Once again, Mike McCarthy’s decisions are costly in Dallas Cowboys’ season-ending loss
Sacrificing just one member of the Dallas Cowboys to throw in the pit of starving lions after their latest season-finale debacle would be cruel to the lions.
Everybody, but the kicker, deserves to be thrown to lions, sharks, wolves and pandas, for their collective first-half performance against the New York Giants on Sunday.
The Cowboys, and their bloody-glove wearing quarterback Andy Dalton, at least acquitted themselves in the second half with real effort, but overall their season-ending loss 23-19 loss to the Giants was the nice way to wrap up a terrible season.
There will be no playoffs for the Cowboys, because no team this bad should be in a postseason of any kind.
Mike McCarthy, on behalf of every person who watches and covers the Dallas Cowboys, I don’t get it.
No team that is forced to play without its starting quarterback and its best players on the offensive line for the bulk of the season should be expected to make the playoffs. Once Dak Prescott’s ankle was pointed in the wrong direction, the Dallas Cowboys’ season was effectively over.
Nonetheless, what started in Los Angeles in Week 1 against the Rams with mystifying analytics continued throughout much of the season and ended in Week 17 in New York.
Hey, coach, in sports, this is not what we mean by going coast to coast, more like coast to toast.
McCarthy’s odd decisions did not just not add up. These decisions blew up.
After Sunday’s loss, Melatonin Mike was asked if game management was a problem. His response? “Not at all.”
Wonder how Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Jones feels about this?
Twice McCarthy made calls in the second half against the Giants that defied rational logic, or at least contradicted some of the decisions that he made earlier in the season.
McCarthy Bad Decision No. 1
After trailing 20-6, and playing like a collection of idiot cowards who could not wait for the season to end, the Cowboys rallied in the second half with a Zeke Elliott touchdown run midway through in the third quarter to make the score 20-15.
Now, earlier this season, McCarthy has flipped to the “2-point” sheet and gone for the two-point conversion in these instances.
In this case, McCarthy opted to play it “safe” and sent out the kicking unit so he could trail 20-16 because we all know how important that it is to pull within four points. You certainly wouldn’t want to be five points down in that situation.
“It was too early to go for it there, in my opinion,” McCarthy said. “I thought it was a clean decision.”
Wonder how Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Jones feels about that?
Now, I’m now no Baker University alum, like McCarthy, but I’m pretty sure even with the PAT the Cowboys still needed a touchdown.
Late in the third quarter, kicker Greg Zuerlein made his fourth field goal of the day, and the Cowboys were down 20-19.
Remember, the Cowboys just needed a tie and a Washington loss to win the division and make the playoffs. They did not even need to secure a victory. They just needed to avoid a loss.
For much of the season, McCarthy was sticking religiously to the analytics sheet to justify any number of decisions.
Compared to the decision that was to come, passing on the 2-point conversion didn’t look like Baker, but more like Harvard.
McCarthy Bad Decision No. 2
With a little more than seven minutes remaining in the game, the Cowboys had the Giants’ facing a 3rd-and-16 from the Dallas 42.
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones threw a safe pass that receiver Dante Pettis was credited for making. However, replays showed that Pettis used the ground to secure the 10-yard catch.
“The way the receiver turned, to me, and the information we felt it was too close [to review],” McCarthy said after the game. “We felt it was a bang-bang situation. We were in a tight game, and the three timeouts [are] of high value. We didn’t think it was enough information to go for it.”
The 10-yard reception put the Giants into field-goal position, and they converted on the 50-yard attempt to extend their lead to a four-point advantage.
As a result, on the ensuing drive the Cowboys had no choice but to go for the touchdown.
Although they had a 1st-and-goal from the Giants’ 7-yard line with 1:53 left to play, of course it blew up. Dalton’s desperate third-down pass was a floater that was intercepted in the end zone.
“We had to be better in the red zone and we weren’t today,” Dalton said.
No argument here.
At the time McCarthy was talking to the media after the game, he said had not seen the replay of Pettis’ reception. He is not going to like what he sees.
The call may not have been overturned, but even Fox’s officials analyst Mike Pereira thought it was not a reception.
Remember, McCarthy is the guy who had no problem challenging the Dez Bryant catch in the 2014 NFC divisional playoff game back when he was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
Someone, either McCarthy or a member of his staff, blew it.
“I make the decision,” McCarthy said.
It was a bad one.
This team was not good enough in Week 1, and certainly not in Week 17, to blow major decisions the way McCarthy and his staff have done on a routine basis.
These types of decisions are not the reason the Cowboys finished 6-10 in 2020, but they are factors.
When you are 6-10, no one is good.
Starting with the head coach.
This story was originally published January 3, 2021 at 6:00 PM.
