As Jerry Jones processes the reality that the Cowboys not only lost the last official game at Texas Stadium but also dropped the first one at the North Texas Football Cathedral, there’s one thing that might get his mind off last night’s defeat.
Sort of.
If Jones sees highlights of the Ravens-Chargers game, featuring a Baltimore team that Jones had hand-picked in 2008 to close out the old venue like a cream puff from the glass case at Schnitzer’s, Jones will realize that he should have forked over the money necessary to lure Ray Lewis to town.
Though there was no one key situation in Sunday night’s game similar to the moment at which Lewis rocked the NFL by zooming through a gap in the line and blasting one of the most elusive tailbacks in the league on a decisive fourth-and-2 play, it’s hard not to think that Lewis could have, and probably would have, single-handedly made the difference between the 33 points scored by the Giants and the 31 scored by the Cowboys.
Lewis, who was an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career after the 2008 season, supposedly wanted to play for the Cowboys. But the Cowboys weren’t interested, the Jets and former Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan weren’t interested, and so Lewis ultimately stayed in Baltimore.
Of course, the impediment might have been that Lewis wanted way too much money at first, and that he then tucked tail and accepted the best deal from Baltimore after the other offers dried up.
Still, yesterday’s performance against the Chargers shows that Lewis deserved whatever he wanted. And if his highlight reel when he was on the market had included that final play against San Diego, Lewis would have gotten it.
And the Cowboys might be wishing they had given it to him.