In a tightly contested game, every point counts. That’s exactly what the Dallas Cowboys found themselves in on Monday night. After giving up an opening-drive touchdown to the Chargers, Dallas responded with a score of their own. Things bogged down after that though, and Dallas got the ball back with just over one minute remaining before half.
The club was able to put together a quality string of plays, aided by a boneheaded penalty by Chargers safety Derwin James, to get down to the Chargers’ 17-yard line with 14 seconds left and two timeouts. Most expected the Cowboys to make an effort to score a touchdown, especially with Los Angeles getting the ball to start the third quarter.
But on 1st-and-10, quarterback Dak Prescott settled for a short dump off to Tony Pollard for three yards. Dallas appeared to call a timeout with eight seconds left.
Then, all of a sudden, the field goal unit was on the field and the clock was down to three seconds. Apparently, the Cowboys waited to call the timeout, the dump off was to center the ball and rookie Brandon Aubrey was kicking a 32-yard field goal to give Dallas a 10-7 halftime lead.
The confusion of the viewing audience was matched by announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, as to why the Cowboys were basically giving up at an opportunity to punch it into the end zone. Twitter was unrelenting.