The Cowboys pulled off a stirring comeback against the Falcons on Sunday by scoring 16 points in the final five minutes of what turned out to be a 40-39 win.
Recovering an onside kick was crucial to that process and the Cowboys did that by employing what’s known as the Watermelon Kick. Quarterback Dak Prescott told Peter King for Football Morning in America that the play got the name because kicker Greg Zuerlein kicks it off the ground where it “just kind of sits there like a watermelon, not on a tee.”
Prescott also explained why he thinks the Falcons were too timid to jump on the ball and seal their victory.
“I asked our punter, Chris Jones, why [the Falcons] wouldn’t just dive on it and he said the way it spins makes it really hard to do that. They were probably afraid that if they jumped on it, it might get loose and we’d recover,” Prescott said.
The Falcons didn’t jump, but the Cowboys still recovered and pulled off one of the more remarkable comebacks in recent memory. It wouldn’t have been possible without Prescott’s 450 passing yards and three rushing touchdowns, although that was still a watermelon short of getting the job done.