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ESPN

Inside Cowboys-Commanders chaotic fourth quarter

For 57 minutes, the Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys played a mundane game, with the Cowboys holding an 11-point lead and the teams combining for 29 points.

And then it got wild, leading to some of the wildest few minutes this season.

In the last 2 minutes, 49 seconds, there was a 99-yard kick return for a touchdown, an 86-yard touchdown pass, a missed extra-point attempt that would have tied the score, an onside kick returned for another score and a Hail Mary pass that was intercepted at the 5-yard line to clinch Dallas’ 34-26 victory — ending the Cowboys’ five-game losing streak and extending Washington’s to three.

“It’s like Yahtzee,” Dallas coach Mike McCarthy said. “I think everything was in there.”

“It was crazy,” Washington linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “We saw [Terry McLaurin] bust up that run and then we miss [the extra point].”

The swing of emotions included the teams combining to score 31 points in the final four minutes, the most in the final four minutes of an NFL game since Baltimore and Minnesota scored 36 in 2013.

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Blogging the Boys

10 thoughts on the Cowboys 34-26 wild victory over the Commanders

These teams always battle each other and this one got a little crazy!

1. TOTAL MADNESS

It’s hard to explain what we witnessed. In a game where points were initially hard to come by, the floodgates opened in the fourth quarter. The score was just 10-9 entering the fourth quarter. Little did we know what was in store for us. With just over five and a half minutes left in the game, the two teams then combined for 38 points, five touchdowns and a field goal.

• Luke Schoomaker touchdown with 5:16 left
• Zach Ertz touchdown with 3:02 left
• KaVontae Turpin touchdown with 2:49 left
• Austin Seibert field goal with 1:40 left
• Terry McLaurin touchdown with 0:21 left
• Juanyeh Thomas touchdown with 0:14 left

It was total madness.

2. SO MANY BIG SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYS

Never have we witnessed such an assortment of big special teams plays. This game featured a blocked field goal, a blocked punt, missed extra points, and unconventional kickoffs returned for touchdowns. The Cowboys were on the wrong end of the plays early as both the blocks came against them, but their luck turned around with two late kickoff returns for a touchdown. First, KaVontae Turpin, who initially fumbled the kickoff, put on a nice Madden-like spin move and returned it 99 yards for the touchdown. Juanyeh Thomas added another touchdown when he jumped an onside kick and took it to the house, although he would have been better served to just go down. But hey, at that point, who cares anymore?

5. TOTAL BREAKDOWN

After the Turpin touchdown, the game was for all intents and purposes, over. But no. The Cowboys had to make things exciting. On the very next play from scrimmage, Jayden Daniels hit McLaurin for an 86-yard touchdown where Cowboys defenders took terrible angles and didn’t even touch him. It was even more pathetic than the end-of-half play from Tyreek Hill and the Kansas City Chiefs back in 2017.

10. BITTERSWEET

The Cowboys won a football game and played some good football doing it. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but there will be positives from this game that can be carried over and that’s huge. Of course, good things come with a price. In a season that isn’t likely to result in bonus football in January, this Cowboys win hurts their draft position. And when they’re picking in the top 10, that’s a big deal. Additionally, beating the Commanders helps the Philadelphia Eagles take a step closer to winning the division. Yeah, the win feels nice, but we’re going to need a shower afterward.

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The Athletic (paywall)

NFL Week 12 takeaways: Is the Commanders offense collapsing? Are the 49ers out of time?

Missed PAT aside, Washington needed another miracle touchdown just to hang around in an eventual loss to the Cooper Rush-led Cowboys on Sunday. What do you make of the Commanders, specifically on offense, after another underwhelming performance?

Nguyen: This offense is far too predictable and defenses are catching up. They haven’t been as willing to run Jayden Daniels after his rib injury, and so much of this system is predicated on the QB options and scrambles — they’re handicapped without it. The short passes and screens haven’t been as effective either. Their unwillingness to throw the ball downfield is maddening to watch.

Pompei: No question the offense isn’t clicking like it was early, and there is room for improvement. Perhaps defenses have caught on. But the Commanders offense played well enough on Sunday; 26 points wins most games. The team was undercut by defensive issues and special teams problems — especially special teams problems. Has a team ever won a game in which it gave up two kickoff return touchdowns and missed a field goal and two extra-point attempts? The Commanders probably weren’t as good as they appeared early in the season, but they’re probably not as bad as some of their critics will say they are today.

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ESPN

Judging biggest overreactions for NFL Week 12 games

The Commanders are going to miss the playoffs

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

The Commanders are three games behind first-place Philadelphia in the loss column in the NFC East (before the Eagles’ game on Sunday night) and occupy the seventh and final spot in the NFC playoff field — tied in the loss column with the Cardinals, Rams, Falcons and Seahawks. So yes, Washington is in real trouble here.

The Commanders get the Titans in Week 13, which sure looked like a winnable game before Tennessee took down Houston on Sunday. The Commanders need a win next week against the Titans to stop their free fall, or else what once looked like a special season could very well end in disappointment.

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The Athletic (paywall)

The Commanders split apart on the field Sunday, continuing an ill-timed reversal of fortune

This was the first time this season that it felt like Dan Quinn’s team wasn’t ready to play, despite the week-plus off after the loss in Philly. It was the first time offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury looked a step behind his team’s opponents on the defensive side of the ball most of the day. In the opener at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Daniels held the ball a little too long; against the Eagles, Saquon Barkley wore down the Commanders’ D. But Dallas stuffed Washington’s ground game all day — especially after Brian Robinson Jr. sprained his ankle in the first quarter — took away McLaurin until the very end and put consistent pressure on Daniels.

Washington’s two touchdown drives in the last three minutes of play came against soft Dallas coverages — well, actually, the second one came against no coverage at all. If you know what the Cowboys were trying to “prevent” when they let McLaurin scamper unimpeded down the sideline, let me know.

The Commanders offense somehow scored just 9 points through three quarters despite starting eight of its first nine drives at …

• the Cowboys’ 40-yard line,
• their own 32-yard line,
• the Cowboys’ 47,
• their own 42,
• the Cowboys’ 39,
• their own 40,
• their own 30,
• their own 45.

“It’s very frustrating to play 3 1/2 quarters the way we did,” tight end Zach Ertz said. “It’s not like we weren’t trying different stuff. We did try new things. And we just couldn’t execute any of them.”

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Washington Post (paywall)

That Commanders game went off the rails. Has their season?

Washington will never again play in a game like Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys. The team can still learn from it.

There are infinite ways to process this. Not many make sense. Here’s one: When the Commanders took over the ball with 5 minutes 8 seconds remaining, they trailed 20-9. They needed a field goal, a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie. They got a field goal and two touchdowns — and still lost.

This wasn’t the NFL, always exciting but normally orderly. This was chaos, the kind of football that plays out between quasi-obscure college teams long after the sun has set in the East.

The final absurdity, long after what had been a forgettable game climbed completely through the looking glass, will be Austin Seibert’s never-had-a-chance extra point. That was the point that would have allowed the Washington Commanders to somehow tie the Dallas Cowboys with 21 seconds remaining Sunday at Northwest Stadium.

Except, there’s this: “It doesn’t come down to one play,” said just about everybody in a devastated Commanders locker room. Attribute that line to Dan Quinn, the coach who must sort through what happened Sunday — and keep his fraying team together.

What matters in the standings and in the psyche of Commanders fans is that they lost a 34-26 decision to the hated Cowboys, a game that went from boring to bizarre in light speed. They have now lost three in a row. That’s important, and given how the Cowboys had been playing — five straight losses, the last two in blowouts that suggested they were in meltdown mode — Sunday’s result could linger, affecting Washington’s chances for the playoffs and its seeding if it gets there.

For the Commanders, weird needs to be out, and a previous version of process and progress must reappear. They had a vibe. It has escaped them. This three-game skid hasn’t erased a 7-2 start, because a lot of good work and goodwill went into climbing to first place in the NFC East midway through the season, an unfamiliar environ for this franchise.

Still, there’s a new reality, and it stings. After difficult losses against stout opponents — home to Pittsburgh and at Philadelphia, teams that lead their respective divisions — Dallas was supposed to present an opportunity to get right. During the losing streak they dragged into Sunday, the Cowboys had allowed 34, 34, 27, 30 and 47 points.

Don’t let Washington’s final, gaudy totals — 412 yards, a passable 26 points — distract from what is actually happening. The offense, so explosive in the early part of the season, has lost its fuse.

[G]oing into the Pittsburgh game had to be, “What game on their schedule is a sure loss?” There weren’t any. After Sunday’s wacky calamity, the thinking turns to, “What game on their schedule is a sure win?” There aren’t any.

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Upcoming opponent

Music City Miracles

Titans reacts results: Hope is low

Not a lot of optimism for the rest of the season.

This week there were two questions for you. The first one was how many games you think the Tennessee Titans will win the rest of the year. 77% of you said 1-2. That does not give a lot of hope considering there are seven games left, but it is the option that I chose as well. My prediction is that get one against the Jacksonville Jaguars and that is all. I’d love for them to prove me wrong.

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Titans get third win of the season 32-27 in Houston

Maybe Jeffery Simmons was right.

What a game! The Tennessee Titans improved to 3-8 on the season with their 32-27 win over the Houston Texans. There is still a lot to clean up in Will Levis’s game, he stared down Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and threw a pick six and he holds onto the ball too long a lot of the time, but overall he has looked so much better after coming back from the shoulder injury. He ended the day today with 278 yards passing with two touchdowns and one interception. QB rating isn’t the be-all-end-all, but Levis was at 123.3 today. That’s pretty good.

The defense stepped up big when they had to – especially late in the game. They held the Texans to a field goal after a Jha’Quan Jackson fumble on a punt. That was one of quite a few miscues once again for the Titans’ special teams. But back to the defense, they picked off CJ Stroud twice and got a safety that ended the game.

Jeffery Simmons said this week that the Titans can still win the division. That seems highly improbable, but he stepped up and played a great game today. He and T’Vondre Sweat are really a force in the middle of the defense.

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Podcasts & videos

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Photos

Commanders.com

PHOTOS | Commanders vs. Cowboys, Week 12

Check out the top photos of the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium for their Week 12 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. (Photos by Emilee Fails and Kourtney Carroll/Washington Commanders)

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