Cowboys coaches question flag on Damontae Kazee’s big hit vs Panthers

The 15-yard penalty drawn by Damontae Kazee was shown by replay to be a clean hit, but it nearly turned the tide of Sunday’s Dallas win. | From @ToddBrock24f7

It was the kind of call that can trigger a seismic shift in momentum. It arguably kickstarted the Panthers’ 14-point rally in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game at AT&T Stadium. Had Carolina managed one more touchdown and pulled off the comeback, it’s the one call all of Cowboys Nation would be talking about still. But it seems to have been the wrong call, and Cowboys coaches want answers.

Sam Darnold and the Panthers had just seen the Cowboys’ lead grow to 22 points after Greg Zuerlein’s field goal started the final 15 minutes of play. Taking possession at their own 25, it took Carolina four plays and a 4th-and-1 conversion just to get to the 36.

But then the next play gifted the offense 15 yards after Cowboys safety Damontae Kazee leveled tight end Tommy Tremble, breaking up a short pass over the middle of the field.

Fifteen yards in the blink of an eye, and Carolina suddenly had life in Cowboys territory. Darnold completed every throw over the rest of the possession- six straight plays- and put the Panthers in the end zone, narrowing the gap to a suddenly-within-reach 15.

Kazee’s hit ended up being a non-factor in the game’s outcome, all but lost amid big performances from the likes of Ezekiel Elliott and Trevon Diggs in the Cowboys’ third consecutive win.

But the game could have turned on that penalty. It nearly did. Even though Kazee delivered a perfectly legal blow.

“In that particular tackle, I thought he really did a good job of using his shoulder,” defensive coordinator Dan Quinn said this week. “We talk about strike zones that we want to go to, which is kind of like in baseball, [from the] shoulders to the top of the knees. We’re a shoulder-tackling team. On that tackle, it was a good, hard hit. But he did not lead with the head.”

Head coach Mike McCarthy agreed.

“He went shoulder-to-shoulder,” the coach said during his Monday press conference. “I think maybe lower the target line a little lower, but he was trying to separate the football. I’m sure there will be more discussion over the play. The irony of it is- and I’m not going to put the official out there on the spot- but I had a conversation at that moment, and the guy that was in position, he thought it was shoulder-to-shoulder. If I recall, the back judge didn’t throw it, either. The two flags came from the umpire and the other side, probably the two guys furthest away from it.”

Replays shown during the broadcast confirm that Kazee neither made contact with Tremble’s head nor led with his own. But that call is not subject to challenge or video review by officials.

 

In real time, the hit looked violent. McCarthy admitted that sometimes, that can enough to draw the foul.

“I mean, it was a heck of a hit. I’ve seen that happen; there’s a reaction to the impact of the play, sometimes,” he continued. “And they don’t have clarity to exactly what went on. They talk about these things all the time. If that particular play went to replay, I would be for it. I just think it can be a game-changer. That’s a potential big play. Plays that happen over the middle of the field are usually north of 15 yards. So it can be an impactful play.”

Thankfully for Dallas, it didn’t have as much impact as it could have.

“I thought our team rebounded from it,” Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “It’s a tough call. That’s a very difficult call on officials, when you have that big a hit. It was very legal; he obviously hit him in the shoulder there, but you’re still going to have that kind of head reaction on a big hit like that. We’ve gone over it in the competition committee ad nauseum. We don’t want this whole game to turn into a replay game, so we try to limit the number of calls that can be reviewed… Unfortunately, you’re going to have some plays like that during the course of the season that look like it might be targeting or a head-to-head lick, which is what the officials felt like it was. I must say, live, I thought he had launched and gone high, too, but when you got to see the replay, you certainly saw that it was very legal. He targeted just right and went for the shoulder, and it was a legal hit. It’s just every now and then, you’re going to have some unfortunate plays like that.”

It was perhaps doubly unfortunate because of the player involved. Kazee has a reputation as a heavy hitter and has drawn several flags over the years for it, including being ejected from a 2018 game for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Cam Newton.

Quinn was Kazee’s coach then in Atlanta; he says he’s worked with the safety to alter his technique to exactly the way he did it on Sunday.

“To see that happen, I was disappointed that the flag came,” Quinn shared. “I have not heard back from the league as far as if they felt like was an accurate call. But for [Kazee], I thought it was a step in the right direction, for sure… I always want to say, ‘I think you did the technique right.’ And that doesn’t always mean it’s going to get officiated in the same way or viewed by someone else, but for that particular player, I thought it was a big step in the right direction. Because he is someone that had lowered his head, often. And I was concerned about him. I said. ‘We need you,’ and he’s worked hard on it. So to have that happen and get penalized [for] something I thought was a good hit, I am sure we will get some feedback from the league on that.”

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