4 reasons the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Seattle Seahawks

#4. Special Teams

One of the most underrated positions on NFL teams is those on special teams. Dallas Cowboys fans have seen why lacking in this portion of the game can be costly. The game this past Sunday was another example.

Something that stands out the most to Cowboys fans is the two missed extra points. For obvious reasons, people automatically point to kicker Greg Zuerlein.

The first missed extra point attempt hit the right upright, so that is on Zuerlein. The second one ended up being tipped and went wide. That one should be blamed on the blocking, so it’s not all on Zuerlein.

These two misses had a big impact on the outcome of the game. The two missed extra points forced Dallas to try for a two-point conversion on their fourth touchdown, which ultimately failed.

Rather than going for the two-point conversion, Zuerlein could have kicked another extra point. What should have been a score of 31-30 Dallas, but ultimately became 30-28 Seattle.

After what could have been 31 points for Dallas, they kicked a field goal which would have made the score 38-34 by the end of the game. The Cowboys would have still needed a touchdown to win the game.

Another part of special teams that caused problems for the Cowboys was the kick return that saw Tony Pollard bobble the catch and recover it at the one-yard line.

This was not only a terrible field position for the offense to start at, but it also resulted in a safety. Dallas gave away two points and possession of the football. While Seattle didn’t score when they got possession of the ball, they scored two points resulting from a very bad mistake by the Cowboys.

If you add up the three points from the extra points mentioned above and taking away two points for the safety, the end score would have been 36-34 Seattle. That means the Cowboys could have won with a field goal late in the game.

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Rather than having Dak try to force a throw into the endzone, he could have made sure Dallas was in Zuerlein’s field goal range and hoped for a second straight last-second win. Instead, a late interception sealed the win for Seattle.

Now, everything I said here was if everything that went bad ended up going right. It is a far reach for every single bad situation to go right. Sometimes mistakes happen, and it ended up contributing to losing this game.

This was a very winnable game for the Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately, there were too many mistakes throughout the game and as a result of this, the Dallas Cowboys have a record of 1-2. We’ll see what they do to overcome this in their next game, which is against the Cleveland Browns.