Night Of Wk 16 - A Christmas Eve Miami Battle
Pokes and Phins wage a memorable battle in South Florida that requires all 60 minutes
Sometimes, these games come down to a fork in the road. Two teams fighting over the same game, both feeling like they have too much at stake to come this far and to leave with nothing. They both dig in and it comes down to one basic situation. This one occurred late in the fourth quarter when the Miami Dolphins takes the ball with 3:27 to go in the game.
At this point, Dallas has fought all the way back to take a lead that they were chasing most all of the night. The Cowboys just ate up roughly the last 13 minutes of the game with two long drives that harvested 10 points. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty. But, the Cowboys offense was able to march the ball all the way down the field and consume most of the rest of the game to get two scores that flipped the game from 19-10, Miami all the way to a 20-19 lead.
This is the slimmest of margins, especially in a world where the Miami Dolphins kicker, Jason Sanders, has made everything he has tried all day long, including setting a team record for most field goals more than 50-yards. But, like an NBA playoff game, sometimes you get in a spot in clutch time where you just have to get one stop in their final possession and either you do or you go home mad.
By now, you probably are aware how this flight home from South Florida went.
Dallas was unable to get that one stop. Since we used a basketball analogy, I will offer equal time and continue to push the “save situation” that we stole from baseball this year. I believe defenses do win championships and I also have come to believe that the defense of the Dallas Cowboys is one of the best in the league with THE best ability to pressure opposing QBs and to get takeaways.
But, those raw numbers do not always reflect the realities of a NFL game where you can get me all sorts of stats in games that aren’t on the line. But, can you get me a stop – maybe even a sack or a takeaway (or both!) – when everything is on the line? Can you get those final few outs with runners on and decide whether all of the work that went into this vital game is all for naught?
With everything hanging in the balance, can you, Dallas defense who responded so well to being called names all week after the Buffalo debacle, stand tall with everything on the line against an opponent that is also searching for the combinations of the safe to unlock the “big-game win”?
No. They could not. They blew the save and everyone went home disappointed.
Now, like we have already conceded, it isn’t easy to finish a game for a defense, but the reality is they were not really asked to do too much in those final minutes. The offense was out there spilling their guts to try to get the lead and to run 27 plays in an effort to make that happen.
Boy, it was ugly, too. Dak Prescott is taking some massive shots because the protection is struggling. Left tackle Chuma Edoga, who is only there because Tyron Smith needed the week off with his ailing back, is having some very odd processing issues as he sees Bradley Chubb lined up against him and twice blocks down and sets him free to blindside Prescott.
The reads are not always easy, but one particular time he actually joined Tyler Smith in blocking the inside man and let one of the league leaders in sacks get in a dead sprint right at the back of Prescott. Not great.
But, they kept grinding and battling and demonstrating a willingness to win ugly if that is what it was going to take. They first settled for a Brandon Aubrey field goal to cut it back to 19-13. Which admittedly was followed by a nice stop by the defense before anyone suggests we are not acknowledging the good moments the defense had. The third-and-8 sack where Dorance Armstrong and Micah Parsons got home is a key moment in our story.
We won’t forget that. Yet, they had played 3 snaps in the last 13 minutes of football while the offense was at 27 snaps. Obviously, we are not rewarding the offense for taking longer to get their job done, but the idea for the optimism that a stop was coming was that the defense would have been incredibly well rested and energetic to go get the “save” for the crucial battle.
All they had to do from 11:06 until about 3:30 left was to celebrate the heroic drive from Prescott and the boys that culminated in two brilliant throws from the Cowboys QB. The first was a dime to CeeDee Lamb in the right corner of the end zone where he was unable to stick the landing and then the second was an equally wonderful toss to Brandin Cooks, who did bring it in and pay the price to do so. But, there is nothing quite like a late-game touchdown catch to ease the bruising. That might have been a massive game-winner, if only the defense can go close the deal.