If you’ve stuck with the Cowboys through the 2010s, you probably earned a little badge of honor - and maybe a few headaches along the way. The decade gave Dallas plenty of frustration on offense, but it also produced a clear list of the team’s yardage leaders at quarterback, running back, and receiver.
At quarterback, the names at the top are no mystery. Tony Romo and Dak Prescott handled the bulk of the work, with Romo appearing in 73 games and Prescott in 64.
Together, they started 137 regular-season games during the decade. The catch, of course, is that Romo spent so much time battling injuries that the Cowboys had to keep turning to backups.
That’s where Jon Kitna, Matt Cassel, and Brandon Weeden come in. Kitna started nine games in 2010 and threw for 2,356 yards.
Cassel followed in 2015 with 1,276 yards across seven starts. Weeden then posted 1,041 yards in nine appearances, including four starts, over two seasons.
The rushing list has its own mix of obvious stars and more surprising names. Ezekiel Elliott and DeMarco Murray headlined the decade on the ground, and Felix Jones also shows up after serving as a featured back in 2010. He averaged 134 carries from 2010 to 2013.
Dak Prescott lands in a less expected spot there as well. He is the Cowboys’ fourth-leading rusher of the 2010s, a reminder of how much he ran early in his career before settling in as one of the league’s better quarterbacks. Darren McFadden rounds out the top five, helped by a 1,089-yard season in 2015, his only year as the featured starter in Dallas.
At receiver, the top of the chart is exactly what you’d expect: Dez Bryant and Jason Witten. They stand alone as the Cowboys’ premier pass-catchers of the decade. Terrance Williams comes next at No. 3 with 3,377 yards, ahead of Cole Beasley and Amari Cooper.
Williams never topped 800 yards in a season, but he lasted. From 2013 to 2017, he was Dallas’ de facto WR2 next to Dez Bryant, even if the ball often found Witten or Beasley too.
If you named all 15 players, that’s a clean finish. If not, you’re in good company. Backup quarterbacks tend to fade from memory, and outside of Prescott’s rookie surge, the Cowboys didn’t get much stability behind Romo.
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