ARLINGTON, Texas – As Jordan Love’s pass over the middle of the field intended for Matthew Golden bounced off of Jack Sanborn’s back, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones thought Dallas had beaten the Green Bay Packers.
“We said we’d won the game. We jumped up and said ‘We’ve won this game! The time is out.'” Jones said.
Instead, the ball went off Sanborn’s back and straight into the ground instead of up in the air, saving just one second of time for Brandon McManus to make a 34-yard field goal as time expired in overtime, ending Dallas’ Week 4 game in a 40-40 tie.
Despite the result, Jones still believes that the NFL should not alter the overtime rules in the regular season to extend games until there’s a victor and eliminate ties.
“No, I think you’ve got to have a time frame of – there’s a time to have the games end, there’s a lot of reasons for that,” Jones said. “I’m good, as long as everybody understands that they do end and can end in a tie, I’m good with it.”
It wasn’t a loss, but it also wasn’t a win for the Cowboys. So how does Jones feel as his team sits at 1-2-1 heading into back-to-back road games?
“Better than I could’ve felt…” Jones said. “I feel better than I could’ve felt, but worse than I could’ve felt as well…”
“It would’ve been great to have gone ahead and complete that smile and not had that tie and had that win under all of the circumstances… I wanted to win that game tonight. And I didn’t want to lose it.”
One of those circumstances was the return of Micah Parsons, the biggest story in sports leading up to Sunday night after Jones traded him to the Packers in exchange for Kenny Clark and two future first round picks.
Parsons finished with three tackles, three hurries and a sack late against Dak Prescott for no yards lost in his first game back at AT&T Stadium as a visitor. For a majority of the game, the Cowboys had held Parsons in check, and Jones was pleased with how they did so.
“I like the way that we got ready to play him. We played him, we ran at him, but we knew he was there and he made a difference…” Jones said. “Whether we like it or not, I’ll take my side of it, and Green Bay can have their side of it.”
Week 4’s matchup may have been the climax of the trade since it was both sides’ first meetings since, but it’ll be a move that will be discussed and talked about for the rest of time as far as who “won” or “lost” the deal. Jones says that those discussions are for everyone else, and he’s happy with where his team is at.
“I’m going to let everybody, and I’m sure a few watched it tonight, but just let everybody look at it and decide for yourself. That’s the way this works,” Jones said. “There will be different viewpoints about where the differences are out there, but I like what we did out there for our half.”
And at the end of the day, Jones leaned back on his belief that the Cowboys getting four plus players from the Parsons trade was more justifiable than paying Parsons a large sum of money after already giving up a lot to quarterback Dak Prescott.
“It’s very simple: Dak was indispensable, in my mind… and Micah wasn’t,” Jones said. “It’s just numbers, it’s that easy. And that’s not personal at all… the numbers just weren’t there with Micah.”
For now at least, the Cowboys can focus on a defense that doesn’t involve Parsons going forward into the rest of the season. This isn’t the start that the Cowboys wanted, but Jones believes that the mixture of young players stepping up and help on the way bodes well for his team.
“I think we’re building,” Jones said. “We’ve got some guys that aren’t on the field, everybody does. But we’ve got some talented guys that we can bring in, and a couple of those out there that are getting reps, Bland, those guys are going to make us better. They’ll do a better job of being disciplined in that secondary.”
Jones also reiterated that he still believes this Cowboys are a playoff team, namely because of the way that Prescott is playing and that there’s still plenty of time left in the season.
“I feel like our team can compete…” Jones said. “I certainly do feel like we’re a competing team for the playoffs. At this particular point, with as many games as we’ve got, that’s not necessarily getting out over your ski’s.”
