Dak Prescott Becomes Captain America for NBC’s Sunday Night Football

Avengers: Endgame helped show that audiences really love Captain America, and people talked about how emotional they were at the conclusion of the film. NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew decided to take the quarterback of “America’s Team” and give him the shield. During their broadcast this weekend, Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys became a hero. (Quick Note: Legendary Dallas QB Roger Staubach was nicknamed Captain Americaback in the day.)

Dallas came into the weekend undefeated at 3-0 and goes into New Orleans for today’s action. The “America’s Team” thing has become a meme in recent years because of the Cowboys’ propensity to underwhelm when it matters most. But, this year, Prescott is leading them just like the First Avenger. Needless to say, even though he’s been impressive, seeing his headshot photoshopped onto Chris Evans is mildly jarring at best.

The man wearing the shield stepped away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his performance in Avengers: Endgame. An elderly Steve Rogers handed down the mantle to Sam Wilson to continue the fight. He will continue to figure out his new role in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. But, even with a changing of the guard, fans will still miss Captain America because of how likable the character was and Evans’ earnest portrayal of Rogers.

Audiences really felt like they got to know the character personally over so many films starting with his introduction in Captain America: The First Avenger. That honor always shown through as the hero put the greater good above his own desires throughout his adventures in the MCU. It turns out that preserving that good-hearted nature was something that proved really tough for Evans and the filmmakers.

At an appearance at ACE Comic Con over the Summer, Evans explained how hard it was to keep that integrity at the core of Steve Rogers. He also revealed that there were some really tricky elements to parts of the role that helped keep everyone on their toes.

“The trickiest thing about the character is he’s a good man and so trying to find new ways to make it interesting, that was the challenge because he always puts himself last and it became such a … real collaboration between myself and Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios President] and the Russos and Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely in terms of trying to preserve his nature,” Evans began.

“He’s kind of a taciturn guy. He doesn’t kind of, you know there’s a lot of other characters in the Marvel universe who kind of use their words for creative advantage and Cap is a little bit more of a simple-minded guy and it’s hard to kind of create stories around him to at once create conflict, but not just make him the center cog where circumstance happens around him.”