The Dallas Cowboys had about as bad of a day at the office as a team could in their Super Wild Card Weekend matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. Dallas was handled rather easily pretty much from the opening whistle as the 49ers scored a touchdown on their first drive and rode that momentum throughout the remainder of the game.
Following the loss, there was a lot of attention put on head coach Mike McCarthy. A lot has been said about the final play of the game in which quarterback Dak Prescott scrambled despite having no timeouts remaining.
He waited too long to slide, which resulted in the Cowboys not being able to line up in time. When he snapped the ball to spike it and stop the clock, triple zeroes were already showing.
If executed properly, it was a smart play call, as the 49ers were essentially a prevent defense. However, Prescott didn’t execute it correctly and McCarthy is now getting all the heat. There have been some rumors that the Cowboys could move on from him and elevate one of their coordinators, likely offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, to the head coaching spot.
Some analysts believe McCarthy being fired is what should happen. One of them is Colin Cowherd. On his radio show, he tore into the Cowboys head coach.
McCarthy is in an awkward spot, as he catches all the heat when the team struggles offensively and Moore is praised when they do well. While there has been so much attention given to the final play of the game, that is far from the reason that the Cowboys lost the game.
The 14 penalties for 89 yards certainly didn’t help Dallas’s cause. How about the disaster that followed their successful fake punt on fourth down, when they kept the special teams unit on the field, eventually took the offense off the field but it was too late and they took a delay of game.
The Cowboys also abandoned the rushing game pretty early on, which put a lot of pressure on Prescott throwing the ball. Moore is the offensive coordinator, so he should have as much of the blame placed on him as McCarthy is.
