roger Staubach in even-numbered weeks. In Week 7, Landry abandoned the plan and rotated his QBs after every play in a game in Chicago, a loss.

After that, Landry went with Staubach for the rest of the season and the Cowboys didn’t lose again en route to their first Super Bowl title.

Other than the star on their helmets, Rush/Lance share little in common with Staubach/Morton. The Cowboys won’t win here in 2024.

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy doesn’t need to try Landry’s idea, but he can do what Sean Payton did so near the end of his coaching tenure in New Orleans. Starting in 2018, Payton used quarterback Taysom Hill in various roles including wide receiver and tight end. Hill started nine games at quarterback for New Orleans in 2020 and 2021 and finished 7-2.

The Saints installed plays and packages for Hill.

No NFL team was going to win big with Hill as their starting quarterback, but he proved to be a productive NFL player. Hill, 34, is currently listed as the Saints backup tight end.

Lance doesn’t have a future as a tight end, but maybe he has a future in the NFL.

The percentages aren’t great, but at this point the Cowboys have nothing to lose other than finding out because their season is all but lost.