The Cowboys continued their long-standing NFC East rivalry against the Giants in Cowboys Stadium on Sunday. It was the 9th time that Dallas and New York faced off against each other in Week 1, and before today's game the Cowboys were 8-0 in this scenario.
But the Giants led the way for most of the game, and in the final minutes of the game they led 20-19. But the Cowboys had one more chance to score on a final drive as they had the final possession with 1:05 left on the clock.
The Cowboys began their drive at its own 20-yard line with no timeouts. As they chipped their way down to the Giants 40-yard line, Cowboys wideout Terrance Williams didn't have the presence of mind to run out of bounds after a 14-yard catch to stop the game clock. As time continued to tick away, the Cowboys lost in the final seconds to the Giants.
You can see the final play in the clip below.
EA Sports is as real as it gets when it comes to assessing player ratings for their Madden NFL video games. And their Twitter account is nothing short of the same when it comes to analyzing bonehead plays like this. So they hilariously trolled Williams with this tweet after the game.
When it comes to these types of situations, you would think that football players who get paid to play this game for a living, and practice these in-game situations countless times so they would not make these types of errors.
Cowboys Pro-Bowl wide receiver Dez Bryant was yelling, with the rest of the sold-out crowd, for Williams to run out of bounds. Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett even stated after the game:
"We've been in that situation a lot, and his instinct took him inside. Obviously, with no timeouts and 12 seconds to go, he needs to catch that ball and immediately get out of bounds and we'd reassess the situation from there, as to whether or not we kick it from there or try to get a little closer."
Williams felt really bad for his mistake, and was consoled with a pat on the back by Garrett and his teammates. After the game, Williams explained his thought process to a slew of reporters about the final play:
"I was just doing my best to get the team in a position to kick a field goal, but obviously I should have just followed the rules and gotten out of bounds. In my mind I was just trying to get a first down and then dive out of bounds,but it just didn't go as planned. It was just like a 'bang bang' moment. Now that I've had a chance to sit back and think on it -- I should have just gone out of bounds... looking back, I'll never do that again."
No, he'd better not.
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