Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer tried to explain his decisions over the final 28 seconds of Sunday’s loss to the Ravens in Rio, but the guy who runs the show in Dallas made it clear on Tuesday that those explanations fell on deaf ears.
Team owner Jerry Jones said that there is “no explanation that you’re satisfied with” for how the Cowboys went from first down on the 1-yard-line to losing on a last-second field goal by Ravens kicker Tyler Loop. At a press conference later in the day, Schottenheimer said that he damaged the team’s chances with his decisions over a sequence that included a timeout with 14 seconds left, coaching Dak Prescott to throw a ball away on third down rather than try to get the ball into the end zone and having Brandon Aubrey kick the ball deep after his game-tying field goal.
“I didn’t do very good in the final 28 seconds,” Schottenheimer said. “When you talk about finishing the game — when you look at our two games that we’ve lost, we haven’t finished — that was a big part of this one. I felt like I overcoached Dak on third down, kinda affected his decision making a little bit. And I let that kinda bleed over to my decision about kicking the ball. . . . I’ll take accountability for it. It’s football and life, that’s what happens. I hurt our chances to win that game. I’ll be better and I’m better than that.”
Schottenheimer said Jones “understands there was a mistake that was made” and vowed that “those things won’t happen again” in the future. He also stressed that the whole team has to be stronger in the fourth quarter if they want to avoid more painful losses in the future.