Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy confirmed on Monday that Cooper Rush would serve as Dak Prescott’s backup to start the 2024 season, which leaves Trey Lance as the QB3 for the second straight season.

The news was expected after Lance threw for a whopping five interceptions in the team’s final preseason game against the Los Angeles Chargers, a 26-19 loss. Lance played the entirety of that contest.

In total, Lance threw for 662 yards, two touchdowns and five interceptions in the preseason, completing 64.6 percent of his passes. Until the Chargers loss he looked solid enough, but those turnovers won’t soon be forgotten.

“I hate that those five interceptions are going to be a stat on a game that I couldn’t have asked for more reps and a better situation to watch him play,” team owner Jerry Jones told reporters at the time. “He needed that, because the one thing he’s missing more than anything is the lack of reps, much less NFL reps.”

The Cowboys somewhat surprisingly traded a 2024 fourth-round pick to acquire Lance ahead of the 2023 campaign despite having both Prescott and Rush—a trusted backup who has a 5-1 record in his six starts of relief duty—on the roster.

Lance was seen as a developmental project for the Cowboys after being a former first-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers. He was expected to be the long-term starter in the Bay Area, but a season-ending ankle injury in 2022—and the subsequent emergence of Brock Purdy—ended his time with the Niners after just two seasons and four starts.

The Dallas depth chart never seemed likely to change this summer, as Rush threw a grand total of six passes in the preseason. Were there a legitimate competition for the backup spot, Rush would have probably been given more time to prove his value.

Instead, Lance was given the vast majority of the playing time, giving Jones and the coaching plenty of tape to dissect.

And the owner, at least, remains bullish on the young quarterback.

“What you’re looking for is the arrow going up, and it’s going up dramatically every practice and every game,” he told reporters last week. “He’s doing a lot of things that he wasn’t doing as well early that he’s doing well now. … I saw some things out there that you can win with. I really did.”