Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said he didn’t think he’d win if he challenged the spot on a crucial play when CeeDee Lamb was spotted just short of a first down, but Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says McCarthy should have thrown the red flag.
Jones said on 105.3 The Fan that the Cowboys should have challenged the spot, which likely would have gotten them a first down, rather than going for it on fourth-and-inches, which failed.
“That’s a mistake,” Jones said, via the Dallas Morning News. “And you have a game, you’re going to have some mistakes, you’re going have some goals you’d like to have back. And the minute we saw it and saw that he had made it, then you obviously knew it was a mistake not to have it reviewed and how we do that in the box, who we’ve got doing those kinds of things, that’s why you look back, take these games, take what happened in the game and get better at it and improve on it. And we need to look at that and say, ‘Let’s not do that again.’”
McCarthy is the only head coach in the NFL whose owner makes regular media appearances to scrutinize his decision-making, but the reality is Jones is right: McCarthy should have challenged that spot, and the failure to do so cost the Cowboys.