The first image of the Dallas Cowboys-Seattle Seahawks wild-card
playoff game is of Tony Romo failing to handle a clean snap from
center on a chip-shot field goal attempt.
The first image of the Dallas Cowboys-Seattle Seahawks wild-card playoff game is of Tony Romo failing to handle a clean snap from center on a chip-shot field goal attempt.
My image was of a coach who put together a poor game plan against a depleted secondary, and then made perhaps the worst call of his career when he had Romo pass from the Dallas 1.
That’s right. Bill Parcells was more to blame for the Cowboys’ loss Saturday than Romo. Despite the poor game plan, this was Dallas’ game to win. The Cowboys made a valiant fourth-quarter defensive stand to keep Seattle from scoring after it had a first and goal from the 1.
Perhaps one can even argue that Mike Holmgren should have gone for a field goal. But at least the other side of that argument would have been that the Seahawks would have needed a touchdown anyway to win since they would have trailed 20-16.
But when you get the ball at your own 1 with a touchdown lead and six minutes to play, who in their right mind calls a pass play? If the score is tied, that’s different.
The worst case scenario in this situation is you run Julius Jones or Marion Barber up the middle and force Seattle to burn its remaining timeouts. You know that you have the best punter in the league so even if he kicks from his own end zone, the clock has wound down to four minutes and you still have a touchdown lead.
Instead, Terry Glenn fumbled a pass that should never have been thrown in the first place and the Seahawks got a safety, which meant they were handling a kick from the Cowboys’ 20 from where they knew they would be getting good field position, and trailing by five instead of seven.
It behooves me how the veteran Parcells did not figure that out. He’ll have plenty of time to think about it in the next few weeks.
And then there was yet another interesting subplot at the postgame press conference. It was a vision few of us ever thought we would see.
No, I’m not talking about the gutty Romo facing the camera and taking the blame. How about what Terrell Owens had to say?
Here’s a guy who had just caught two passes and was a non-factor in the game. And he was acting like the consummate teammate and standing behind his fallen teammate with his support.
A contrite T.O. is something new. And it just may be that he will be back with the Cowboys next year.
The question is whether Parcells will return. The man has proven himself as one of the best coaches in the NFL. He was smart enough in midseason to mute the praise when fans and the media were anointing Romo as the second coming of Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning.
On Saturday, he proved that he, too, makes mistakes. That one mistake in particular proved more costly in my mind then what his suddenly all-too-human quarterback committed.
Contact Marc David at (408) 842-1694 or at [email protected].
