After costly drop, Cowboys’ Cole Beasley finds redemption on game-winning drive
At the time, it seemed as if the play was destined to come back to haunt the Dallas Cowboys.
Sure-handed receiver Cole Beasley dropped a well-placed pass from Dak Prescott in the end zone on 1st and goal from the 4-yard line in the first quarter and the Cowboys had to settle for a field goal.
It was especially excruciating because the 15-play, 85-yard drive was the longest scoring drive of the season and netted just three points.
Sure enough, the defensive battle included seven field goals and the dropped touchdown loomed like an albatross as the score tightened late and Dallas faced a tie game and 1:52 remaining.
“I can’t even describe it,” Beasley said of the drop. “You can’t be mad. It was like it never happened. I just said, ‘wow.’ Dropping a wide-open touchdown just kills you. It’s hard to redeem yourself from that.”
Prescott came right back to Beasley on their next possession, but it was incomplete. He finished the first half with only two catches for eight yards and still desperately waiting for redemption.
“He knows I don’t drop balls like that,” Beasley said of Prescott. “He’s got all the faith in all of us. He’s going to stick with us through thick and thin.”
Beasley got his chance at redemption when it counted most.
With under two minutes left and the game tied at 19-19, Beasley’s 19-yard catch over the middle moved the Cowboys to the Redskins’ 30 and into field-goal range for Brett Maher. Maher nailed the game winner as time expired for a 22-19 win at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“I’m just glad I fought through and made the plays I needed to that came to me after that,” said Beasley, who finished with five catches for 51 yards, second to Ezekiel Elliott’s team-high seven catches for 79 yards. “Waiting for a chance to redeem yourself is the biggest thing but you can’t press too hard.”
The Cowboys (5-5) host the Washington Redskins (6-4) with a share of first place in the NFC East on the line at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
“We know the talent we have in this locker room. We’ve had it all year, it’s just about putting it together,” said Beasley, after the Cowboys pulled off what few people thought they were capable of doing: winning consecutive games at Philadelphia and Atlanta. “We have a lot of new faces, we’re probably the youngest team in the NFL at the same time. We’re learning how to win and learning how to be consistent, that’s what we’ve had to do. We’re going to get this thing on track. That’s how we felt all year. Every loss we felt we should have won. It wasn’t like, ‘we’re bad.’ Nobody got down on themselves. We just had to put it all together and we have these past two weeks.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2018 at 8:00 AM.