On Sunday, Cowboy fans had to suffer through a terrible loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in overtime. This loss would bring the Cowboys' record to 10-4, which is still very good, but not enough to become the #1 seed in the nearing playoffs. It was surprising that this game turned into a loss for the boys, the offense played great, and the defense had trouble but still had good stops. So what went wrong?
Coaching is what went wrong. I have many complaints about what occurred during the game and they all came from play calling and decisions. I feel like Head Coach Mike McCarthy has done a much better job at Dallas than at the beginning of the year, but this loss is not acceptable.
The amount of talent and skill I see on the Cowboys is amazing, and we outmatched the Jaguars via talent. When it comes to coaching, not really. Mike made a lot of bad calls this game and I mostly blame him for the loss. Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore did well at his job, but even he made some fatal mistakes.
One big mistake was not running the ball at the end of the game. If you remember, the Cowboys' defense had just stripped the ball away from Quarterback Trevor Lawrence and had possession with under two minutes to go. While the Cowboys were faced with a 3rd and 10, they decided to throw the ball which resulted in an incompletion. Here's where I get upset.
If the Cowboys were to run the ball, the Jags would have had to waste their last timeout and would only have just over a minute left. Instead, they didn't need to waste their timeout and used it later to set up a game tieing field goal. If the Cowboys ran the ball and forced the Jags to waste their timeout, then the chances of them scoring would have been much lower.
That right there is one of the main reasons overtime was forced. Another topic to debate is how Mike never seems to communicate with his players or other coaches. To defend this, I bring you to every single time he's on camera. Do you ever see him talk? I see a very large lack of communication between him and his team.
One more problem I had with Mike during this game is his “Game winning decisions”. Mike seems to have a history of non-clutch plays. He always losses at the end of games and never wins at the end of them. For this game, he had multiple chances where he could potentially end the game and win it with a simple play call or option, and he always chooses the wrong one.
Takes me back to earlier in the year during the Wild Card game against the San Francisco 49ers. Had a chance to win the game at the end, and made a terrible call that resulted in the whole world laughing at the Cowboys. I really get sick of never being the team that makes a good final play call, it's always the opposite team.
A lot of fans are frustrated over losses like this one too. In a game where we should have won, we lost. Let's just hope that Mike can agree and accept the fact that he screwed up in this game. I really hope things are better next week for the Eagles, we are gonna need it.
