How 'Bout Them...What?

 

Laughing at the Dallas Cowboys is sometimes too easy. They haven't won a Super Bowl since 1996 (I'd rather not talk about that game) and they've lacked playoff success since then.

In fact, the posting of Dallas Cowboys memes is almost lame. It's just too simplistic.

Still, there's a certain joy in watching Jerry Jones walk away in defeat.

So there they are yesterday, facing a likely loss at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional Playoffs.

They were losing 19-12 to San Francisco. A miracle would have been needed to even get the score to within one. Then we would have had as scrutinized an extra point kick as we've arguably ever seen. Brett Maher, the Big D field goal kicker, had just gone through a run of missing extra points that would even make the hardest of souls cringe.

The side of me that loves drama was all in for that but I can't even imagine what the fallout would be had he missed it. Plus had hit it the game would have gone to overtime.

Nah. I was done.

So, one play.

They will discuss this train wreck of a last play for years.

Oh, we've seen some nail-biting final plays over the years. Hail Marys and the "Music City Miracle" and, although it wasn't the last play, the "Immaculate Reception."

You get the idea.

In this case, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy wasn't exactly making anyone think of Tom Landry.

McCarthy had Ezekiel Elliott, a running back, line up at center. Again, Elliott is a running back. Putting him at center, to snap the ball, is the essence of the kind of play we'd run in someone's yard. It made no sense.

The linemen, by the way, were all lined up on the right side of the play with receivers to the left. Quarterback Dak Prescott awaited Elliott's snap.

Again. From center. Where Elliott was playing and, as a result, isn't eligible to receive the ball. Oh, he was allowed to take it as a lateral but that comes later in this hair-brained idea.

So, again, what the hell was McCarthy thinking? What was anyone thinking?

The only thing I could think was that if it worked it would be the stuff of legend. 

So Prescott took the snap from Elliott. Under duress from a minimal San Francisco pass rush (again, Elliott was the only lineman who stayed in to block!), he threw to Kavontae Turpin, normally a kick returner, playing his first offensive snap.

So, now comes the laterals, right?

Yeah. Calm down there, pardner.

Turpin got hammered to the Levi's Stadium turf immediately.

Game over.

To say the play has received massive ridicule would be downplaying it. It's been getting destroyed. Look, it would have been mocked had a lot of other teams done it but to have it be so-called "America's Team?"

Yeah. It's not what you want.

One day it will make...no. Stop that. It will likely never make sense. The thing is I'm not even here to mock the Cowboys because those doing the mocking have sort of exhausted me.

I'd just like to understand.

"Music City Miracle" this was not.

More like "Bay Area Befuddlement."