Jerry Jones didn’t try to dress it up.
A day after the Cowboys’ 34-31 loss to the Ravens in Brazil, the Dallas owner went on 105.3 The Fan and made his feelings clear about how the game slipped away late. Dallas had a chance to finish it, but the final sequence turned into a mess of timeout management, a missed connection in the red zone and a kickoff that helped Baltimore steal it at the buzzer.
The Cowboys are 1-2 after Sunday’s heartbreaking defeat, and Jones said the late-game breakdowns left nothing to defend.
“There’s no explanation that you’re satisfied with,” Jones said Tuesday. “None.
Let’s be sure that we all understand that. They don’t have one that they’re satisfied with.
We made mistakes during that time, there’s no question about it. There’s no explanation.
There’s an evaluation of how to not make the same mistakes again, which is what you should be doing. We can’t get that back.
No way to get it back. What you can do is use it - if there’s any aspect of it that you want to just not even think happened.
Any aspect of it, use it to get better.”
Dallas’ final possession was especially hard to swallow. After Dak Prescott scrambled to the 5-yard line on second down with 14 seconds left, the Cowboys used their last timeout.
On third down, they went to wide receiver George Pickens. Pickens got open, but Prescott threw the ball away.
Head coach Brian Schottenheimer later said that was the right decision.
The Cowboys still had life after Brandon Aubrey’s chip shot field goal tied the game with seven seconds left. But Aubrey’s kickoff went for a touchback, and that gave Baltimore enough time to hit a long pass and set up Tyler Loup’s game-winner as time expired.
Prescott also spoke after the game about the final play and the missed chance to finish in the end zone. He said he didn’t expect Pickens to be open, but he still believed he should have been able to get him the ball.
“The coverage they were playing 99 times out of 100, they are supposed to cover GP [outside],” Prescott said. They’re supposed to have outside leverage and funnel inside. GP did a great job of winning regardless.”
When asked about Schottenheimer’s message regarding the throwaway, Prescott said he didn’t want to get into that “right now” because he was “still fresh, just upset” about the loss.
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