The Dallas Cowboys' hopes of making a deep postseason run were squashed on Sunday when, with 14 seconds remaining and zero timeouts, Dak Prescott confoundingly ran up the middle for 17 yards and failed to kill the clock with a spike before time expired. Consequently, they lost in heartbreaking fashion at home to the San Francisco 49ers, 23-17, in the NFC wild-card round.
Following the game, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy defended the play-call from offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, telling reporters that it was "the right decision" to run and set up a closer game-tying Hail Mary pass attempt. Prescott also told reporters that the team had practiced that play, and it was "tough to accept" how the moment unfolded.
"It's on McCarthy and Moore. It's the folks who called that play who are to blame for it," CBS Sports NFL writer Jonathan Jones told the Reiter Than You show on Monday. "When folks say that you need 16-17 seconds in order to execute a play like that, what's built into that is, human error. It's the official getting there, marking the football. It's the official bumping into the QB as he's trying to move through a wall of 300-pound men to touch the ball...
"That's the risk that you run when you call a designed quarterback draw with 14 seconds... When Dak says, 'We practiced this, we knew we had enough time,' no, you didn't. You didn't have enough time. Because everything that happened in that moment should've been accounted for in practice... You have to prepare for all potential outcomes. The Cowboys didn't, and that's why, in part, they're not playing this week."
Although thousands of fans inside AT&T Stadium believed that the Cowboys deserved one more play after the brief delay in spotting the football, referee Alex Kemp told a pool reporter that the umpire did his job correctly, and was "absolutely" in a reasonable distance from the end of Prescott's run. By rule, the offense can't snap the ball until an official has touched it to confirm the spot on the field.
Dallas, which entered the NFC playoffs with the league's top-ranked offense, was inefficient against San Francisco's defensive scheme. Prescott was held to just 254 passing yards with one touchdown and one interception, and the Cowboys' ground attack was limited to just 77 yards on 21 carries. In addition, Prescott was sacked five times, and the 49ers racked up 14 quarterback hits. With the loss, Dallas now owns a 27-year championship drought.
The entire NFL conversation between Jones and Reiter can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Reiter Than You show on Twitter @sportsreiter and @CBSSportsRadio, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.