The Cowboys run defense was bad enough on Tuesday night that more efficient work from their offense and special teams may not have been able to get them a win, but issues in those areas certainly didn’t help their cause.
Dallas’ offense stalled on two of their four trips into the red zone, forcing them to settle for a pair of Greg Zuerlein field goal attempts. He hit the first, but missed the second after the team took a delay of game penalty that pushed his attempt back five yards.
Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy called the penalty a mistake “you can’t make in a game like this” and the Cowboys lost out on a couple of other scoring opportunities when Zuerlein missed 52- and 53-yard field goal attempts later in the game. Ravens kicker Justin Tucker also missed a kick on a blustery night, but Zuerlein didn’t make excuses.
“I wouldn’t say it was anything, at all,” Zuerlein said, via the team’s website. “I think the conditions were fine, even if there was wind. I’m good enough to make the kicks, I just didn’t do it.”
With two of Zuerlein’s misses coming from beyond 50 yards, the issue with putting more points on the scoreboard went beyond the kicker. McCarthy acknowledged as much after the game when he said one of the key issues in the game was that the Cowboys were “attempting to kick field goals and they were scoring touchdowns.”