The lead-in to Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI showdown between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals featured one of the most entertaining postseason tournaments in history and also a controversial decision that will be discussed among Dallas Cowboys fans for years, if not decades, to come.
Dallas was trailing the San Francisco 49ers by six points with under 15 seconds remaining in the home wild-card game when Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy curiously had Dak Prescott run a quarterback draw down the middle of the field with no timeouts in hand. Because a league rule mandates the umpire must “spot” the football before the next play can be run, Prescott couldn’t execute a clock-stopping spike before time expired.
McCarthy later defended the call, and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb offered his opinion on what occurred during a Thursday appearance on “PFT Live.”
“I mean, we ran the draw. He got farther than a lot of us expected,” Lamb said of Prescott, per Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk. “So by him going down, and then understanding the time clock. The ref had to touch the ball. I’m not blaming the ref. I’m just saying that’s a key factor also. The ref has to touch the ball before the ball is snapped. I didn’t like the lackadaisical (the umpire) was moving with. We all know that the clock is running. He’s sliding in bounds. It’s under 10 seconds. Like, bro, we need some urgency. You know? Honestly, we ran out of time, but I think it was the right call.”
Lamb continued:
“You would think the umpire understands it as well as we do. We know the umpire that’s behind us, behind the whole play, he has to touch the ball. He’s required to touch the ball every play just about. So understanding what’s at stake, like, we have to get the ball down. We know we had time for one play rather it’s out of bounds or in bounds, get down and spike the ball. Regardless of the situation, we knew we had to spike the ball.”
Some have blamed Prescott for handing the ball directly to center Tyler Biadasz after the draw instead of finding the umpire and for not sliding earlier as the game’s final seconds ticked down. Regardless, coaches and quarterbacks typically keep things aerial and toward the sidelines in such instances just in case disaster strikes like what happened with the Cowboys back on Jan. 16.
More must-reads:
Get the latest news and rumors, customized to your favorite sports and teams. Emailed daily. Always free!
