Cowboys camp opened in Oxnard with the QB1 doing QB1 things. Dak Prescott went 11-of-18 on team drills during a red zone-heavy practice on Aug. 1, connecting for multiple touchdowns to CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens and depth piece Ryan Flournoy. The lone blemish was a pick when a checkdown got tipped at the line by running back Jaydon Blue, the kind of non-issue that gets buried in a camp notebook and forgotten by Week 1.
The bigger deal here isn't one practice, it's why Dallas is drilling the red zone so hard in the first place. The Cowboys converted just 37 of 65 red zone drives in 2025, a number that quietly capped Prescott's fantasy ceiling all season even as the yardage total looked fine. Lamb put it plainly at camp, saying the offense needs to stop 'batting ourselves in the foot' once they cross the 20. Schottenheimer clearly heard the same thing, because everything about this camp so far is built around finishing drives instead of just moving the chains.
That context matters for how you should be valuing Dak on draft boards. He bounced back in 2025 with 4,552 passing yards and 30 touchdowns against only 10 interceptions, good for a QB7 finish in points per game while averaging somewhere around 18-21 fantasy points a week. He's currently going late in the eighth or ninth round depending on the format, which is absurd value for a QB1 with a legitimate path to a top-five finish if Dallas actually cleans up the red zone issues they're clearly targeting in camp.
George Pickens is the other name tied directly to this Prescott red zone rep, and he's arguably the more interesting fantasy piece right now. He's playing 2026 on a $27.3 million franchise tag after Dallas declined to work out a long-term extension, which means a contract-year Pickens with something to prove is catching touchdowns in live camp reps. He posted a career year in his first Dallas season, 93 catches for 1,429 yards and 9 touchdowns, finishing as the WR5 in points per game. He's currently getting drafted around WR9 in the second round, and that gap between production and cost is worth attacking.
Don't sleep on the roster health angle either. Dallas opened camp with nobody on PUP or the NFI list, which is rare and notable for a team that's had its share of camp injury scares in recent years. DaRon Bland and Donovan Ezeiruaku are both cleared and just being managed cautiously through the early sessions, so there's no lingering fantasy risk attached to either name right now, but it's worth a glance as reps ramp up.
On the betting side, this all feeds the same story: Dallas' offensive win total and Prescott's touchdown props are priced around the assumption that last year's red zone inefficiency was real and sticky. If camp reports keep showing this level of execution near the goal line, expect those numbers to move before the regular season, and Prescott's touchdown prop specifically looks like the market hasn't fully priced in the coaching emphasis yet.
Rookie safety Caleb Downs and linebacker Jaishawn Barham are both drawing praise for early acclimation and first-team reps, which matters more for the defense's ceiling than for fantasy purposes, but it's a sign the roster is deeper and more competitive across the board heading into camp battles. Keep an eye on how the touchdown distribution shakes out as camp progresses. If Lamb, Pickens and the tight ends keep splitting red zone work evenly, that's a signal Dak's touchdown upside is real and not just a one-day camp mirage.