Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has given us more than a few colorful phrases over the years. Here’s another one.
Throw up ball.
It’s an appropriate phrase on Thanksgiving, especially at this stage of the day. But he’s not talking about regurgitation, due either to gluttony or watching the Cowboys drop to 1-3 in their last four contests. He’s talking about a game in which several defensive pass interference penalties gave the Las Vegas offense significant chunks of yardage.
“I call it ‘throw up ball,'” Jones said after the game, via Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News. “This will arguably be the most-watched game other than the Super Bowl. I hate that it got down to just throwing the ball up and getting the penalties to get you big plays.”
Jones has been in the league for more than 30 years. If he didn’t like “throw up ball,” he should have begun the push long ago to make defensive pass interference a 15-yard penalty, as it is at the college level.
Cowboys cornerback Anthony Brown was called for defensive pass inference four times in the 36-33 loss, for 91 total yards. One gave the Raiders first and goal at the one; they’d score a touchdown one play later. One moved the ball from the Las Vegas 43 to the Dallas 24 in overtime, after the Cowboys had punted and the rules had reverted to sudden death. That set up the decisive field goal.
For the game, each team had 14 penalties. For the Raiders, the fouls cost 110 yards of field position. For the Cowboys, 166 yards were lost.
That’s 276 total penalty yards — 37 more than the Lions gained in their loss to Chicago.