Cowboys coach Jason Garrett has taken plenty of criticism after Sunday’s loss in Washington, with his overly conservative play calling having the Cowboys ending the game with a long missed field goal rather than taking a shot at the end zone. But Garrett won’t second-guess himself.
Garrett said after the game that the goal was to get into field goal range, and the offense accomplished that goal. Just because the field goal missed, Garrett says, that doesn’t mean the strategy was wrong.
“The biggest thing after we got ourselves into field goal range was to try to get up there and clock the ball, preserve that last timeout and then give us the freedom,” Garrett said. “I think we were trying to get the ball down to 12 seconds. So once we got down to that point, the biggest thing that we wanted to do was maximize the field goal opportunity and run the ball, make some yards, use the timeout and then kick the game-tying field goal.”
But why settle for just getting the field goal range, when a field goal only would have sent the game into overtime? Why not try to win in regulation? On their last three offensive plays the Cowboys threw two short passes to Cole Beasley and then handed off to Ezekiel Elliott before the field goal attempt, rather than trying to go downfield to score a touchdown. Just getting into field goal range shouldn’t have been Garrett’s end goal.
