Watching interference flag again on film made Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy sick
Coach Mike McCarthy has a number of reasons why the Dallas Cowboys came up short in their 20-17 season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
The veteran coach, who is new to the team, blames rust and timing issues on the combination of having a disjointed offseason and not having played any of their five scheduled preseason contests due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, those issues don’t exactly speak to his questionable play call to pass up an opportunity to tie the game with a short field goal early in the fourth quarter.
But what he is really having a hard time with is the offensive pass interference penalty that was called against receiver Michael Gallup, negating a 47-yard gain and a first down at Rams’ 19 with 21 seconds to go.
Although referee Tony Corrente said the infraction was “clear and obvious on the field,” replays suggest that it may have been a clear acting job by Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, who appeared to hook Gallup’s arm.
Gallup freed himself to catch the ball and Ramsey sold it with a demonstrative flailing back.
“Now, the Michael Gallup call, it’s just — made me sick when I watched the TV copy,” McCarthy said. “I thought Michael ran an excellent route. He gets his hips over the top of the DB, and the DB attempts to clamp his arm, and actually clamps his arm, and pulls his arm out and makes a catch. So, it’s definitely a call you’d like to see not happen, and I know everybody wants to talk about the time of the game and the way the game was called to that point. But at the end of the day, it was an excellent route and throw and completion by Michael Gallup from Dak [Prescott].”
Ramsey defended it in his postgame comments and again on Monday on Instagram: “You can’t do this in football people. Great call. Rams 1-0. Don’t be so mad. LOL.”
As for the overall inefficiency of an offensive that scored just 17 points, including only three in the second half and was woeful on third downs with just 3 of 12 conversions, McCarthy said the culprit was first-game rust.
“I think one of the biggest correction components is I just think it’s a product of not playing any games, a lot of football together,” McCarthy said. “Our timing wasn’t where it needed to be,” McCarthy said. “You see timing issues through pretty much every position. I mean, you can see it in route-running ... You see it in double-team blocks where one guy may come off sooner than he should.”
McCarthy said that fixing the their timing issues will come with time. “That’s a normal process,” he said. “You go through it every year. It starts when you put the pads on in training camp ... The timing of a number of things we did by position needs to improve.”
McCarthy and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore also continued to defend their decision to go for it on 4th-and-3 from the Rams’ 11-yard line with 11:46 seconds left and the Cowboys trailing 20-17. The pass from Prescott to rookie receiver CeeDee Lamb came up one yard short. The failure was more about execution and rookie receiver CeeDee Lamb running his route too shallow.
“Obviously, trying to get past the sticks, trying to get a first down,” Moore said. “Obviously, in a perfect world, on paper, you do. I think the guy made a phenomenal play on defense, and obviously something we can learn from, grow from. Obviously, it was a big play in the game. It wasn’t the only play that decided the game, but obviously the guy made a great play.”
“Yeah, I think it’s probably a coaching point for a whole bunch of guys there just to clean up,” Moore added. “Opportunity to maybe get a little more depth out of that, but he’s made a lot of those plays throughout camp. That play has been run quite a few times and we had some success with it.”
Said McCarthy: “Yeah, I’m comfortable with the decision. At the end of the day you’re calculating time of the game, where we are. It was a momentum opportunity to create a position for the offense to score. So, yeah, I think it’s like all of these decisions. It’s a great call when it works, and it’s not a great call when it doesn’t.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 7:07 AM.
