ARLINGTON, Texas 鈥 They have got to be sick.
Sick to their stomachs.
Maybe you, too, if you were watching the unthinkable here Monday night, with 92,587 fans packed into AT&T Stadium, Cowboys-Bengals playing to keep playoff hopes alive.
These Cowboys have been scratching and clawing for a month now, despite one injury after another. That included two more starters in this Monday Night Football national telecast, plus All-Pro guard Zack Martin heading to this M.A.S.H. unit's injured reserve before the game. And as if it hadn't been enough no longer playing without Dak Prescott, without DeMarcus Lawrence, going without Micah Parsons for four games, Trevon Diggs for two, Brandin Cooks for seven, DaRon Bland for 10, on and on and on.
And even in this Week 14 game, they lose center Cooper Beebe to a concussion, having to move backup starting right guard Brock Hoffman, who was replacing Martin at right guard, to center, and insert T.J. Bass in at right guard. They also started veteran swing tackle Chuma Edoga because not only had rookie starter Tyler Guyton not practiced all week, but his backup, Asim Richards, had to be placed on injured reserve the previous week.
My gosh, who's on first?
What a mess.
Yet here these Cowboys were, two minutes left in this game, tied 20-20 and knowing at 5-7 if they could win this game to move to 6-7, there would be only two teams with better records ahead of them vying for that third wild-card playoff spot: Washington at 8-5, a team the Cowboys already had beaten and get to play again, and the Los Angeles Rams at 7-6, with four games yet to play.
As Mike McCarthy said, "We needed this one, and that's the way we approached it."
And there they were, at the two-minute warning, having held the high-powered Cincinnati offense and quarterback Joe Burrow, who is leading the NFL in passing attempts, completions, and passing yards with 30 touchdown passes 鈥 on a team that had scored at least 30 points six times this season, including in three of their previous four games 鈥 to just those 20 points. In the most important possession of the game, Dallas forced them to punt when play resumed on a fourth-and-27 from the Bengals' own 29-yard line.
This win was in their grasp despite Burrow having thrown for 312 yards to that point, 13 of his 31 completions to the NFL's leading receiver, Jamarr Chase, for 137 yards, one for a touchdown. Why, the Bengals had scored 41 touchdowns prior to this game, and with those two minutes remaining, the Cowboys had held them to just two TDs and two field goals, interceptinghim once, sacking him twice and pounding him eight other times
"They just keep fighting, keep slugging away," said McCarthy, knowing most outside their walls had given this team up for dead before coming into this night on a two-game winning streak.
And then the 7 seconds that unfortunately will live in Cowboys lore. Bengals rookie Ryan Rehkow was going to punt. It was going to be Turpin Time. In fact, during the brief intermission,the Bengals sideline was jabbering with KaVontae Turpin, the best return man in the NFL, trying to unnerve him as he was waiting for play to resume. Ha, not Turp. He just slowly walked toward the Bengals sideline, around the 20 or so, where the ensuing punt predictably would fall, andknowing him, was probably telling them, Wait until you see this.
But of all things, the Bengals' No. 45, Maema Mjongmeta, a third-string linebacker, whiffs on his block of Cowboys veteran special teams linebacker Nick Vigil, who now has an unexpected free release toward Rehkow.
Thump! A two-handed punt block, the ball fluttering forward, bouncing around the 38-yard line. Going to be the Cowboys' ball on the Bengals' side of the 50 with 1:53 yet to play, and Brandon Aubrey's 60-yard field-goal potential in their back pocket.
But when reserve cornerback Amani Oruwariye, having been one of two guys on that side of the ball charged with holding up Cincinnati's gunner, turns around, the ball is bouncing on a second hop right to him at the 40-yard line. All he had to do was get out of the way of a blocked punt crossing the line of scrimmage. Cowboys gain possession wherever the ball rollsdead.
Have mercy, the ghost of blocked-kicks past reared its ugly head. Those of us who have been here long enough remember Thanksgiving 1993. On a sleet/snow covered Texas Stadium frozen artificial tundra, Leon Lett thought he needed to recover a blocked field goal inside the 5-yard line to preserve a Cowboys' 14-13 victory over Miami in the waning seconds. In his haste,ol' Leon, a backup on special teams but having to play as an injury replacement, slid into the ball, touching it, which allowed the Dolphins to recover the ball for a chip-shot walk-off game-winning field goal.
Say it ain't so.
Poor Amani. He instinctively tried to catch the two-bounce ball in the mass chaos of humanity, only to have it bounce off his chest. And of all things, and you can't make this stuff up, Mjongmeta, the guy whose flubbed block on Vigil caused this whole scenario, is the one who recovers the now live ball, giving the Bengals a most fortunate first-and-10 at their own 43-yard line with 1:53 to play.
Three plays later came the game and very probably the Cowboys' season, a Burrow short pass to Chase at the Cowboys 32 that saw the cornerback Bland overrun the tackle, allowing Chase 鈥 since the Cowboys were rushing six on the play and in single-safety-high coverage 鈥 tosaunter 40 yards for the winning touchdown with but 1:01 left on the clock.
Gotta be kidding me.
In a Twilight Zone of a season, beginning with the weirdness of training camp when one of the player rooms at the Residence Inn in Oxnard, Calif., caught on fire, when a preseason game trip to Las Vegas got delayed when Mazi Smith unknowingly ingested a supplement drinklaced with a peanut substance (needing to rush him to the hospital), when an inordinate number of injuries to Pro Bowl players haunted this team, well 鈥
Now this, as they say, probably the straw that breaks this season's back.
"I know we really needed to win the game to have, what I would say, a really win-out, get-better chance to get in the playoffs," said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. "And then we were needing some things to happens for us. That was a setback for us last night, that was a hard one. 鈥 Bottom line is this is the life we've chosen."
Like what if Mjongmeta had just did what he was supposed to do and blocked Vigil? What if Vigil hadn't gotten there in time or had peeled back to block on a potential return or got enough of the ball to send it backwards? What if a fluttering oblong ball had not two-hopped right to Amani? What if he had heard his teammates, who should have been yelling, "Poison!" or "Peter!" meaning get the hell out of the way?
But this has been, and with four games yet to play, a season clouded with a kaleidoscope of "what ifs."
Like, what if on a second-and-10 at the Bengals' 12-yard line, CeeDee Lamb doesn't run into Bengals safety Jordan Battle on his slant route, getting knocked off his path, which led to an easy Geno Stone interception?
What if on third-and-five at the Bengals' 17, the Cowboys had given Edoga some help on NFL sack leader Trey Hendrickson, who smashes into Cooper Rush, forcing an incompletion,and the Cowboys having to settle for a field goal?
What if late in the third quarter, with the Cowboys first-and-10 at the Cincinnati 29, Coop getting sacked, and then in the midst of some pushing and shoving Luke Schoonmaker takes a one-handed push to get Germaine Pratt away from a fallen Rush, and the 6-3, 250-pound guy flops better than Draymond Green, drawing a 15-yard personal foul penalty on Schoonmaker that sends the Cowboys back to a second-and-25 at the 46 now, resulting eventually in an Aubrey 47-yard field goal?
Good gosh, with 12:49 left to play, and who knows, but what if DeMarvion Overshown doesn't get piled on top of, going down for the count and having to be helped limping off the field, for of all things, now tearing his right ACL after last year's tear of the left knee in training camp costing him his rookie season?
De-Mo's loss hurt bad.
This loss stings. And it's a short week to a road trip at Carolina.
"This one hurts me more than any loss," Parsons said.
"We fought to the end," said Lamb, gutting it out for six catches, 93 yards and a touchdown despite obviously aggravating the shoulder injury that knocked him out of the Thanksgiving Day game late and limiting him in practice all week. "Obviously, the guys didn't give up. I didn't give up. Just sucks to come out short."
And to think this victory was right in their grasp.
You practice all summer. Practice all season. Play through all these injuries for 12 games, wining the past two straight to reach 5-7, to keep hope alive. Don't give up. Don't ever give up.
And in seven seconds.
Poof.
Yep, kinda makes you sick.
