Blink and you missed it!
The Dallas Cowboys were 13-9 up and driving down the field to take a two-score lead against the Washington Commanders on Sunday.
There was just 5:21 left of the fourth quarter. I could not have envisioned the chaos that was about to unfold.
I have seen some wild finishes to Cowboys games. This one far exceeded any other before it.
This game was scrappy for the previous 55 minutes, and when the Cowboys recovered a fumble with eight minutes left I hoped that would be that.
Dallas needed to run plenty of time off the clock, go up by 11 points and make it extremely difficult for the Commanders to comeback. They did that – for the most part – as a touchdown pass to a wide-open Luke Schoonmaker gave the Cowboys that 11-point lead.
That touchdown, however, proved to be the first of 38 points scored in the final six minutes.
The Commanders offense finally found life and took the ball down the field quickly to cut the lead to three, before one of the plays of the season.
Turbo Turpin goes coast to coast
Cowboys kick returner, KaVontae Turpin, let the deep kick-off bobble between his legs. Cool as you like, he turns around and collects it with one hand before ambling towards the Commanders coverage team.
Then, somebody hit the spin move button on Turpin’s control pad. In a split second he planted his left foot and took out two on-rushing Commanders before racing to the endzone untouched.
Turpin’s heroics looked certain to have given the Cowboys a huge upset win on the road.
If that was the end you would say that was a crazy conclusion to the game, but Jayden Daniels and Terry McLaurin had other ideas.
The Commanders needed to move the ball 86 yards with only 21 seconds left. With the Cowboys defence worried about defending the sideline, Daniels hit McLaurin in stride and the star wide receiver cut through the secondary with ease giving the Commanders the opportunity to – at the very least – take it to overtime.
Commanders head coach Dan Quinn made the surprise decision to kick the extra point against his former team.
The nature of another miracle play in the dying embers of the game would surely lead you to taking a shot to win it all from two yards out.
The fact the Commanders had a successful two-point conversion may have played into this and Quinn said afterwards no thought was given on going for two to win the game there and then.
Kicker Austin Seibert then missed a second extra point of the game to add to a missed field goal and the Commanders had to recover an onside kick to have a chance at winning the game.
Specials team touchdown gives Commanders chance
Just when things could not get stranger, the Cowboys recovered the ball and Juanyeh Thomas inexplicably ran it back to take an eight-point lead. If he had gone to ground the game would have been over.
This gave the Commanders and Daniels another chance at a Hail Mary to potentially send the game to overtime.
Mercifully, the desperation pass was short and the longest 5:21 of my life ended. Watching a team this bad, this late in the season should not be this stressful.
It was a relief to break a five-game losing streak. It was great to put a dent into a rival team’s playoff hopes. Most of all it was nice to see a smile on Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy’s face.
He has rightly come in for criticism, but he was set up to fail this season. It is great to see him enjoying himself on the side-line once again.
Hopefully, this is the first of many crazy Cowboys games we get down the stretch to keep us on the edge of our seats and leave us shouting, “How ‘bout them Cowboys?”
