NewsBot
New Member
- Messages
- 111,281
- Reaction score
- 2,947
Coach Jason Garrett has watched the play countless times and believes it could have gone down as one of the iconic clutch plays in NFL history.
He compares it to Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Lynn Swann’s juggling catch against the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X.
And yes, he still believes it should have been called a catch.
The same is true for tight end Jason Witten and the rest of the Cowboys players who spent their Monday gathering their belongings in trash bags, still trying to process the devastating end to their season.
Even vice president Stephen Jones, a member of the NFL’s competition committee, continued to argue that Bryant’s 41-yard reception on fourth down with 4:06 remaining in the Cowboys' 26-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional Round should not have been overturned by officials.
It would have given the Cowboys a first down on the Green Bay 1-yard line and a chance to take lead.
The reversal—based on the "Calvin Johnson Rule" and the notion that Bryant didn’t maintain control all the way through process because he didn’t make a football move—sent the Cowboys home, ending their dream season.
“I saw a lot of it last night just because I’m on the committee. I wanted to understand it more because I felt like he did make a football move,” Jones said. “I felt like he took two running steps and pivoted off the third one to try to reach in and had he been going two steps to stay up and run out of bounds he probably stays up. But instead, Dez is such a phenomenal athlete he knows instinctively to stick the ball across and makes an amazing play.”
Jones said there is no doubt the Bryant no-catch will be discussed ad nauseam in the offseason by the competition committee as they take another look at the Calvin Johnson Rule.
“There is no question. I mean, every time one like this hits,” Jones said. “The old tuck rule. Are you kidding me? Ninety-nine people out of 100 in a bar say Tom Brady fumbled the ball. Tuck rule, and now no one wants to change it. Same thing with this a little bit. I mean, Calvin Johnson, 99 people in a bar will tell you he caught the ball. Dez caught the ball. Everybody saw he caught the ball. It’s a very difficult one. It never tastes good when you’re on the wrong end of it.”
Now the Cowboys must begin the process of reconciling the success they had in 2014, surpassing expectations with a 12-4 record, an NFC East title and a playoff win, with the disappointing end to the season.
“It hurts,” cornerback Brandon Carr said. “It’s so hard to get into the playoffs. It’s hard to win games period. You have invested so much throughout the season. It’s always hard to be packing your bags. Now, you’ve got to sit at home and watch the rest of the playoffs play out.”
Said running back DeMarco Murray: “It was a hard loss, knowing what was at stake and knowing what we accomplished throughout the year and how we fought and we worked hard to get to where we were. I’m proud of it. I’m proud of this team, proud of this organization. I wouldn’t want to go through it with any group of men than these guys in this locker room. It was a great season for us. Obviously, it’s not what we wanted in the end, but we played hard and we jelled together.”
The most difficult thing for the Cowboys now is trying to build on what they accomplished with the uncertainty of many players and coaches possibly not coming back in 2015.
Murray is at the top of the list in the Cowboys locker room. The NFL's leading rusher is an unrestricted free agent who hopes to capitalize on his big season with a long-term contract.
“I’m not worried about my future,” Murray said. “I just lost a big game. The biggest game of my life and just not worried about it right now, just going to relax with my family and get away from it for a little bit.”
The Cowboys’ main priority over the next few days is re-signing head coach Jason Garrett, defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, offensive coordinator Bill Callahan and offensive play-caller Scott Linehan to contract extensions. All of their deals have expired.
“We will be trying to sign our guys,” Jones said. “My priority is to sign our staff. Our No. 1 priority here right now is to get our coaches signed and get our staff in place. We’ll sit down with our coaching staff, our personnel staff and really start to look at the full body of work of each and every player on our team, how they affect our cap and what decisions we need to make so we can make the next step next year. We really like the foundation of this football team.”
The focus now is to get over the no-catch and go about the business of building toward the future. The Cowboys believe the foundation is in place for their success in 2014 to be the beginning of something special, and they will not let the no-catch linger as the devastating end.
“We’ve shown the world when a team comes together, it’s hard to beat a team that’s a real team,” defensive end Jeremy Mincey said. “You add talent with that same type of team mentality, now you’ve got something really, really special to go with it. This was a building block, a great building block, great stepping stone for us, and I think that the future will be bright.”
Clarence Hill covers the Cowboys for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Read more Dallas Cowboys news on BleacherReport.com
Continue reading...