Back in 2006, I told Xian (he doesn't really follow football) the high-drama story that was the Dallas Cowboy's epic season. I'd say it should be made into a movie, but it'd have to be a tragedy, unless they wanted to fudge history and pretend we won the Superbowl or something. I'll tell you the story (in my highly stylized way, of course) some other time. Today, we're going to set the scene for yesterday's tragic loss.
Week 1, everything's starting out great. We're in New York exactly 10 years after 9/11, the stage is big, the lights are bright, and the Cowboys are clicking on all cylinders, poised to hand a tough defeat to the New York Jets. It's Rob Ryan vs. twin brother Rex, with their ex-head coach dad Bud in the stands. The night is rife with storylines. But none of that matters when the Cowboys fumble away a 14-point fourth quarter lead by means of an extremely rare blocked punt returned for a touchdown, on top of two not-very-excusable turnovers directly from the hands of Tony Romo. Afterwards, we all sat down and said to ourselves, 'we let that one get away from us', slapped Tony on the wrist lightly for trying to over-achieve when a simple dose of conservative play-calling would have gotten the job done. Well, Cowboys fans did. The media at large could not find it in their hearts to be so forgiving, and lambasted all of them for the entire week without letup. It was the big story of Week 1, and general consensus seemed to agree that Tony Romo played well for the first three quarters, and then personally choked away the game, and all but branded the "choker" label on him, forever. Grantland even calls losing the game singlehandedly with a bad interception "a solid Romo," now.
Week 2, all the media talk lavished praise on Tony Romo for gutting out an impressive performance, with two broken ribs and no receiving core, to lead a comeback win against what has actually been a pretty impressive SF team this year. You can read the dramatized version in my BQBL Week 2 Recap post. Suffice to say, he was media darling for a week.
Week 3 continued the love-fest. Tony overcame all kinds of feel-good-movie antics, including injury-depleted roster, difficulty speaking loudly with still-broken ribs, and his center hilariously snapping him the ball early multiple times. The Cowboys didn't win elegantly, but they won, a credit to the entire team effort, and mostly Tony Romo.
Week 4 the second honeymoon was over. Up by a massive 24 points in the third quarter, Dallas seemed like that elegant win was in the books, and everything was settled in for a well-organized offensive and defensive juggernaut. And then the 27-3 lead vanished under two interceptions returned for touchdowns, and a sudden defensive breakdown after a third. There was blame to go around during the following week, and even during the bye week. What was Tony even throwing passes for in the third and fourth quarter? As I explained to Xian, one of the first things you learn when watching football is clock management, and here's the general rule: running burns clock, passing saves clock. When teams have that good of a lead, usually it's time to shelve the QB and start running around to get to 'game over' quicker. And with less risk of interceptions, by the way. (The exception to this rule is when you're the New England Patriots, who aren't satisfied with winning games by a 24-point margin, and will continue to throw the ball even when they're up by 48. That is beyond the scope of this article, but suffice to say, we generally call it the "Being a Jerk Exception") Media outlets questioned Tony's ability at the same time they questioned the coach's decision to "allow Tony to lose the game for you". In Dallas, we grew concerned that the Cowboys were covering up a total lack of running ability. Either way, it was back to being the talk of the choking world for another week. They also created the term: "Romo-Coaster".
Since the bye week, the Cowboys have gone 5-2, mostly due to weaker competition and the decision to actually run the ball. Fortuitously, another previously unknown guy has emerged from nowhere to be a good runner, and we finally achieved some balance. Aside from a loss to the Patriots (Evil Team Evil, won't get into that now) and a blowout loss to the Eagles (who obviously have their own issues, won't get into that either), there were 5 good wins in that stretch, and everyone credited the newly-discovered rushing game. With increased balance comes more spread out defenses. Tony took care of the win-baby (that was a great
article) and stopped trying to "do too much" as everyone puts it. The head coach, Jason Garrett, also asked less of him, too, once DeMarco Murray established himself as a reliable runner. Everything seemed to be coming up roses.
And then yesterday's game happens. Let us overlook for now the fact that the Cowboys had plenty of chances, and probably should have been up by a much wider margin. Water under the bridge for now. It's 13-13, and there's 26 seconds left. Tony Romo has just landed a tight throw to Dez Bryant for the first down at the Arizona 31 yard line. Here's how a conventional game goes, i.e. what you expect to see after watching enough football:
The Cowboys call a time out, stopping the game clock at 26 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. All the players leisurely jog up to the line of scrimmage, Tony informs the Cowboys offense that they're going to rush up the middle (Let's refer to this as Imaginary Play #1) DeMarco Murray rushes up the middle. That takes about a second, and the clock is still ticking. Both sides hurriedly reset the lines (maybe... 10 seconds) and Tony hands it to DeMarco again for another rush (another second or two) (We'll call this Imaginary Play #2). We've used about 14 seconds of clock, 20 at the outside, and the Cowboys take their last timeout. Let's be conservative and say DeMarco got us about 5 yards and we've stopped the clock at 2 seconds remaining in the game. Dan Bailey hits a 44-yarder (knock on wood) from the middle of the field as time expires, and the Cowboys win the game.
That, oddly is not what happened. Instead, the Cowboys did not take one of their two timeouts, let the clock run down to 7 seconds, spiked the ball, and let the kicker come onto the field immediately. There's nothing really wrong with a 49-yard field goal attempt to win the game, but it's pretty odd that they didn't even try to get more yards. Dan Bailey hits the field goal, and everyone rejoices. Except apparently, Jason Garrett called a time out just before he hit the ball? It's like I'm in the twilight zone at this point. Dan Bailey says "um..... ok." and relines up to take the kick again. And promptly misses. And then the Cardinals win the coin toss in overtime and the Cowboys never see the ball again on their way to a 19-13 loss. What?!
The media is more or less roasting this guy alive today. He's completely unapologetic about the call, and for a moment, I was going to throw him under the bus, too. But then I remembered what kind of a season he's had so far, and how can I blame him for being over-conservative now, when everyone was saying in Week 4 that his unconservative approach lost us the game (not even mentioning the Week 1 disaster last season). He is, in fact, doing as we asked, and "not letting Tony lose us the game". He thought they could make the field goal from 49 yards and didn't want to take risks. It just turned out tragically this time.
Just as an exercise, let's go back and explore a few possible outcomes of alternate-reality decisions, starting from the assumption that they called timeout at 26 seconds:
- They decide to run the ball, thus minimizing the chance for turnovers (it's less likely to fumble in such a run than to be intercepted)
1) DeMarco Murray bangs past the line for a touchdown, hooray. (Pretty unlikely, the defense is ready for this play).
2) He leans forward and gains a yard or two as described in the imaginary scenario above. (Much more likely). Dan Bailey kicks from the much-higher-probability-location of 44 yards out
3) He gets stuffed at the line for zero or - gulp! - negative yardage. (Not super likely). Dan Bailey is forced to make a 49+ yard field goal.
4) Epic disaster strikes, and he fumbles the ball away or somehow, the clock runs out (Very unlikely, but it's happened).
- They decide to pass the ball, to make sure there's no mishaps with the clock
1) Touchdown, woo (Somewhat unlikely?)
2) Incomplete passes, and almost no time is taken off the clock (Pretty likely), and Dan Bailey must make a 49 yard-or-shorter kick to win the game
3) Tony gets sacked (Very unlikely), and now they're out of field goal range and have to hail mary or go to overtime
4) Epic disaster, Tony is intercepted and it's returned for a touchdown as time expires (Not as impossible as one would hope, but still Very Unlikely)
And the corresponding Murphy's Law: "If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop"
