Cowboys owner and General Manager Jerry Jones saw something he didn’t like from his special teams in Sunday’s win over the Chargers.
The Cowboys tried to block a Chargers punt on fourth-and-20 in the second quarter and ended up with a roughing the punter penalty, giving the Chargers an automatic first down. Jones said on Tuesday that he prefers a more conservative approach to special teams.
“To be very candid with you, I’m a little more conservative,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan, via the Dallas Morning News. “We won a national championship with special teams when I was in college. So, I’m a fanatical special teams interested fan, whatever. I do believe that the turnovers or the bad plays in the kicking game are the equivalent of turnovers. They usually change possession and can change field position. . . . I really like to choose my spots on taking those kind of risks.”
For his part, Cowboys special teams coordinator John Fassel thought he made a call Cowboys fans would like.
“The thought process was I think Cowboys fans aren’t the play-it-safe type,” Fassel said. “So I was going to give them what they wanted, come after [them] on the punt rush. So I hope they’re happy with it. We came after him. [That’s] kind of the mind-set going into the game: We’re going to come after this football. But I’m still not so sure we actually roughed him.”
Fassel may have thought he was giving Cowboys fans what they wanted, but he didn’t give the Cowboys owner what he wanted.