Cowboys Purposely Allowed Lions to Score Game-Winning Touchdown
Letting an opponent score to get the ball back faster has been a questionable tactic in many sports for decades. That’s exactly what the Dallas Cowboys did in a 34-30 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Dallas purposely put Lions star receiver Calvin Johnson in single coverage at the goal line with under two minutes to play so the Lions would throw the ball. It turned out Johnson caught the game-winning touchdown on that play, but Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett says it was still the right call.
“On the last play, what we wanted to do was have him by himself,” Garrett said. “It’s a long discussion as to why, but you’re almost inviting them to throw that fade to allow him to defend it and hopefully defend it and the clock stops. Or they score a touchdown and they give our offense an opportunity to go back the other way. The worst scenario for us there would be if they run the ball three times and then we have no time to come back.”
The Cowboys had no timeouts when cornerback Frank Walker was called for defensive holding to give the Lions a first and goal at the 2-yard line. That’s when Garrett elected to put cornerback Terence Newman in single coverage on Johnson to provoke Detroit into throwing the football. As Garrett said, if Detroit had run the ball, the clock would have continued to run and Dallas wouldn’t have had an opportunity to win the game on offense afterward.
As mentioned, this is always a questionable tactic. Old-school, defensive coaches might say to never purposely allow an opponent to score. At first thought, that makes sense; you coach your defense to do what they’re supposed to do – stop the opposing offense. Hindsight is 20-20, so it’s easy to question Garrett’s call now.
I’m an old-school, defensive kind of guy, so my first though is to bow up and try to make a goal line stand. If the Cowboys stop the Lions from making a touchdown, the game is over and the collapse never happens. However, had the Lions scored in three plays rather than one, Dallas wouldn’t have had a prayer at the end of the game.
So defensive-minded guys like me can sit here all day and say Garrett should have done this or that, but it didn’t happen. Garrett had a good plan initially; Dallas had moved the ball well for most of the game, so why not let the offense go to work again? Of course, the Tony Romo haters would say absolutely not since the Cowboys’ quarterback had already thrown three second-half interceptions. Again, hindsight is 20-20. Either way, it was a tough call and Dallas is now 2-2 instead of 3-1.
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lmao-seriously the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.