Tag: postgame press conference

Cowboys’ McCarthy defends not challenging critical catch: ‘It was too close’

In 2014, McCarthy ended Dallas’s postseason with the toss of a red flag. On Sunday, he ruined their postseason chances by not throwing it.

For nearly six years, Dallas fans have turned “Dez Caught it” into a rallying cry and a stubborn point of pride. As the team now heads into the offseason after their 23-19 loss to the New York Giants ended a surreal and disappointing 2020 campaign, Cowboys Nation may have a new mantra. And while “Dante Trapped It” likely won’t inspire any leaguewide rule changes or its own Twitter hashtag, the play and the sideline’s reaction- or lack thereof- will sting for quite some time.

When Giants receiver Dante Pettis hauled in a 10-yard throw from quarterback Daniel Jones with seven minutes to play and New York up by one point, it set up New York’s final field goal. Replays showed that the ball may have hit the turf as Pettis went to the ground, but Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy opted not to challenge the call.

“The catch was obviously down in our area,” McCarthy explained in his postgame press conference, “and when the receiver turned to me, the information we got, we just thought it was too close. We thought it was kind of a bang-bang type situation. The fact of the matter is, we were in a tight game, and the three timeouts was obviously of high value there. We just didn’t think there was enough information to overturn it.”

The broadcast crew thought it was close enough to warrant a review, but the red challenge flag remained securely in McCarthy’s pocket. Graham Gano connected on the ensuing 50-yard kick, and the Giants extended their lead to four points.

The Cowboys put together a 17-play drive on the next possession that got the offense inside the New York red zone. But with the team needing seven points instead of three, quarterback Andy Dalton ended up forcing a blind heave on a desperate third-and-goal scramble. Giants rookie Xavier McKinney’s end zone interception sealed the New York win and ended the Cowboys’ chances at both a Week 17 victory and the unlikeliest playoff berth in franchise history.

A win would not have given Dallas the NFC East crown, as Washington won their night game versus Philadelphia and with it, the division title. Some may therefore call the loss- and the decision not to challenge the Pettis catch- ultimately meaningless, but for a Cowboys squad that had been on a three-game win streak, the season-finale letdown added one last insult to a season riddled with injury and ineptitude.

For Cowboys fans, the hope of a late-game rally being snatched away by the meticulous frame-by-frame review of wide receiver and football meeting the ground in agonizing synchronicity was a familiar gut punch.

“It looked a lot like the one from the playoffs before I got to the Cowboys,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told reporters after the game. “I think it was 2014, maybe. The one that Dez had in Green Bay that they called incomplete. It looked like that one to me, but I think since then, they changed the rule. So I don’t know. I’m not a ref. I don’t get to make those calls.”

Mike McCarthy was on the sideline that day, too. As Packers head coach, he had the benefit of ample replays being shown to the roaring crowd at Lambeau Field. He suggested that the scoreboard operator at MetLife Stadium on Sunday may not have been quite as eager to show Pettis’s play from every conceivable angle following the on-the-field call of a reception.

“We’re trying to get as much information as possible,” McCarthy said of the team’s internal communications in those precious moments. “Obviously, you don’t get a lot of help on the road, particularly if it’s a play that’s something you have higher interest in than your opponent; I think that’s the norm. But yeah, we have coaches in the box that relay the information. Ultimately, I make the decision.”

Back in 2014, though, McCarthy got extra assistance in making the decision. He admitted during last January’s introductory press conference as Cowboys coach that a sideline conversation with Gene Steratore, the head referee that day in Green Bay, prompted him to challenge Bryant’s touchdown grab.

There was no such help for the Cowboys coach on the sideline in New York on Sunday.

When asked if he thought game management had been a recurring issue this season, the first-year Cowboys coach was blunt in his reply.

“No, not at all. Not at all.”

Cowboys coaches did have a few extra seconds in which to debate challenging the catch. Because it was fourth down, the Giants were not able to hurry the next snap, but instead had to send out their field goal unit.

Even if Dallas had challenged the call and gotten the catch ruling overturned, New York still might have attempted the kick, which would have been from 60 yards. Gano had missed just one field goal try all season and is one of the league’s more reliable legs from long distance; he’s 25-of-41 from beyond 50 yards in his 11-year career. He hit three kicks of 50 or longer in Week 5’s Cowboys-Giants tilt and booted one from 63 yards as recently as 2018.

By throwing the red flag in 2014, McCarthy ended the postseason for Dallas, a team favored by many to win the Super Bowl. By not throwing the red flag on Sunday, he merely made it a little more difficult for a 6-9 team to avoid double-digit losses.

It’s not known if referee Brad Allen’s crew would have overturned Pettis’s catch. There’s no guarantee Gano would have missed from 60. There’s no way to be sure that the Cowboys would have capitalized and come away with a win. And in the end, even if all those things had gone Dallas’s way, the Cowboys players would still be cleaning out their lockers and scheduling exit interviews this week. So maybe McCarthy’s decision to not challenge is truly irrelevant.

“As I’ve addressed it,” McCarthy said, “I didn’t feel there was enough information for them to overturn it. We didn’t think it was clear and obvious.”

What’s clear and obvious is that the Cowboys’ season is over. But finishing it with a four-game win streak sure would have been easier to swallow than another offseason of questions about receivers maintaining control, coaches making in-game sideline decisions… and what ultimately might have been.

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‘I’ve probably said too much:’ Cowboys’ McCarthy talks Kellen Moore-Boise St. flirtation

While declining to talk about OC Kellen Moore possibly taking a job at Boise State, the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy may have said plenty.

The Cowboys throttled a divisional rival on Sunday in a 20-point blowout. They’re inexplicably still in the hunt for an NFC East title and a postseason berth despite a 6-9 record.

Yet Cowboys fans can’t fully embrace Victory Monday, though, due to the unshakeable sense that there’s another shoe that about to drop to punctuate this 2020 season. And head coach Mike McCarthy may have dropped a major hint in his postgame remarks.

Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore remains- far and away- the top candidate mentioned in connection with the head coach opening at his alma mater of Boise State. And while the Cowboys put up 513 yards of total offense against Philadelphia on Sunday- their fourth game of the season topping 500 yards- there’s a general sense that the man responsible for the offensive gameplanning and playcalling duties may not be in Dallas much longer.

Moore did not address reporters after Sunday’s game; he typically does not. But McCarthy was asked about Moore’s status in the moments following the team’s 37-17 win over the Eagles.

“As far as Kellen’s opportunity- or potential opportunity- it’s really not for me to speak on,” the coach said in his postgame press conference. “I think that’s something that he’ll ultimately speak on. Like I was asked the other day, every opportunity’s unique to the individual. I can only tell you that we think the world of Kellen. He’s done an incredible job here. I definitely respect and understand the uniqueness of this opportunity to Boise and himself and his family. I think at the right time, that’s really for Kellen and Boise State to speak on. I’ve probably said too much already. But we think the world of him.”

According to McCarthy, he probably said too much; Cowboys fans will undoubtedly read too much into what McCarthy did say and how he said it.

From his referring to Moore’s “opportunity”and then quickly backtracking and redefining it as a “potential opportunity” to the somber tone McCarthy adopted when recapping Moore’s job performance in Dallas to referencing Moore’s family to leaving an announcement for Moore- and Boise State- to address “at the right time” to finally admitting that he’d revealed too much… it sure sounds like the Cowboys’ head coach is expecting to lose his offensive coordinator any minute now.

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‘Everybody’s eating:’ Gallup and Cowboys WRs feast as offense finds groove

Big things were expected for the Cowboys wide receiver corps in 2020; in Week 16, they finally delivered in a blowout win over the Eagles.

Before the 2020 campaign kicked off, Amari Cooper made it plain that the expectation in Dallas was for the Cowboys to have three 1,000-yard receivers by the time the playoffs began.

Then, of course, the season started sideways… and only went south from there.

On Sunday, though, Cowboys fans saw a glimpse of what might have been as Andy Dalton threw for 377 yards in the team’s 37-17 rout of Philadelphia. Along the way, each member of the starting receiving trio- Cooper, Michael Gallup, and CeeDee Lamb- contributed heavily.

“Man… big time,” Gallup gushed as he recapped the game for reporters afterward. “Loads of fun. It was just great to be out there and have a good time. Everybody’s eating, everybody’s having a great time. It was a fun game, and we needed it.”

Gallup had his best yardage total since Week 3 and just the second multi-score game of his pro career. Six catches, 121 yards, two touchdowns… all in the first half. It was the most productive half by a Cowboys receiver in six years.

By the time the Eagles made adjustments to cover Gallup, Dalton had moved on to targeting Cooper and Lamb. Cooper also finished with 121 yards; Lamb had 65 yards plus the long touchdown late that sealed the win.

“We talk about it every week; that’s how it’s really supposed to go,” Gallup explained. “The defense doesn’t know who to double up, who to put their best corner on because it really doesn’t matter. That’s what we know we can do.”

“The more and more opportunities we can give Michael, expand the route tree,” head coach Mike McCarthy said of Gallup in his postgame press conference, “he always produces. Really, the whole perimeter: it’s a matter of trying to get those guys more opportunities, more targets. Michael was huge for us today. I thought Michael, CeeDee, and Amari all played very well.”

“We knew going into the season that a lot of guys on this offense are dangerous,” running back Ezekiel Elliott said in an interview after the game. “From Coop to CeeDee to Mike G to Ced[rick Wilson]- he had a big game this year. Then we’ve got TP [Tony Pollard], who’s a big play waiting to happen. And a great tight end corps with [Dalton] Schultz and Belldozer [Blake Bell]. We’ve got a lot of talent on the outside, and we’re a real problem for secondaries.”

It was a problem that Eagles cornerback Michael Jacquet was unable to solve. The Dallas offensive attack torched the undrafted rookie to the tune of 182 yards and two touchdowns, the second-highest yardage total allowed by a defensive back all season across the league.

Gallup’s first target of the day came against Jacquet. It fell incomplete, but the Louisiana product was called for defensive pass interference. Two series later, Jacquet was flagged again for holding Gallup, but the third-year receiver made the grab anyway.

And that’s when Cooper knew something was about to break for his teammate.

“After my first catch of the game, just a little 10-yard in route,” Gallup recalled, “Coop literally ran up to me and was like, ‘This is your game.'”

“I just felt it,” Cooper said in his postgame remarks. “I just felt it in the air. I just knew that this was the game that he was going to dominate. I actually wanted him to do a lot more. That’s what I felt. The guy was holding him every play from the beginning of the game, and I just know Michael. So I was glad to see him go out there and do his thing.”

Rather than squawk about not getting enough targets, Cooper, Gallup, and Lamb all genuinely support one another. When one of them makes a big catch or posts a monster game, the other two are generally the most excited of all. Instead of fighting one another for balls, each member of the trio recognizes the others’ talents and marvels in their abilities.

“I absolutely love being in the same room as Michael and CeeDee. We all have things; we all have the potential to go out there and dominate a game. It just feels good when you’re all able to do it in the same game, like I alluded to earlier in the season. I think that’s something that we can consistently do.”

It’s what led Cooper to make that declaration that each could top 1,000 yards this season. Cooper has done it already. The rookie Lamb is 108 yards away. Gallup trails the group with a still-very-respectable 794. The fact that they’ve compiled those numbers with four different quarterbacks this season is a testament to how good they truly are.

With Dak Prescott at the helm all season- on anything close to the torrid pace he had set when he went down in Week 5- it’s easy to imagine Cooper’s prediction would have come true.

It’s taken some time for Dalton to warm up in the Cowboys offense; missing time with a concussion and COVID-19 certainly didn’t help. But his play in recent weeks has been a major contributing factor to the three-game winning streak that Dallas is enjoying.

Dalton’s 377 passing yards Sunday represented his highest one-game total in a calendar year. And his 134.7 quarterback rating? That’s his best since Week 4 of the 2017 season, and one of the ten best of the 33-year-old’s career.

“We were clicking,” Dalton told media members after the victory. “We got a bunch of different guys involved early on: Michael Gallup had several big plays, then later on, Amari gets a couple big ones, and CeeDee gets involved. When you can spread it around and guys are making plays all over the field, obviously it gives you the chance to go down and score a bunch of points. Fortunately for us, we were able to get that done today.”

Cooper says the time he and the other receivers have been able to spend with Dalton in the months since Prescott’s injury has made all the difference.

“I would just attribute it to repetition,” the four-time Pro Bowler said. “When Dak first went down, obviously, the first-team guys at receiver, we hadn’t had much experience with Andy. But since then, obviously, he’s been taking all the first-team reps, and we’ve just been able to learn each other, the way he likes to throw the ball. And obviously, he’s been able to learn the way we like to run our routes.”

That familiarity allowed Dalton to largely sit back on Sunday- he was sacked just twice- and deal passes to whichever receiver had the hot hand.

On this occasion, that happened to be Gallup… but the Colorado State alum would have been just as happy to see one of his receiving mates beef up their stats.

“CeeDee and Amari Cooper are closer to a thousand yards than I am,” Gallup noted with a smile, “so I’m hoping that they get all the catches they need to get to get to a thousand yards. I love seeing that. Amari Cooper was streaking down the field, CeeDee was streaking down the field; it’s just fun to watch. I’ve already been streaking down the field, so I’m not really sure I need any more catches, to be honest. But I’ll take them if they come my way.”

If the Cowboys offense keeps clicking like this, the catches will most certainly keep coming Gallup’s way. And Cooper’s way. And Lamb’s.

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Cowboys rookie Lamb takes heat for kick return TD: ‘It was too open’

The Dallas wide receiver sealed a win with the team’s first kick return touchdown since 2008, but was reminded that he shouldn’t have.

The Cowboys had not returned a kickoff for a touchdown since 2008. It’s odd, then, to think that rookie CeeDee Lamb would get barked at by his coaching staff and teammates for finally taking one to the house in the waning moments of Sunday’s meeting with the visiting 49ers.

But that’s exactly what happened. After one of the most electrifying plays of Dallas’s disappointing 2020 season, the promising young rookie found himself apologizing.

“Honestly, it all happened so fast. It was just a split-second decision,” Lamb told reporters in a postgame interview.

San Francisco had just scored a field goal to draw within seven points of the Cowboys. With 40 seconds on the clock, the 49ers’ best chance of a miracle finish would be to recover an onside kick. It was strangely familiar to the situation that Dallas found themselves in back in Week 2 against Atlanta.

That last-gasp play ended in a highlight-reel moment for the Cowboys. This one did, too.

The danger, of course, is that Lamb’s decision to return the awkwardly-bouncing ball exposed him and the team to several risks. Lamb could have fumbled, giving San Francisco the ball with time for another offensive series. Worse yet, a 49ers special teamer could have scooped up Lamb’s muff and taken it the other way for a game-tying touchdown.

These were the scenarios that the rookie’s teammates reminded him of after his return ended- luckily for him- in the end zone.

“You know, I heard it from the defensive guys after, knowing I should have taken a knee. But it was too open, know what I’m saying?”

He laughed when he said it. But it was funny only because nothing bad happened. And only because the Cowboys won.

Even head coach Mike McCarthy had a chuckle as he recalled the play by the first-round pick from Oklahoma. He was nine yards away when Lamb fielded the kick, and still better positioned to tackle Lamb than any member of the 49ers coverage team.

“I’ll tell you, I was standing right there. It’s almost like you can’t blame him,” McCarthy said in his virtual press conference after the win. “When he caught it on the high bounce, you could see that he was going to go down. But he just saw this huge hole in front of him, so it was more of a natural reaction.”

Expect Lamb to get a quick briefing this week on when it’s best to just fall on the ball.

Doing so would have allowed the Dallas offensive line to do a single Landry Shift and Andy Dalton to perform one quick kneeldown to run out the clock. Instead, the Cowboys had to kick the ball back to San Francisco. Backup passer C.J. Beathard was able to squeeze off three more plays, the last one being a 49-yard Hail Mary that wound up in the end zone in the hands of wideout Kendrick Bourne.

Thankfully, Lamb’s touchdown had made that final San Francisco score irrelevant. But it was a bit more excitement than McCarthy wanted to see after a closely-contested game.

“Those are great corrections to have in your team meetings on Wednesdays, when things like that happen. I clearly saw what he saw. But yeah, you want to put the game away, that’s for sure.”

So in that particular situation, yes, McCarthy would have preferred that his talented rookie let the Cowboys’ streak of games without a kick return for a touchdown purposely extend to 205.

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‘Dream come true:’ Cowboys RB Tony Pollard on first NFL start as Elliott cheers him on

Dallas’s backup RB capped a workmanlike day with an electrifying 40-yard run late in the 4th quarter to help seal Sunday’s win.

Tony Pollard didn’t have much advance notice before making the first start of his young NFL career.

With two-time rushing champ Ezekiel Elliott expected to play through a nagging calf injury, it wasn’t until on-the-field warmups that the shifty second-year player out of Memphis learned he’d be getting the lion’s share of the Cowboys’ carries against the 49ers’ stingy run defense.

“It was a last-minute game-time decision,” Pollard told reporters in a postgame press conference. “All week, we knew he was banged up a little bit, but a guy like Zeke, we always expect him to play. So it was definitely a surprise.”

It wasn’t exactly a case of ‘Zeke who?’ in the Week 15 game, but Pollard put forth a workmanlike effort, grinding out 69 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns on 12 carries. And most of that total came on a 40-yard jailbreak late in the fourth quarter as Dallas tried to nurse a three-point lead.

“I thought Tony was excellent,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said after the 41-33 win. “Tony’s a dynamic player. I thought he was excellent coming out of the backfield. We had some tough sledding, obviously, in the inside run game, but Tony did a heck of a job.”

Even on that run, the original call was to send Pollard right back into the teeth of the San Francisco defensive line.

“I didn’t think I would end up breaking as many tackles as I did,” Pollard confessed. “It was our normal go-to run play, up the middle. It was a little crowded, and I bounced it outside. My guys did a good job holding their blocks, and I just used my natural ability to make up for the rest.”

While Pollard has shown flashes of big-play ability over two seasons as a pro, his opportunities have been limited in part by the team’s leaning on Elliott as the bell cow. But staying ready is the backup’s job, and Pollard rose to the occasion on Sunday.

“Unbelievable,” rookie receiver CeeDee Lamb said of Pollard’s late scoring sprint, calling it “icing on the cake.”

“That run he had at the end of the game was special,” added quarterback Andy Dalton, who was himself suddenly thrust into the starting role after Dak Prescott went down in Week 5.

Quarterback. Tight end. Offensive line. Secondary. Running back. ‘Next man up’ has been a prevalent theme of the Cowboys’ 2020 season. Pollard says that just speaks to the makeup of the men on the roster.

“It’s big,” Pollard said, “just knowing that everything doesn’t have to run through one guy or a few guys. [There are] different guys on the team that can carry the weight, help take some of the weight off the other guys’ shoulders, the leaders on the team. It’s definitely big.”

Pollard has been taking more of the weight off Elliott’s shoulders in recent weeks. He’s seen his snap count increase noticeably over the past few months as offensive coordinator Kellen Moore has found new ways to get him involved in the rushing attack as well as passing plays.

On Sunday, Pollard was involved to the tune of 63 receiving yards on a team-high six passes from Dalton.

“He’s so versatile,” Dalton said of Pollard after Sunday’s win. “For him to not only be able to do it in the run game, but also in the pass game. You get him the ball in space, and he’s able to make guys miss and turn either a quick completion or runs into big gains. I think that’s what makes him such a special player, and we’re very fortunate to have a guy like that, that if Zeke’s going to be out, you can hand him the ball and get him the ball and he’s able to show what he can do.”

“Obviously, with Zeke being out,” Lamb said of Pollard, “I know he felt a lot of weight on his shoulders when he was named the starter. Guys like TP, they’re ready for it. He worked his tail off, and for him to go out there and have the game he had, I’m proud of him.”

“It was big for me,” Pollard told members of the media. “A dream come true: being in the league, getting the chance to start a game, knowing the team would be dependent on me a little more. I just tried to take advantage of my opportunities and make the most of them.”

And as he did, Pollard says the man he’s normally behind on the depth chart was behind him all day long.

“Zeke’s like my number one fan,” Pollard said of Elliott. “Any situation where he can’t go and the team has to run through me or any one of the other guys, he’s like the number one fan on the sides. Definitely a good guy to have on your side.”

Elliott was just as complimentary of his understudy and the performance he had.

“It was great. He’s a guy you know is super-explosive,” Zeke said, per the team website. “You know he can break one at any moment. Before the last play, I told him to go put it on ice, and that’s exactly what he did.”

Elliott also shared details on the decision to put himself on ice just before kickoff, the first time in his career he’s missed a game due to injury.

“Honestly, I hadn’t been feeling the best all week, but on game days I’ve been able to go normally,” Elliott said. “But at first, I was feeling good, but [Saturday] I felt a tug. And that’s something I can’t really play with. I can play with pain and soreness, but with a tug, I can’t be as explosive as I need to be.”

“Zeke went through the week, was obviously a little further behind than he was last week in the work,” McCarthy explained. “In the early pre-pre-pregame, we just felt like it was not in the best interest to go with him. We’ll see how he’s evaluating tomorrow and see where he can go come Wednesday.”

Elliott emphasized that he has no plans to pull the plug prematurely on his 2020 season.

“Oh, no, I’m not shutting it down,” the superstar rusher said. “We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll see if I can get out there next week.”

If he can’t, though, Pollard will be ready and waiting in the wings.

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‘It’s electric:’ Cowboys’ takeaways fuel momentum on both sides of ball in big win

The Cowboys won back-to-back games for the first time in a year by winning the turnover battle for the second game on a row.

For the Cowboys to win back-to-back games, something they hadn’t done in over a calendar year, they had to do something else they hadn’t done since 2019: win the turnover battle for a second week in a row.

A pair of recovered fumbles and two interceptions gave Andy Dalton and the Dallas offense plenty of chances and great field position to work with on Sunday; in return, the Cowboys didn’t turn the ball over at all. Instead, they capitalized on those takeaways and turned each one into points en route to a thrilling 41-33 win over San Francisco to keep their faint playoff hopes alive.

“It’s huge,” Dalton said afterward of the forced fumbles that gave Dallas possession on the 49ers’ 22- and 24-yard-lines in the opening six minutes. “That’s momentum. Short field, you want to take advantage of it. You want to score touchdowns when you’re in that position. For us, I think that was big for us today. I think we had 24 points off of turnovers. That’s huge. That’s the difference in the game.”

It’s been the difference in the team’s past two games. Dallas is plus-seven over this mini-win streak; through their first 12 outings, they were minus-13. During many of those games, it was Dallas turning the ball over early and finding themselves in holes they just couldn’t dig their way out of.

“You can get into chasing the game when you’re on the other side of the turnover differential. That’s clearly the case, as we understood early in the year,” head coach Mike McCarthy explained during his postgame press conference. “There’s momentum swings that go on throughout every football game… To get it early, definitely, you can see it brought a lot of energy to our sideline. Guys are feeding off of one another.”

“It is contagious,” defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence agreed in his remarks after the win. “It starts with practice. You practice the fundamentals, and you practice the way you want to play, soon enough, it will come to life.”

Takeaways are key to a defense’s success. But it’s only half the equation.

“It’s been very impactful,” wide receiver CeeDee Lamb said of the takeaways in his postgame Q&A session. “You can see it on TV, you can see it on [the] screen, you can feel it in the arena. Defensive guys, when they turn over the ball, it’s electric. Gives a boost to the offense, and it forces us to play complementary football. That’s what we’ve been preaching and what we’ve been practicing.”

“I think it’s just a combination,” McCarthy replied when asked about the offense’s sudden knack for turning takeaways into points. “We have an offensive line that’s played a couple weeks together now, Andy’s in a good rhythm- we had some receivers go in and out of the game today- but I think you’re just seeing more continuity, particularly in the execution of the offense, that allows us to score off those opportunities.”

Those scores, in turn, fuel the defense to keep creating more chances.

“It’s amazing,” cornerback Jourdan Lewis told media members. “Complimentary football is the best thing for any team, when you get guys on the offensive side playing the way they’re playing, and then you get us in there juiced up, you can feel the momentum swing in our direction. Every time they break a big run like that or a big pass, it’s amazing. It’s a good thing for our defense.”

Good things have been hard to come by for the Dallas defense in 2020. Mike Nolan’s first year as coordinator brought a new scheme, and that has brought some serious growing pains. And while Nolan’s unit has plenty of deficiencies still to be addressed- they allowed 458 yards to the 49ers on Sunday, their second-highest total of the season- McCarthy is thankful that some of what his staff has been selling is finally sinking in.

“We have a lot more takeaway opportunities that we’re putting ourselves in position [for] throughout defense and special teams,” the coach offered. “That’s just a real credit to the guys, everybody staying the course, staying after it. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes longer than some, but I think the path that we’ve been on, it’s refreshing to see the success these last two weeks with what everybody’s put into this.”

But the recent success has come by simply continuing to hammer away at the same things they’ve been working on all season.

“Staying focused on the little things, the details,” McCarthy said. “That’s what football always comes down to. It’s always about the fundamentals and the execution of it. I think our guys did a really good job. I think we’ve had to go through the pains of the newness and the challenges that we’ve had in the early season.”

It’s taken most of the 2020 campaign, but the Dallas defense may be finally coming into its own. And the players sense the evolution.

“We’re doing a lot in practice,” Lawrence said. “I feel like we’re starting to step up to the plate, live up to our expectations. When you’re playing football, it always starts with the ball.”

“We’ve just been able to put it together,” according to Lewis. “We always knew we were capable, but we just found the ingredients these last few games, and we’re sticking with it.”

For the Cowboys to continue the upward trend- whether or not it results in an unlikely postseason berth- the turnover differential will continue to be an important key. They’ll have their next shot at winning that battle on Sunday when the Eagles come calling.

McCarthy, for one, is hoping they can continue not only the winning streak, but the first-quarter takeaway habit the defense seems to have started.

“That’s two weeks in a row we’ve been able to go out and, back-to-back series, have turnovers to start the game. It’d be great if we could keep it up.”

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Cowboys’ Dalton on emotional win in Cincinnati return: ‘This one was special’

The Dallas QB shared the emotions of his return to Paul Brown Stadium after beating his old team 30-7 on Sunday.

In his nine seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals, Andy Dalton didn’t have reasons to often set foot in the visitors’ locker room at Paul Brown Stadium. He recalled, for example, hosting several local families there for his foundation’s last Christmas party.

On Sunday, Dalton was back in the visitors’ locker room as a member of the Dallas Cowboys, but this time, he was the one getting the gift. Coach Mike McCarthy gave the 33-year-old quarterback the game ball for leading the team to a 30-7 win over his former club.

“This one was special,” Dalton admitted in his postgame press conference. “Obviously, the team I played for for a long time; you want to do everything you can to win. I thought our team played really well. A lot of range of emotions, from just being back in the city, being in the stadium, the other side of it, all that kind of stuff.”

A player returning to his former team’s home venue is nothing new in the NFL, but it’s different when the player in question is tied so closely to that city. Dalton returned to Cincinnati as the Bengals’ franchise passing leader and is still a beloved member of the organization’s extended family. There were fans’ signs around the stadium welcoming him back, and the Bengals even gave Dalton the rare honor of announcing him by name as he led the visiting Cowboys onto the field.

“Make no bones about it,” McCarthy said afterward of Dalton, “he definitely wanted to win this game. More importantly, everybody in this locker room wanted to win it for him. We presented him the game ball afterward. And if you could just see in the locker room, just the reaction when he came into the locker room after the game. I think it speaks volumes about the men in the locker room and what this win means for us as a team and because of where we are in our season. But how important it was for us to get win today for Andy.”

“I got water thrown on me and everything,” Dalton said of the victory celebration. “Everybody was excited. Mike and a lot of the guys made it a big deal.”

Dalton’s return was a big enough deal that McCarthy singled out his quarterback prior to the game.

“He was a captain today,” McCarthy told the media. “We have three weekly captains, and one captain has the opportunity to give the final words before we enter the field for the kickoff. He’s obviously the one I selected, and I thought he did a great job with the call-up. I think everybody obviously wanted to win today, but everybody really wanted to win this game for Andy.”

But according to Dalton’s teammates, his pregame speech was focused on the team coming together to earn just its fourth win of the season.

“All Andy said to us,” running back Ezekiel Elliott said, “was this isn’t about him. This isn’t about him getting a win here. It’s about this team getting a win. It’s going to take all of us to go win that football game, and I think we played great complementary football, did what we had to do to get the job done.”

“It obviously meant a lot for him to come out here and be able to compete against the team he was at for a number of years and to get the W,” added wideout Amari Cooper. “I want to say it was revenge for him, but I don’t want to put words into his mouth. But, it was a great feeling.”

“Blessings,” summed up linebacker Jaylon Smith after the game. “Blessings, man. For us, it’s coming together as a unit, getting a win. Especially wanted to get a win for Andy. Sean Lee, ‘The General,’ was joking about how this is The House that Andy Built. Just a blessing to get a win, especially special for him.”

Dalton’s numbers on the day weren’t especially eye-popping, going 16-of-23 for just 185 yards and a pair of touchdowns. But he threw zero interceptions, the first time in 2020 he’s been able to say that in a game in which he played the whole contest.

His seven-yard touchdown toss to running back Tony Pollard just after the two-minute warning served as the final dagger. After the score, Dalton looked up into the stands where his wife JJ was sitting, and the couple shared a quick message via sign language.

“That meant a lot in this stadium: after the touchdown, acknowledging her, giving her the ‘I love you,’ getting it back,” Dalton said of the moment.

“For both of us, just pure joy,” he said. “After the touchdown, knowing that we were going to win this game. I’m not the only one that was dealing with some emotions; I think she was probably dealing with some more emotions of everything. So I think that’s a moment that both us will never forget.”

Dalton threw 101 touchdown passes in Paul Brown Stadium as a Cincinnati Bengal. But the two he threw there on Sunday as a Dallas Cowboy undoubtedly mean something just a little bit different.

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McCarthy on Cowboys’ total team ineffectiveness: ‘We’re kicking field goal attempts, and they score touchdowns’

The Dallas coach and players were unhappy about the team’s missed field goals and overall lack of scoring against Baltimore on Tuesday.

The Cowboys got trounced by 17 points. Field goals were not the difference. But having to repeatedly settle for three-point tries instead of putting the ball in the end zone assuredly put Dallas in a hole that they never climbed out of.

Missing three of those tries may have also put kicker Greg Zuerlein in a hole with his teammates and coaching staff.

“The issue,” as head coach Mike McCarthy explained in his postgame press conference, “we’re kicking field goals- or attempting to kick field goals- and they were scoring touchdowns.”

Yikes.

With one pointed zinger, McCarthy managed to trash his anemic offense, insult his porous defense, and put his $2.5-million-dollar kicker on notice.

Zuerlein, a nine-year veteran with a career make percentage of over 82%, found himself in a serious slump in Baltimore on Tuesday night. Despite entering the game having connected on eight straight field goals, the 2017 Pro Bowler missed from 40, 53, and 52 yards against the Ravens on Tuesday.

It marked the first time Zuerlein has missed multiple field goals in a game since 2016, and it was the first time he’s missed three in a game since his rookie season.

The Ravens’ Justin Tucker also had a miss on the night. According to him, it’s become a not-uncommon problem in his home stadium in recent years.

The December air was chilly, with a noticeable wind coming in off the Inner Harbor. But Zuerlein couldn’t blame his performance on the weather or the stadium.

“I wouldn’t say it was anything, at all,” the kicker said, per the Cowboys team website. “I think the conditions were fine, even if there was wind. I’m good enough to make the kicks, I just didn’t do it.”

Kickers are often held at somewhat of a distance from the rest of the team, viewed as a separate entity. Even though they work hand in hand, so to speak, with the offense, every-down players are often hesitant to comment on the specialist’s job.

But Zuerlein’s teammates couldn’t help but notice the misses that left them empty-handed after three of their ten drives during the game.

“They’re definitely crucial,” wide receiver Michael Gallup said afterward of the missed kicks, “but we’re always thinking six and seven. We’re always thinking those touchdown plays. We’re not trying to settle for a field goal. It’s great to get field goals, but we want touchdowns. We want to score big.”

Scoring big has been a rare occurrence for Dallas in 2020. The team ranks in the bottom ten leaguewide in total scoring, averaging just over 22 points per game. They’ve averaged just 15 per game over their past seven outings; the only time they topped 20 in that span resulted in their lone win since mid-October.

Zuerlein may have blown his opportunities Tuesday, but the offense as a whole isn’t doing their job, either.

They had chances in Baltimore. The Cowboys ran 23 more plays than the Ravens, had ten more first downs, nearly matched them in total yardage, won the time of possession battle, and had the ball inside Ravens territory on all but two of their offensive drives.

“We’re getting good field position, we’re getting the ball on their side of the 50,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told the media after the game. “We’ve got to go score touchdowns. That’s kind of been the story this year.”

“We had the ball forever,” Gallup agreed. “We were moving the ball. We were running it, we were throwing it, we just didn’t get paydirt. That’s the biggest thing.”

“We kept getting stalled, kind of, right before the red zone,” noted quarterback Andy Dalton. “We made it tougher on the kicks. We’ve got to find a way to convert first downs on those situations, keep drives alive, and get down there and score touchdowns.”

Zuerlein’s last two misses- from 53 and 52- perhaps shouldn’t have come as a shock. The normally-dependable kicker nicknamed “Greg the Leg” has converted just one of his six attempts from beyond 50 yards this season.

Kickers, on the whole, though, are improving dramatically from long-range. Field goals of 50-plus yards were once a true novelty in the NFL. In 1960, for example, just five were made across the entire league that season. Through the first 13 weeks of this season, 88 of them have been made at a rate of nearly two out of every three attempts.

Once considered a highlight-reel sniper shot, a 50-plus-yard field goal is now a 65.6% proposition.

But it’s Zuerlein’s first miss from Tuesday night that will really stick in the craw of Cowboys fans. After an eleven-play drive put them in the red zone, Dallas lined up for a 35-yard field goal. Zuerlein had a 91.7% career make percentage from 30 to 39 yards. He connected.

But a terrible bit of pre-snap clock management brought a delay of game penalty. The Cowboys were moved back five yards to try again. Zuerlein’s make percentage from 40 to 49 yards was just 79.7%, but he’d been perfect from that range on the year up to that moment.

The ensuing kick sailed wide right. And with it seemed to go much of the Cowboys’ momentum.

“We missed the field goal,” McCarthy said. “Those are the kind of mistakes you can’t make in a game like this. We needed points there. We had some opportunities for points that did not come out. At the end of the day, we’re kicking field goal attempts, and they score touchdowns.”

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‘I just don’t think we were there:’ Vander Esch on Cowboys’ humbled defense

The Cowboys were humbled by Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, to the tune of nearly 300 rushing yards in a 34-17 loss Tuesday night.

The Baltimore Ravens offense ran 54 plays against Dallas on Tuesday night. But one of them hurt the Cowboys more than the others.

Late in the first quarter, Lamar Jackson needed just two yards on the fourth-down play in order to move the sticks. He got 37, squirting through the line of scrimmage untouched and racing into the end zone with nary a single Cowboys defender anywhere even close.

“Certain plays, we got out of whack,” defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence told reporters after the game. “And that’s when they had a good opportunity, and they scored on us. Overall, I feel like when you’re facing a good team, a good run team with this triple option, it’s hard to make a mistake on one play, because that one play can hurt you the whole game.”

Indeed. Jackson’s score gave the Ravens the lead and opened the floodgates for the multi-pronged Baltimore running attack. The Cowboys defense surrendered 294 rushing yards on the evening en route to a 34-17 blowout that ensures Dallas a losing record on a season that began with lofty expectations.

Linebacker Leighton Vander Esch took responsibility for Jackson’s touchdown sprint, the longest run any Cowboys defense in history has ever allowed an opposing quarterback.

“That was 100% me,” Vander Esch said in his postgame remarks. “That was on me. I read the play right off the bat, and I should have just fit my assignment. That was all on me. I read it perfectly until I second-guessed myself and thought he handed it to the running back. But that wasn’t my job. I need to do my job.”

Replays show Vander Esch moving to his right as the play develops, following the backfield flock of Ravens and leaving a massive hole in the center of the field. By the time Jackson split off and hit that hole with the ball, Vander Esch was woefully out of position and could do little more than chase the reigning league MVP into the end zone.

With 94 yards on the ground, Jackson wasn’t even the Ravens’ leading rusher on the night; Gus Edwards racked up 101 yards on just seven carries, and J.K. Dobbins gained another 71. Add another 28 from Mark Ingram, and the Cowboys came close to giving up an astonishing 300 rushing yards… for the second time this season, after allowing Cleveland to gash them for 307 in Week 4’s loss.

“I think today was obviously a different challenge than we’ve seen. This is a unique offense. Obviously, a very physical offensive line, just the dynamics of the combination of the running backs and Lamar,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “But, hey, three hundred yards is obviously astronomical.”

Jackson’s unique dual-threat capabilities as both a runner and a passer presented the Cowboys with a two-part problem that they were never able to solve, even though COVID postponements gave them five extra days to study.

“When you’re playing a run quarterback like we played tonight, I feel like us a D-line, we should have slowed down on our rush,” Lawrence told media members via conference call. “And I take responsibility for the most part of that, because I knew going in all week what type of quarterback we were playing and what he likes to do. Just seeing him throw the ball, I shouldn’t be rushing up the field; I should stay on the ball and make sure he couldn’t escape out of the pocket. It’s self-inflicted wounds.”

“Obviously, it was not a very good night at all,” Vander Esch echoed. “I just think we’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to lean on each other and trust each other and have confidence going into the game that we’re going to go out there and everybody’s going to do their job. Including myself.

“I just don’t think we were there in a lot of areas tonight.”

But on that game-changing fourth-down play, it was Vander Esch who wasn’t there, in the gaping hole it was his job to plug.

“Obviously, that one hurts,” the team’s 2018 first-round pick said of the moment. “And there’s a few other ones that you wish you could get back during the game, too. I think just being humble and being accountable about it is, first and foremost, what you need to do. And that’s exactly what I’m going to be to my teammates and coaches. That was just 100% on me. And I need to be better, trust my instincts, and do my job on that play and throughout the whole game. I want those guys to be able to rely on me. That was out of character of me.”

Humble and accountable.

Jackson and the Ravens took care of the first part, humbling the entire Dallas defense over the course of the night. Now it will be up to the Cowboys players to step up and find some of that accountability as they embark on a short week of preparation for their next game in Cincinnati on Sunday.

“You have a bad week, you have a bad game, you just turn around as a team and focus on the next one, knowing that you’ve got another chance,” Vander Esch said Tuesday night. “That’s the beautiful thing about football; you’ve got another chance to go do it again the next week.”

But, perhaps mercifully, the 2020 Cowboys and their abysmal defense are quickly running out of next weeks.

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McCarthy calls Cowboys fake punt ‘solid play call;’ Twitter disagrees

The Dallas head coach defended his decision to run a fake punt deep in their own territory; the play’s failure was widely mocked afterward.

On a Thanksgiving Day afternoon full of stomach-turning plays, none left as awful a taste in the mouths of Cowboys fans as the fake punt that went horribly sour early in the fourth quarter.

Down by four points, Andy Dalton and the Dallas offense had managed just 12 yards on six plays after starting on their own 12-yard-line. Facing 4th-and-10 on their own 24, most observers were undoubtedly expecting punter Hunter Niswander to boot the ball away in hopes of a defensive stand that would result in better field position on the team’s next possession.

Instead, this happened.

 

The gadget’s failure was the moment that broke the game wide open for the visitors from DC. But Dallas coach Mike McCarthy defended the play choice after the 41-16 loss.

“It’s definitely a big-play opportunity,” McCarthy told reporters in his postgame press conference. “The way you view it, there’s certain things you look for, tendency-wise, on when and where [to run such a play]. But obviously, we didn’t execute it. As those things go, ultimately, it’s my responsibility, particularly when a play like that doesn’t work. We were trying to generate a big play at that point in the game, the information that you look for going into it, it was a solid call.”

One would be hard-pressed, though, to find anyone else who agrees with that “solid call” assessment. Social media was quick to hang the Cowboys coaching staff out to dry over the doomed play.

 

On the play, Darian Thompson takes the snap and pitches to crossing wideout Cedrick Wilson, who has been at the center of several of the trick plays drawn up this season by special teams coordinator John Fassel. Wilson takes the ball and reverses the action, but retreats all the way back to the 10-yard-line before turning upfield. At that point, he is 24 yards away from the first-down sticks.

Niswander is out in wide-open space after making no attempt whatsoever to block the Washington linebacker bearing down on Wilson, and Wilson never seems to seriously consider passing to Niswander. The linebacker, rookie Khaleke Hudson, wraps Wilson up for a one-yard loss.

As designed, the fake seemed to have very little chance of picking up ten yards. As executed, it had no shot at gaining 24. When it, in fact, didn’t, Washington took over on the doorstep of the red zone. They scored on their very next snap, the first of a three-touchdown onslaught in the fourth quarter.

But after the game, McCarthy justified the call, despite a low likelihood of success in a dangerous part of the field and at a critical time in the game.

“You won’t get anywhere if you’re thinking about negatives all the time,” he said. “Obviously, it was a solid play call, good play design, their gunner made a good play; came off and put us in a high-low read for Cedrick. It’s a play that if we hit it, obviously, we’re sitting here applauding it. That’s the nature of those plays.  You can never convert them, obviously, if you don’t call them and if you don’t believe in them. I clearly understood the situation when it was called.”

The only thing more baffling than the play call in that situation was McCarthy’s insistence afterward that it was the right choice. When asked later in the Q-and-A session to clarify that he truly thought the fake punt was “a solid play call” and believed that factoring in the obvious risk would really be considered “negative thinking,” McCarthy took a long pause.

He seemed to be taken aback by the question. Incredulous. Offended, even.

“I’m fine with my answer before. There’s obviously film study that goes into the call, when to call it. But yeah, when you call it, you’re obviously looking to convert it. You obviously understand on fourth-down calls what your options are. You either convert it, or you don’t convert it. You always know that going in. There’s flow of the game. All those things are factored in that decision. I’m very confident in our players; I’ll put them in position to make big plays.”

But by greenlighting the fake punt so deep in their own territory, McCarthy and his staff ended up putting the Cowboys in an unwinnable position.

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