Questions Remain After Cowboys and Lions Controversial Finish

The Dallas Cowboys beat the Detroit Lions Saturday night 20-19, but the win is still fresh and has a weird feeling after the way it ended.

As I’m sure most of you have seen, the refs either make a huge mistake announcing the wrong Lions offensive lineman eligible or someone is lying.

Detroit would have had a one-point lead over the Cowboys with under a minute left.

Yes, the Ref was wrong.

*HOWEVER* we’re all falsely assuming the Lions would’ve scored had the ref been right.

Audio from Cowboys radio call reveals the ref stated #70 was eligible pre snap.

The Cowboys defense defended the play according to the ref. pic.twitter.com/g6aJCNxJTh
— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) December 31, 2023

The official ruled that Taylor Decker was an ineligible receiver, even though Taylor said he reported prior to the snap.

The Cowboys should have been trailing by one with about 24 seconds left on the clock and two timeouts.

Detroit had two more chances to either tie the game or take the lead after Micah Parsons went offsides.

In a pool report (referee report), referee Brad Allen said the opposite, that Skipper reported to him as eligible and Decker did not.

From what it sounds like, the refs accounted that No. 70 was the eligible receiver, so Dallas didn’t cover the lineman who caught the pass.

Officials have been bad

Let’s not sugarcoat this, the refs haven’t been good all year.

This same crew missed the defensive pass interference at the end of the Chiefs-Packers game also.

The Lions had two more chances to either take the lead or just tie it and play for overtime after the first bad call, yet they failed two more times going for two.

Here is the pool report from PFWA pool reporter @calvinwatkins and referee Brad Allen on last night’s controversial ending to #Cowboys-#Lions: pic.twitter.com/IJDulxHyIA
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 31, 2023

As a Cowboys fan, we can’t give the win back, and Dallas still had two timeouts and 24 seconds on the clock.

If the Lions do go up by one, Dallas has the best kicker in football who hasn’t missed a kick all season.

They would have needed what, 35 yards to give him a chance?

Playoff seeding

What I think most are upset about is the change in playoff seeding this outcome could have.

I’d be wrong to say if it was the other way around, I’d be upset, but the Cowboys have been on the wrong end of stuff for years.

End of the day it’s going to possibly impact the playoff seeding.

Detroit will likely have to go on the road and play the winner of the NFC East in the divisional round now instead of hosting them at home.

If the Eagles lose one of their next two games and the Cowboys beat Washington next week, the Cowboys would claim the division and the No. 2 seed.

We have to understand anything can happen in the playoffs and if the Lions lose at home in their first game this will mean nothing.

They still get a home game in the wildcard round.

Cowboys will still likely be on the road as the 5 seed.

The 49ers are likely to still be the top seed if they win the final two games, but crazier things have happened.

If Mike McCarthy just runs the football instead of throwing it on 2nd down or the bad call on Peyton Hendershot isn’t called we aren’t even talking about this.

The NFL needs to find a way to make sure these calls are more right than wrong.

in 2023, they have been bad, although this call went for the Cowboys, it’s still a bad call, I can admit that.