A Frustrating Finish to a Dallas Cowboys Sorry Season

I, like Jerry Jones am “Extremely, extremely disappointed.” The talent on this roster up and down still falls short. It seems to be a theme for us Dallas Cowboys fans.

I want to have confidence in this team, I really do, but in the time that I’ve been around, a mere nineteen years, it has been a letdown after letdown.

14 Penalties, Dallas Cowboys. Need I say more?

No team should even be within a drive of winning after committing fourteen penalties, common theme for this team game in and game out. Seemed like for the entirety of the 2021-22 season proceeding a big play would be a flash of yellow in the bottom right of the screen as the play gets called back.

Eventually I became used to it and it didn’t end up mattering for most games anyways. When you play teams like the Giants or Football Team twice a year, even fourteen penalties wouldn’t be enough to lose to them. Against a playoff caliber roster like the 49ers, 89 free yards is going to lose us games.

We also never seemed to get it going until the 4th quarter. In that first quarter we totaled -3 yards through. We didn’t even cross our own 25. A good bounce back TD in the 2nd certainly kept the Dallas Cowboys in the game but coming out firing is key to win a football game.

Very rarely will a team be down by 16+ in the 4th quarter of a playoff game and still win. Unless you’re Tom Brady of course. Dak Prescott is certainly not. The Niners gave us every chance win that game in the 2nd half but with each penalty we told them we didn’t want the win despite their insistence.

I’m hoping this game stings extra for Mike McCarthy as he watches the Dallas Cowboys next season succeed while he’s on the couch.

Getting ran over for 60 minutes is also not a recipe for success. Granted it’s difficult to stop a two-headed monster like Deebo Samuel who can run great routes, and dominate between and outside of the tackles. But I think the key to winning this game was to force Jimmy Garoppolo to throw the ball early and often. As we saw, when he does that enough he’s bound to make a bad pass like the interception to Anthony Brown.

Allowing Jimmy G to rely on Elijah Mitchell and Deebo Samuel freed him to make the necessary throws without making him panic too much. Not too mention our front seven were essentially reduced to mush as Garoppolo was rarely pressured and wasn’t sacked once. For a team that was averaging just under three sacks per game getting pressure was expected. 49ers offensive line is far from easy though when they have a guy like Trent Williams manning the Left Tackle position.

Can’t help but feel angry with how the season ended. It wasn’t any form of ref ball, the refs made the correct calls each time, I never felt like it was all that nit-picky. That game is on us. And that’s what makes it difficult, we beat ourselves. It just didn’t feel like an ending you can hang your hat on.

We expected to get this far and we certainly expected to get farther. You see teams like the Buffalo Bills, a fellow three seed, putting it all together with less, both in terms of resources and overall talent. It comes down to better quarterback play and superior coaching.

Hopefully Jerry begins a coaching search because we dealt with mediocrity from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Jason Garrett) for years. Mike McCarthy got a pass last year because of Dak’s injury. He’s not getting that pass from me and many others anymore.

• Published on 01/19/2022 at 18:35 PM
• Last updated at 01/19/2022 at 18:35 PM