ReutersGiants coach Tom Coughlin hinted after Sunday’s game that the Cowboys may have been aided by a hometown clock operator.
In his post-game press conference, Coughlin indicated that he thought the Cowboys got an extra second, and therefore an extra play, at the end of the game, which the Giants won 29-24 at Cowboys Stadium.
“It’s been a long time since I saw three plays in 10 seconds,” Coughlin said. “I thought that was an incredible thing to have happen right there. I mean, we thought it was over, with the high ball over the middle. I looked up and the thing was stuck on one.”
After a replay review overturned what had at first appeared to be a game-winning touchdown pass from Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo to receiver Dez Bryant, 10 seconds remained on the clock. The Cowboys then got a 10-yard pass from Romo to Jason Witten, and four seconds ran off the clock. With six seconds remaining, Romo threw incomplete to Miles Austin, and five seconds ran off the clock. That 0:01 remaining on the clock is the “stuck on one” Coughlin refers to.
Watching the game live on Sunday, that’s what I thought, too: It seemed like the clock operator in Dallas might have had a quick trigger finger, stopping the clock quickly to wrongly give the Cowboys one more play. But I just watched the sequence again via the NFL Game Rewind, and I timed the play by hand with a stopwatch, and by my timing, the play took exactly 5.50 seconds, which means the Cowboys did, in fact, deserve to have time for one last play.
In the end it didn’t matter because Romo’s pass with one second left was incomplete. Coughlin’s complaints would likely be a lot more strenuous if the Cowboys had scored on that final play, but it appears that the officials and the timekeeper got this one right.
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oh come on,
thats home field advantage
tuck rule,
clocks,
buses,
refs
its all up in the air
thats why its tuff to win on the road regardless
Seriously Coughlin? You guys escaped with a lucky win and you’re still complaining? Count your blessings and go home man.
As a Giants fan this one was UGLY. A win is a win but man why can’t Big Blue ever just win a game easily? tons of credit to the boys they didn’t quit. Also everyone saying the Giants should be “Very Concerned” are dumb. NFC East games are always crazy like this. Just ask Dallas, Philly, and Wash fans.
Also Cowboys fans… you’re the first team this year that the G-Men have beaten where it is appropriate to say “We beat ourselves.”
One last thing, Coughlin take notes from Peyton’s game and allow Eli to call the offense not KILLdrive.
quit crying oldman , yet again your team caught another lucky break
and a lucky win….. now get back to the nursing home its bed time
Against Dallas, the Giants should have the game in hand for 59:59.
I was thinking the same thing while watching it.
That clocked stopped rather quickly after that incompletion.
Which begs the question…..why arent all clocks managed by the refs?
You have a stopwatch? Or do you mean your IPhone?
Please Coughlin, stop whining.
Win Complain, lose complain, swim complain. There will come a point that no one is willing to listen.
Is it me, or is there always some giants player or coach complaining to the media about something each week?
Romo is trash! I hope they stop comparing him to the elite quarterbacks like Eli, Peyton & Brady! Giants all the way!
Romo’s last pick of the game will be the int that takes Jerry over the edge and leads trade/cut of Romo.
LOL @ at all the Giant fans who say their team never complains or opens their mouths.
If it weren’t for Dez Bryant’s finger tips being out of bounds the Giants would have lost. Coughlin should worry about other things.
No Im an impartial fan and there was one, maybe even two seconds left on the clock. He went down at three then the whistle stopped it at one.
No way coughlin complaining, that’s a 1st.
You won big brother…let it go
Sincerely,
A Jet Fan
Cowboys better hope they don’t lose any salary cap space because of this.
Meanwhile the clock on Garrett is ticking away faster than ever.
Glad they won hate to hear him when hey lose. good coach but a helluva good whiner.
If you bothered to transcribe the next part of the interview, you’d hear the reporter ask Coughlin if he thought the Cowboys got a hometown advantage and Coughlin answer “NO”.
Ask Jerry Jones to know if the clock was really stuck on one second.
The Giants were not lucky. The cowboys were lucky the Giants let up in the first half and let them back in the game. No more of this lucky crap. There is no luck in winning games.
Hey Tom Green Bay just called and wants to know if you want some cheese with that whine
Coughlin just wanted to take the attention away from the calls that made his gift win possible: Bryant’s fingernail scratching the white line a the back of the end zone, and Miles Austin getting mugged by Giant defenders at the 2 yard line before the ball arrived.
I saw the interview. Coughlin was immediately asked if he thought that there was some home cooking going on and he emphatically said no. It was just that he was surprised that there was still time left and he had hoped it was over. This is not him complaining unless you leave out the rest of the story.
Whatever seems like the refs let’s those dwarfs get us in *gulp* Eli’s stadium smh
“If it weren’t for Dez Bryant’s finger tips being out of bounds the Giants would have lost. Coughlin should worry about other things.”
Listen to the whole press conference. He sounded like the losing coach calling out all the flaws in the game. The Giants know that game should have been put away early on, but they played awful the majority of the game. A ton of terrible play and no answer for Witten. Corey Webster has become a complete joke.
“Which begs the question…..why aren’t all clocks managed by the refs?”
They are, or at least they are controlled by the NFL, and not by the home teams!
Every single clock operator is a trained employee of the NFL. He is not a referee, but he is an NFL employee, not (in this case) a Cowboys employee.
We go over this about twice a month, people.
Florio has mentioned it several times, even.
I hate the Cowboys as much as just about anyone, but let’s at least get the facts straight. If it was a mistake then it was a mistake on the part of an NFL employee, not a homer-based decision.
@gochargersgo- better to bash the giants than to embrace what is happening in san diego, eh?
Lol- charger fan being charger fan- still mad at the giants/eli when the biggest mistake was letting Brees go… Koooooooooks
I wonder if Coughlin will call up his buddy Mara and get the NFL to take away Cowboys salary cap space for violating the “spirit” of the game clock.
I luv how cowboy fans say “luck” and the most funny thing i like if you ask 95.5 of these so called cowboy fans who there center is they dont have a clue..and they have the guts to be talking smack..if you all know of any so called cowboy fan ask them whos your center or even whos your right guard LMFAO i love it because they dont know..
Come. Throw the damn ball. Great WR’s and you jerks worry about running the ball.
Boring f’ball game and you NYG bums should have lost the game.
Whoa, this is the FIRST TIME EVER I hear a winning coach complain about something in a game that was close at the end.
Come on coach, let’s not complain and concentrate on bad play calling like Garret does in Dallas, or better yet, concentrate on winning a SB in the pre-season rather than during the season like they do in Philly.
Please all ya sad losers keep hating on the Giants and Coughlin, coz in the end, both YOU and I know, you will be there crying when the Giants, AGAIN, make our way into more wins, into the playoffs, as much to your disdain.
Hahaha… I do not like ugly wins but it is better than your ugly loses. Hilarious!
Go Big Blue!!!
Jimmy Johnson predicted three Romo interceptions. Terry Bradshaw saw the three and raised him one.
TB called it!!!
I still can’t believe the Cowboys are sticking with him. Until they move past the Romo era, they will be America’s Joke.
noahbird says:
Oct 29, 2012 10:02 AM
Romo’s last pick of the game will be the int that takes Jerry over the edge and leads trade/cut of Romo.
Was that the one on fourth down? An interception is the same as an incomplete pass (better, in fact, because of field position). Jerry might be upset it wasn’t completed, but it’s not a big deal it was intercepted vs incomplete.
You came within a finger tip of losing a game that Dallas had 6 turnovers in. Just sayin’..
Someone please explain the “breaking the plane of the goal line” rule regarding the Dez Bryant catch.
Hadn’t he already “broken the plane” when his hand hit down?
Giants were very lucky that Romo threw four interceptions yesterday three weeks after he threw five interceptions against Chicago.
Romo is garbage and keeps getting passes every week how many turnovers is that for him now like 15. Why is he not put on the hot seat like Vick, every week this guy blows the game and know one say anything about making a QB change in Big D, all you hear is same old romo time for Dallas to get rid of romo and Garrett
What a crybaby. The play was over with 2+ seconds left. The clock clicked off an extra second before stopping.
He wouldn’t be complaining about it if his team didn’t blow 23 point lead.
There was only one play after the 1sec mark, it was stuck when it was on 6 as they got 2 plays of while it was at 6 seconds.
My team lost this weekend but the cowboys and jets lost so its not such a bad weekend.
In every NFL game, there are times when the playclock keeps ticking even though a guy goes out of bounds, and other scenarios where it looks dubious at best. The biggest example I ever saw of this was the Rams/Patriots Super Bowl. Vinatieri’s kick was at 0:07. The ball split the uprights with the clock in clear view behind the goalpost, on TV around the world. Ball goes through, clock at :04. Clock goes :03, :02, :01, :00, Super Bowl over, Patriots win. Should have definitely had to kick off to the Rams, and if they do that, who knows what can happen. They play it on NFL Network all the time, watch it closely!
The Cowboys were so horrible, the Giants fell asleep. It almost cost the champs the game as momentum shifted quick. giants are racking up different ways of winning this season which will serve them well moving forward as each game presents different scenarios.
Giants looking strong at the half way mark.
Maybe the clock was stuck at 1… but fortunately Jerrys finger wasn’t stuck up his nose… like opening night at his new football palace 4 years ago…???? Even the time keeper couldnt help Tony Implodo and his “Talented” band of undisciplined misfits…yesterday
4t9er says:Oct 29, 2012 9:57 AM
Please Coughlin, stop whining
What a classic for a 49er fan to comment about the Giants complaining. Your coach, Little Jimmy has been complainging about last years NFC Championship since the game ended. He has been pretty quiet since he got a big piece of humble pie a few weeks back.
There was 6 seconds on the clock at the end of the Dez Bryant no-catch, and then they put 4 seconds back on after the reply. I did not understand this because the clock would have stopped at 6 if the play had been a TD or an incomplete pass. Any explanations?
There is no way you can run 3 plays in 10 sec. the league should investigate and if there is wrong doing they should fine the cowboys big time.The clocks should be managed by the league.
“But I just watched the sequence again via the NFL Game Rewind, and I timed the play by hand with a stopwatch, and by my timing, the play took exactly 5.50 seconds,”
Nerd.
Why don’t we see the tenths of seconds when it’s under a min like they have in the NBA?
It’s obvious- with examples like this- it’s about time and it just makes sense.
I said the same thing. Home cooking. That, and the nonsense calls on Giants secondary (somehow Carr and Claiborne, who were dancing the lambada with Nicks and Cruz all game, not flagged ONCE all game) were evident on that final drive.
And it’s bad enough that they added four seconds, when there were 7 seconds left when the out of bounds catch was made.
But oh, since it wasn’t called a TD, they decide to give them time for two more plays (never seen 3 plays run in 9 seconds, sorry, that’s fishy). Had it been a TD, they wouldn’t have given us those seconds back ha.
andrewproughcfe says: Oct 29, 2012 10:46 AM
Coughlin just wanted to take the attention away from the calls that made his gift win possible: Bryant’s fingernail scratching the white line a the back of the end zone, and Miles Austin getting mugged by Giant defenders at the 2 yard line before the ball arrived.
—————-
CALLS???
See my previous post about the calls that WEREN’T made (which were worse than anything they called on the Giants all game).
Shoot, the Ole Miss fans are still complaining about the same sort of thing in the 1972 LSU game.
Bert Jones eked out a win with a pass to Brad Davis in that one, tho.
I saw it.
lions4life says:
Oct 29, 2012 9:56 AM
Which begs the question…..why arent all clocks managed by the refs?
This is a totally inappropriate use of the phrase “begs the question” btw, and you are just trying to sound smart and instead sound like an idiot.
Division game on the road, take the W. Coughlin just said something after the game. Everyone gets so butthurt at anything anyone says.
That clock was really stuck at seconds on the clock, he’s right 3 plays under 10 seconds, impossible. 2 plays with 4 seconds? I don’t think so.