The coaching staff of the Dallas Cowboys make some questionable decisions in the final minutes of the team’s 34-31 loss to Brazil on Sunday, and it’s safe to say Jerry Jones wasn’t happy with what he saw.
In an interview Tuesday with 105.3 the Fan in Dallas, Jones was asked how he felt about the late-game coaching problems and whether the coaching staff offered him an acceptable explanation for why they occurred.
“There’s no explaining why you’re happy. Nothing,” Jones told 105.3 the Fan in Dallas. “Let’s make sure we all understand that. They [the coaches] you don’t have one they are satisfied with.”
Jones was specifically asked about Brian Schottenheimer’s decision to call a timeout with just 14 seconds left to play in the game. On 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. As the Cowboys entered on third down, it was pretty clear that they were going to run just one more play, and if that failed, they were going to kick a field goal. With only one more play to run, 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 comes into play. On the play, which was coming out of a timeout, Schottenheimer said he told Prescott to throw it to George Pickens or throw it away.
“It had to go to [Pickens] or throw,” Schottenehimer said of the play. “He throws it. I have that. I overcoached him.”
Prescott threw it so fast that the clock only ran from 14 seconds to 10, and he threw it even though Pickens looked open.
In a press conference Tuesday, the Cowboys head coach admitted he could have done a better job of finishing the game.
“I’m man enough to take mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes. I’m certainly not perfect,” Schottenheimer said, via ESPN.
After a third-down failure, Brandon Aubrey tied the game at 31 with a short field goal. Following the kick, the clock had seven seconds left, which was enough time for Baltimore to get into position for a game-winning 56-yard field goal from Tyler Loop. Had the Cowboys burned some time before using their timeout or not called a touchback on the ensuing kickoff following Aubrey’s field goal, the game almost certainly would have gone to overtime.
“We made a mistake at the time,” Jones admitted. “There’s no question about it, so there’s 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 is in his second season as the Cowboys’ head coach, is that Jones doesn’t seem ready to fire anyone in the loss. In fact, Jones is more optimistic about the season following the painful setback.
“We’re going to be better from this experience that we had in 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 that makes us realize that we are just at the beginning of what I hope will be 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.