Playoff franchise record 14 penalties cost Dallas Cowboys their season
The Dallas Cowboys season is over. Just like that, it’s on to next year once again.
Right off the bat, the usual suspects will get the looks. You could go that route.
Sure, you can say that Dak Prescott could have hit a few more throws. There were, at least, two throws that were slightly behind receivers.
You could also say that the receivers could have made a few more plays. Cedrick Wilson should have been able to make a play on the Dak Prescott heave near the goal line, but lost his footing and couldn’t.
You can even look beyond just those single plays or players themselves at the coaching. For a guy at the top of all of the head coaching searches right now, balance has to be a top question and concern for anyone looking to bring in Kellen Moore.
How do you get called for defensive holding on a running play? That is seriously the type of random horror that causes Mike McCarthy teams to lose football games.
— Ryan Glasspiegel (@sportsrapport) January 17, 2022
With a 21-44 run-to-pass call ratio on Sunday, that could be looked at with a ton of questions in accordance with the results. Ezekiel Elliott finished with 12 carries for 31 yards, while Tony Pollard only had four for 14.
Perhaps head coach Mike McCarthy is the target of your ire, passing up on an opportunity to go for it late in the game on a fourth and short. Any of those could be your choices, perhaps even a few that weren’t mentioned.
The Dallas Cowboys shot themselves in the foot Sunday evening with a franchise-record 14 penalties in a playoff game.
However, none of those things cost the Cowboys this game. A deficiency of team discipline and a surplus of penalties is why they lost — a franchise playoff record-sized helping of penalties, to be precise.
https://twitter.com/nfloncbs/status/1482875515497324551?s=12
Through it all though, the Cowboys found themselves with a chance to sneak back into it or even potentially to a victory. But they still couldn’t get out of their own way.
Late in the game and needing a stop, though they would eventually get one after a 49er miscue of their own, the Cowboys were mounting a defensive stand when Randy Gregory made another misguided play to cost his team.
Just a completely unnecessary and costly holding penalty in #SFvsDAL. Plays like these can be the difference in the game and by committing such an egregious hold, you leave the refs no choice but to throw the flag. pic.twitter.com/BfrACo9fJa
— Gene Steratore (@GeneSteratore) January 17, 2022
While that felt like the penalty that broke one’s proverbial back, it was the summation of a day’s worth of ineptitude. The Cowboys still had a chance to win this game in the end, even as time waned. This is true. Even with all else that went wrong and for all of those that didn’t have their best days.
However, no factor or player’s performance cost them as much as they cost themselves in total with the 14 penalties.
They came in the biggest moments, too, as if any moment isn’t a terrible time to give up free yards. So, if there was any confusion about what the biggest factor was in Sunday’s season-ending defeat, it was the yellow flags.
The yellow flags that the Cowboys were the cause of.
