One of the plays that stands out – and not in a good way – from the Cowboys’ 28-24 loss to the Vikings was Tavon Austin’s fair catch of a Minnesota punt in the final 30 seconds. A seemingly safe decision that, in the moment, saved maximum time and minimized the risk of a turnover or lost yardage on a return, may have been excessively safe. Looking back, it certainly made Dak Prescott’s job harder as he tried in vain to engineer a comeback in the game’s final plays.
In speaking with 105.3 The Fan on Monday morning, head coach Jason Garrett dispelled the notion that Austin had been instructed to fair catch the punt no matter what.
“You lay out the situation: let’s not waste a lot of time,” Garrett said. “If you don’t have a real good opportunity here to go make a return directly north and south, don’t waste a lot of time. In that situation, the way he saw it, he went ahead and made the fair catch and gave us the opportunity around midfield. In hindsight, when you look at it, there might have been an opportunity for him not to do that and hit it north and south and see if we could make some yards on it.”
Looking at replays of the punt from various angles, it certainly seemed as though Austin had a great chance to eat up some valuable yardage with a return.
Maybe you shouldn’t listen to your coaches all the time pic.twitter.com/FDzCkeJiij
— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) November 11, 2019
The nearest Vikings player is more than 15 yards away from Austin. It appeared he could have gone even further than that with the blockers he had in place. It’s not unthinkable that, given Austin’s speed, he could have streaked toward the sideline and gotten the ball inside the red zone and still left plenty of time for Prescott and Co. to run a few high-percentage plays.
“That’s a situation where there’s a lot of different scenarios,” Garrett said. “In that situation, there’s a school of thought that it’s absolutely a fair catch situation, so you don’t bleed the clock and you give your offense a chance at midfield to go score a touchdown. And then if the returner, he has that in his mind, and he has an opportunity to go make a play, we certainly encourage him to do that. In that situation, he fair caught it.”
It’s easy to look at a freeze-frame or even a replay and pin blame on Austin for not being more aggressive. But he is a veteran return man who’s fielding the punt in that situation for a reason. Maybe he saw things differently. Did the Vikings coverage team slow up when Austin signaled for the fair catch? Of course they did. Maybe his lanes weren’t as wide-open as they looked to those sitting at home. Or maybe the idea of preserving the clock was emphasized too strongly on the sideline for Austin to feel like he could freelance.
Either way, the decision to play it overly safe undoubtedly limited the offense’s playbook for the final 24 seconds. It’s a play that could end up haunting the Cowboys as the postseason draws nearer.
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