Just stop. That would have been good advice for Cowboys defensive back Amani Oruwariye on Monday night. And it would have been good advice for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, both on Monday night and for the course of this NFL season.
Just to recap, the Bengals and Cowboys played a sloppy but compelling game in front of a national primetime audience on Monday, and with just under two minutes to play, the Cowboys were set to get the ball as the Bengals were backed up on a fourth-and-27 situation. The score at the time: 20-20.
Dallas got a break when Cowboys linebacker Nick Vigil slipped up the middle and blocked Ryan Rehkow’s punt. But then things got ugly. Oruwariye tried to field the bouncing ball, but after touching it, he could not reel it in. All he had to do was get out of the way, and the Cowboys would have had the ball at about the 45-yard line.
Instead, the Bengals recovered and set themselves up for a go-ahead touchdown on a pass from Joe Burrow to Ja’Marr Chase. 27-20, Cincinnati.
After the game, team owner Jerry Jones met with the media, and offered a bizarre take on the situation. Pick your emoji: forehead slap, or simple shrug?
Cowboys Were … Wrong to Block the Punt?
Surrounded by cameras and tape recorders, as he likes to be, Jones tried to say that perhaps the Cowboys were wrong to try to block the punt. It was a confusing point, at best.
Said Jones: “Well, why block the kick? Just take the kick and get within field-goal kicking (range). We’ll all be second-guessing that one. After blocking the punt, we touched the ball. That all should be figured in before you decide to block the punt. Especially, you weigh your odds up against catching the ball on the kick and getting it back out and getting within field-goal range. We can all second-guess that.”
The notion of “deciding” against blocking a punt, a play that should have given the Cowboys the ball with only about 15 yards needed for sure-bet game-wining field goal, drew serious jeers around the league.
Jerry Jones Is ‘Being Dumb’
On the ESPN morning show, “Get Up,” two former NFL players–Domonique Foxworth and Jeff Saturday–were stunned by the logic Jones tried to put forth on Monday night.
Foxworth wondered, as many in Cowboys Nation have done, why there is no one in the organization who can tell Jones when to maybe stop talking.
He said: “There’s been so many things he has said this year that seem silly. That speaks to me as a person who doesn’t have anyone who can tell him, ‘You being dumb. You need to be quiet.’ At a certain point, somewhere along the line, all the silly things that he said this year, someone needs to say, ‘Hey, you’re wrong.’ He doesn’t know that he’s wrong. That’s absurd.”
Added Saturday: “You literally question everything that is going on. Who in the owner’s box is agreeing with you? When you come down and you have your press conference … My goodness, to talk about it as a return vs. a block, that is crazy.”
