FRISCO, Texas -- If Dak Prescott does not play Saturday against the Houston Texans, he will go into the Sept. 9 opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers without any preseason work, according to coach Mike McCarthy.

McCarthy said the Cowboys will use their fourth preseason game on Aug. 29 against the Jacksonville Jaguars to evaluate the bottom of their roster for their final cuts.

"We'll see how the week goes, but there's no urgency from my perspective to see Dak play against Houston," McCarthy said. "This is more about we don't want to create a setback possibly. His volume of throwing leading up to that point, I mean, he was probably in midseason form from the amount of work he put in over the summer, coming out of the OTAs. Just trying to get that volume back to where it belongs."

The Cowboys have two full practices left this week -- Wednesday and Thursday -- before Saturday's game at AT&T Stadium against the Texans. At the start of training camp, McCarthy, owner and general manager Jerry Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones felt it was important for Prescott to get some preseason work before playing the Buccaneers because of the layoff from his right ankle injury suffered last October.

"I think we'd all like that but that's not the priority," McCarthy said. "I think his volume throwing, getting the capacity back to where he was, is the No. 1 thing."

Prescott is going through a limited practice on Monday as he continues to work back from a latissimus strain in his right shoulder that has kept him out of team drills since July 28. In the Cowboys' final few days in Oxnard, California, Prescott began to ramp up his throwing and had a throwing session before last week's preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals.

The Cowboys are holding their first practice of training camp at The Star in Frisco, Texas, on Monday.

'We're going to try to keep him out of the competitive throwing," McCarthy said. "It's more about the people around him and just try[ing] to keep him as rested as long as possible."