Dez Non-Catch Leaves Cowboys Fans Wondering What's Next
By Cory Mageors | @inthemageors
In a bar full of beers, food and good cheer, a moment of elation turned quickly to somber faces, longer man hugs and sorrowful hands on shoulders.
Hearts stopped for a brief moment as Tony Romo was pressured from every angle on what almost certainly could have been a run play, and even should have been a quick crossing route.
The brief gasp amongst the crowd grew silent as one voice screamed out "GET IT DEZ!"
No way was he going to beat the coverage, the pass was floating too much.
No way was he going to be able to get his hands wrapped around that ba…wait a minute there's single coverage! Dez beat his man! He's in the air! He grabbed it! He came down with it!
And the once airless room of patrons at Redneck Heaven in Fort Worth exploded in one unifying reaction of celebration.
I hugged ten people I've never met. I high fived a guy in the face…twice and he said it was fine.
I lifted Mike Bacsik into the air and we jumped up and down like 10-year-olds playing double dutch.
In my mind, Dez Bryant just converted an impossible 4th-and-two for a catch at the 1-yard-line. It was the most amazing grab in the most incredible situation I'd ever seen.
Then I saw Mike McCarthy holding a red flag next to referees. Then I saw the replay and I said… "Holy crap that might be a touchdown too."
Then, what felt like hours later, after what was certain to be a formality, Gene Steratore stepped on the field and said not only was it not a TD, but it was not a catch at all.
Here's the explanation from Steratore, via NFL.com.
"Although the receiver is possessing the football, he must maintain possession of that football throughout the entire process of the catch. In our judgment, he maintained possession but continued to fall and never had another act common to the game. We deemed that by our judgment to be the full process of the catch, and at the time he lands and the ball hits the ground, it comes loose as it hits the ground, which would make that incomplete; although he re-possesses it, it does contact the ground when he reaches so the repossession is irrelevant because it was ruled an incomplete pass when we had the ball hit the ground."
It's almost impossible to accept this answer, but to be honest what options do we have?
The difference between this and Detroit is that the Cowboys didn't have the ball again after this play. They couldn't make up the play on 5th down.
Now you can argue that they should have stopped the Packers on the next series, but I could barely sit up straight after the call.
I was in stunned disbelief.
The entire bar was staring blankly, hoping for something to lift them. What had been the most intense crowd I had ever been a part of in a bar scene, was now as muted as a viewing of the body.
If I was this shocked, then I can only imagine what was going through the players' minds.
It was the knockout blow to the gut.
I drove home convincing myself of so many theories that the NFL has a master plan.
Retribution for the Detroit game. No way could the Cowboys have two disputable calls go in their favor if the NFL wanted to save face.
Did the Cowboys cover the spread?
My mind was flooded with lost thoughts that wouldn't matter in the big picture.
So, Cowboys fans can sit here and sulk. We can be pissed and we can blow twitter up with more evidence than Colin Powell's Weapons of Mass Destruction case.
It won't matter.
Just ask Dez, who sat in the locker room for thirty minutes explaining the play to media members and replaying it over and over in his head.
My 7-year-old son asked me "Daddy why wasn't that a catch?" I had no answer.
Even if the NFL came out and said "On second thought, whoops we were wrong," they can't do anything about it.
So to save myself a little heartache, I'm going to applaud this Cowboys squad for an amazing season; a year that took me through the highest of highs, and now to as low as you can possibly feel after not winning the last game.
I'll look forward to the next draft and hope Jerry Jones can make some crafty work of his salary cap in order to keep Dez Bryant and a handful of other players we love in this city.
And I'll keep an eye out for the new contract for Jason Garrett, who, without a doubt had one of the best seasons motivating players to play over their heads I have ever seen.
I'll also ask Tony Romo to not do anything that will put that back at risk for the next six months.
One man walked up to me while I was leaning against a window with my eyes glazed like a donut, and reached out to shake my hand as if to console me.
"I've been in Massachusetts my whole life," he said. "I moved down here and always hoped I'd be able to watch a game like this for the Cowboys. It was an incomparable experience. And I'll tell you this, they'll be back again. Cowboys fans deserve to keep their head up."
The glory comes with pain. The pain comes with reprisal, and with the foundation the Cowboys have laid, it looks like we're in for more consecutive years of success than this franchise has seen in a while.
Let's just hope that a 12-4 record can get the Cowboys more home cooking than road hassles in the future.
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