FRISCO, Texas – The biggest way to ruin playing complimentary football is by beating yourself, and the Dallas Cowboys did so once again in a 27-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday afternoon.
In the opening drive of the third quarter, the Cowboys faced a fourth down and two from their own 28-yard line trailing by four points. Bryan Anger then attempted a pass down the sideline intended for C.J. Goodwin, who couldn't make a play on the ball which gave the Falcons excellent field position. From Anger's perspective, that aggressiveness is what makes special teams coordinator John "Bones" Fassel great, but sometimes the ball just doesn't bounce your way.
"We get it, it's a major play, we don't get it, still a ton of game left and we can recover," Anger said. "I like the aggressiveness that we have, you got to go for it, that's what coach [Fassel] is known for in career and he's had major success, he's one of the best to do it, ever. You've got to take the shots, you're not going to get some here and there, but you've got to take them."
Remember: on fake punts, there are no penalties for pass interference. So, when Falcons defensive back Natrone Brooks made contact with C.J. Goodwin that usually would've drawn a penalty, it was instead the perfect way to defend the play.
"He played it great, he kind of knew it was coming…" Goodwin said. "That was a smart play by them, it was something we would've done too."
Five plays and 38 yards later, Kirk Cousins found Ray-Ray McCloud for an 11-yard touchdown to give Atlanta a 11-point advantage. Despite how backbreaking that play was for Dallas momentum wise, it probably isn't the last time we'll see the Cowboys run a fake punt this season.
"In Bones I trust, I loved it," Goodwin said of the decision to call the fake punt. "We'll do it again later, it'll work next time."
While Fassel shouldered the blame for the decision, which he recommended to Mike McCarthy ahead of the play and McCarthy chose to go with the fake punt, he doesn't regret it.
"I don't regret it," Fassel said. "I think it was a sound situation to make that call, there's times where I've called it before and it didn't work and I did regret, there's a lot of times where I haven't called it and I wish I would have and I regretted it, and this happens to be one where I called it and it didn't work and I don't regret it."
Fourth down was a nightmare for the Cowboys, who converted just one of five attempts with a tackle for loss on an end-around to CeeDee Lamb, an incompletion from Dak Prescott at the end of the 1st half and a KaVontae Turpin drop in the fourth quarter accompanying the fake punt. Their four turnovers on downs were the most they've had in a game since at least 1993.
"The only thing that really slowed us down was ourselves today." Head coach Mike McCarthy said.
Then came probably the most frustrating issue of them all: the penalties. Staying ahead of the chains has been an issue all season for the Cowboys, and nothing changed in Atlanta with nine flags coming in for 55 penalty yards. On Dallas' second drive of the game, KaVontae Turpin's 48-yard return to the Dallas 46 was called back due to a Luke Schoonmaker holding call and the Cowboys went three-and-out.
And that was just one example of Dallas' self-inflicted errors that stalled drives. Jake Ferguson, Tyler Guyton, and Terence Steele were all penalized for false start penalties throughout the course of the day, which didn't help matters either. The talk all week was about how communication and execution needed to be better, but the Cowboys came up short in both categories once again.
"We've got to get to winning," McCarthy said. "We're making too many self-inflicted wounds and the disappointing part about it is some are repeated, the pre-snap penalties are totally unacceptable."
Getting to winning starts in practice, an area where McCarthy and the staff discipline players on either side of the ball for presnap infractions by removing them from the play, but that may not be enough. Playing at home the next two weeks should help with some of these lapses and penalties, but that doesn't mean there isn't improvement to be done.
"That's something we've got to continue to work on and make sure we get the mechanics tighter, because it definitely bit us." McCarthy said.
Now sitting at 3-5 with injuries left and right and frustrations high, the Cowboys will face their division rivals in the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium next Sunday in search of their first win since October 6.
