After spending most of the last eight seasons as the Cowboys’ backup quarterback, Cooper Rush is now a Baltimore Raven. Dallas hasn’t really addressed his departure yet with an offseason move, but there are still some veteran free agents who could find their way into the competition.
Dallas did retain Will Grier from last year’s practice squad. He’s the lead candidate to be Dak Prescott’s backup right now, but only because there isn’t another QB under contract. In addition to Rush’s defection, Trey Lance remains unsigned in his own free agency. There is talk of Lance moving to the Canadian Football League this spring but it’s only in the earliest of stages.
Right now, it feels like the Cowboys are waiting for the draft to make any notable addition to their QB depth chart. Even if they don’t take one on Thursday or Friday night, Dallas still has three fifth-round picks and four more in the final two rounds to use on a passer. They may even be tempted in the third round depending on who’s available, leaving so many options open.
Still, even if a fresh-faced rookie joins Grier in the backup battle, the Cowboys might want at least one more veteran to make it a triple-threat match. Grier may have friends in the locker room but his NFL career hasn’t been pretty, quickly losing favor after the Panthers made him a 2019 third-round pick and having not played a regular-season snap since. Adding someone with more game experience, which Rush took out the door with him, would only make sense.
If that’s still part of the Cowboys’ offseason strategy, here are a few veteran free agents that could make sense.
Desmond Ridder
After trying the whole “one man’s trash” thing with Lance, why not make another attempt with this young passer? A third-round pick in 2022 by the Falcons, Ridder started as a backup to Marcus Mariota in a rebuilding year. He was named the starter in 2023 but wasn’t impactful, leading Atlanta to sign Kirk Cousins the following offseason and trade Ridder to the Cardinals. Ridder lost the backup battle there and ended up on the practice squad, but got picked up by the Raiders after they suffered some injuries.
With only three seasons under his belt, and all of them with teams not really poised to compete, Ridder may still have some untapped potential. It also might help him that new offensive coordinator Klayton Adams was the Cardinals’ offensive line coach last year, so he at least has some firsthand exposure to Ridder’s work. Then again, if that works wasn’t good, maybe that would only close another NFL door.
Nevertheless, like Trey Lance, Ridder was once viewed as a premier QB prospect with strong athletic potential. He’ll only be 26 this August and has 18 career starts, going 8-10 overall. He offers an interesting mix of playing experience but also potential upside to mine.
C.J. Beathard
A longtime NFL backup with 13 career starts, Beathard has a valuable connection to the Cowboys in new head coach Brian Schottenheimer. Back in 2021, when Schottenheimer was the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offensive coordinator, Beathard was signed that offseason to be QB2 behind Trevor Lawrence.
Beathard became fairly well known back in 2017-2018 when he started 10 games for the 49ers. A third-round pick, he started five games as a rookie after Brian Hoyer was benched. But San Francisco traded for Jimmy Garoppolo that October and he took over after Beathard suffered leg and hip injuries a few weeks later. Beathard would start five more games in 2018 after Garoppolo was injured, but eventually got hurt himself.
Since then, it’s been fairly quiet. But it’s interesting to note Beathard’s numbers in his last three NFL starts; two with the 49ers in 2020 and one for the Jaguars in 2023. He’s completed 40 of 53 passes for 1,136 yards, seven touchdowns, and no interceptions. The teams went 2-1 in those three games. So, if Schottenheimer thought well of Beathard during their year together in Jacksonville, it’s not hard to see the Cowboys' front office viewing him as a potential candidate.
Jeff Driskel
In May of 2021, the Cowboys met with Driskel but ultimately didn’t sign him as a free agent. That ended up being the year that Cooper Rush got his first big win in Minnesota, locking down the backup job for the next three seasons. But if Driskel’s still on Dallas’ radar, the veteran is available again and could get another look.
Driskel entered the league the same year as Dak Prescott as a sixth-round pick with the Bengals. He’s been with several different teams in varying backup spots, most recently as the third-stringer with the Commanders last year. He’s had pedestrian numbers as a passer and a concerning 1-10 record as a starter, but he’s rarely played in ideal circumstances.
One thing that helps Driskel is that he’s looked good in a few appearances against the Cowboys. He scored three touchdowns in a 2019 game while with the Lions, then also helped the Texans’ in a narrow 2022 loss to the Cowboys. Driskel even drew some praise from Jerry Jones in post-game comments.
One intriguing element to Driskel’s game is his running ability. In his limited playing time, the QB has 80 career rushes for 417 yards and three touchdowns. Mobility is a nice trait for backups because it can create a new wrinkle in the offense, or at least another tool they can turn to if things aren’t grooving in the passing game.
At the very least, Driskel brings more experience to the table than Grier has. He would hardly get anyone excited, but that would make him fit right in with Miles Sanders, Parris Campbell, and some of the other Cowboys signings so far.