Cowboys owner Jerry Jones questioned the play-calling in the fourth quarter with the Cowboys on the goal line. He wasn’t alone.
Ezekiel Elliott never got a carry after the Cowboys reached the Seattle 3 with 7:54 remaining and Dallas down by two scores.
“On hindsight, I wish, we all wish, that we’d tried Zeke in there,” Jones said. “They were really stacking it up for us [to stop the run]. We all understood that. We’ve seen and had a lot of good things happen for us with Dak [Prescott] faking that ball in there and keeping it himself. But at the end, I’d like to have them all back down there and just tried to see what we could do with Zeke all the way up in there. But we all know how that works.”
Prescott had a run-pass option on first down and chose to throw it. Although Cole Beasley was wide open, Prescott didn’t see him and tucked it and scrambled for 1 yard. On a second-down passing play, tight end Jason Witten was called for holding. Prescott was sacked for an 11-yard loss on the next play, and on third-and-23, Prescott threw a 7-yard pass to Witten. Dan Bailey missed the 34-yard field goal.
Elliott, though, wouldn’t second-guess offensive coordinator Scott Linehan.
“My job is to play football,” Elliott said. “My job is not to coach. It’s not to call plays, so I do what coach tells me. Coach Linehan has been doing this for a long time, and he knows what he’s doing, so I trust his judgement.”
Elliott saw 28 touches and gained 118 yards from scrimmage, including 97 rushing, in his return from a six-game suspension.
“The offensive line was doing a fantastic job,” Elliott said. “They were dominating on the line of scrimmage, and all I do is go out there and be myself.”