In one of the most stunning losses in recent memory, the Dallas Cowboys lost in regulation to the Baltimore Ravens after tying the game up with seven seconds left on the clock. Two days later, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is still in shock.
Appearing on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Jones said that there’s “no explanation” for his team’s poor clock management that allowed the Ravens to come back and score their game-winning field goal.
“There’s no explanation that you’re satisfied with,” Jones said. “None. Let’s be sure that we all understand that. They don’t have one that they’re satisfied with. We made mistakes during that time, there’s no question about it. There’s no explanation. There’s an evaluation of how to not make the same mistakes again, which is what you should be doing. We can’t get that back. No way to get it back. What you can do is use it — if there’s any aspect of it that you want to just not even think happened. Any aspect of it, use it to get better.”
The Real Culprit
Jones may not have an explanation but most fans do: The kickoff rules.
The current rules place a touchback all the way at the 35-yard line. From there, even with less than 10 seconds to play, all the Ravens needed was one play of slightly over 25 yards (in this case a 27-yard pass from Lamar Jackson to Zay Flowers) to get into range for a 56-yard field goal, which just about every NFL kicker is capable of. Tyler Loop squeeze in a “trio in Rio” to seal the win.
Such a scenario would have been nearly impossible under previous iterations of the kickoff rules where a touchback would set up a team at the 25-yard line or even the 20-yard line in years past.
© Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
The Cowboys have now lost two games in a row and are currently third in the NFC East.
The good news is, their next three opponents – the Houston Texans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Green Bay Packers – are a combined 1-8. The bad news is that if they lose one or more of those games, they’ll be in pretty rough shape heading into their big road game against the Eagles.
