NFL

Dallas Cowboys Lose In Most Dallas Cowboys Way Possible

I’ve been a Cowboys fan since I was eight years old. I know this team. I mean, I know this team. When things are going stupid, the Cowboys employ a very specific kind of stupid to make you think they might actually overcome the stupidity to win, only to out-stupid themselves and lose anyway.

In today’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, the Cowboys employed that very specific kind of stupid and gave away a win that the Ravens tried very hard to gift wrap for them.

The Good

Tony Romo actually had a good game. 25-36 passing, 261 yards, 2 touchdowns, just one interception and one sack. 97.1 quarterback rating. By all accounts, that’s a good game.

They had two 90+ yard rushers (DeMarco Murray with 93, Felix Jones with 92).

They almost had two 90+ yard receivers (Dez Bryant with 95, Jason Witten with 88).

Only one punt on the day.

The Bad

Dallas forced zero turnovers.

They gave an extremely easy 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.

The Stupid

The Cowboys got the ball with 4:41 remaining in the game and trailing 31-23 and actually were able to drive 80 yards to score with 32 seconds left on a 4-yard pass from Romo to Bryant to pull Dallas within 31-29. On the two-point conversion, Romo found Bryant again, but he dropped the game-tying catch.

Down by two, Dallas attempted an onside kick and actually recovered it with 30 seconds to go! And not only that, on the very next play, the Ravens were hit with a 20-yard pass interference penalty to put the ball at the Baltimore 34 with 26 seconds to go.

So Dallas is already ostensibly in field goal range with one timeout and all the momentum. What do you do from here? Take a couple shots down the field, see if you can get closer? You still have that timeout, so you can throw down the middle if you want.

No, instead the Cowboys throw a one-yard slant to Dez Bryant, let the clock run down to six seconds before burning their timeout, and left kicker Dan Bailey to face a 51-yard field goal, for the win, on the road.

He missed wide left.

Cowboys lose.

Stupid.

[ESPN, GIF via Kissing Suzy Kolber]

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