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FRISCO, Texas -- Dallas coach Jason Garrett has no regrets about spiking the ball on the final offensive possession in the Cowboys' 34-31 playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. He instructed quarterback Dak Prescott to spike the ball on first down with 48 seconds left even though the Cowboys had a timeout or could have run a play from the Green Bay 40.
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The Cowboys had just completed an 11-yard pass from Prescott to tight end Jason Witten to get into field-goal range but were hoping to score what would have been a go-ahead touchdown. They hurried to the line and spiked the ball to stop the clock.
Prescott threw a 7-yard pass to Cole Beasley on second down and then Prescott's pass intended for Dez Bryant was batted down by Packers linebacker Nick Perry on third down.
That forced a 52-yard field-goal attempt by Dan Bailey, which tied the score at 31. But it left 35 seconds on the clock, which proved to be enough for Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to lead the winning field goal drive.
"The objective of that drive is to score a touchdown, OK? We're not trying to kick a field goal there," Garrett said. "We're trying to score a touchdown and one of the things we tried to do when we can is to keep a timeout in our back pocket so when we have to kick a field goal you have some freedom at the end of the drive to throw the ball anywhere, to possibly run the ball.
"It's better to have a timeout then not have a timeout. So once we got into that position, we felt like the right thing to do on first down was to clock it, but our objective was not to position ourselves to get into field goal range.
"Our objective with that much time on the clock and with a timeout was go score a touchdown and end the game right there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to convert in that third down situation. We had to kick the field goal and that's how that situation played out. But we were trying to score a touchdown in that situation."
The Cowboys could have saved their timeout by simply running a set play in that situation. However, Garrett estimated that an additional 10-15 seconds would have run off the clock.
"In those situations, if you can you can quiet everything down by saying, 'OK, let's take a breath. We're in great position right now. This is how far we are away from kicking a field goal, these are the objectives we have going forward, this is the time we have on the clock, these are the timeouts we have, let's go score a touchdown,'" Garrett said.
"That's what we were trying to do there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to convert that third-down situation. We did make enough on second down to put us in field goal range and Dan was able to make the kick."
