The Dallas Cowboys coaching staff made several questionable decisions during the final minute of the team’s 34-31 loss in Brazil on Sunday, and it’s safe to say that Jerry Jones was not happy with what he saw.
During an interview on Tuesday with 105.3 the Fan in Dallas, Jones was asked how he felt about the coaching gaffes at the end of the game and whether the coaching staff offered him an acceptable explanation for why they happened.
“There is no explanation you’re satisfied with. None,” Jones told 105.3 the Fan in Dallas. “Let’s be sure that we all understand that. They [the coaches] don’t have one that they’re satisfied with.”
Jones was specifically asked about Brian Schottenheimer’s decision to use a timeout with just 14 seconds left to play in the game. On a second-and-goal from Baltimore’s 7-yard line, Dak Prescott scrambled for a 2-yard gain and that’s when Dallas used its third and final timeout. With the Cowboys heading into a third down, it was pretty clear they were only going to run one more play, and if that failed, they were going to kick a field goal. Since they were only going to run one more play, they could have called a timeout with about 10 seconds left — instead of 14 — and that would have left the Ravens with almost no time to use at the end of the game.
The third-down play is where another questionable coaching decision came in. On the play, which was coming out of the timeout, Schottenheimer said he told Prescott to throw it to George Pickens or throw it away.
“It had to go to [Pickens] or throw it away,” Schottenehimer said of the play. “He was throwing it away. That’s on me. I overcoached him.”
Prescott ended up throwing it away so quickly that the clock only ran from 14 seconds down to 10, and he threw it away even though Pickens appeared to be open.
During a press conference on Tuesday, the Cowboys’ head coach admitted that he could have done a better job at the end of the game.
“I’m man enough to take mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes. I’m certainly not perfect,” Schottenheimer said, via ESPN.”I hurt our chance to win that game and I’ll be better. And I’m better than that. I’m better than I performed in the last 28 seconds.”
After the third-down failure, Brandon Aubrey tied the game at 31 with a short field goal. Following the kick, the clock still had seven seconds left, which was enough time for Baltimore to get in position for a game-winning 56-yard field goal from Tyler Loop. If the Cowboys had burnt some more time before using their timeout or not called for a touchback on the ensuing kickoff following Aubrey’s field goal, the game almost certainly would have gone to overtime.
“We made mistakes during that time,” Jones admitted. “There’s no question about it, so there is no explanation, but there’s an evaluation of how not to make the same mistakes again, which is what you should be doing. You can’t get that back.”
The good news for Schottenheimer, who’s in his second season as the Cowboys’ head coach, is that it doesn’t sound like Jones is ready to fire anyone over the loss. As a matter of fact, Jones sounds even more optimistic about the season following the painful setback.
“We will be better from this experience that we had with Baltimore and what happened to us at the end of the game,” Jones said, via ESPN. “A win would have given you another way of couching it as far as having growth and enthusiasm for having won a game like that because we did come back and we came back in an impressive way. All of that makes us realize we really are just at the beginning of what I hope is an exciting year for us.”
Yes, it was a tough loss for the Cowboys, but it’s still early in the season and they’re still very much alive to win the NFC East. With Philadelphia also losing in Week 3, the 1-2 Cowboys are just one game out of first place behind both the Giants (2-1) and Eagles (2-1) heading into Week 4.
