Pete Carroll Gives Cowboys Late Christmas Gift With Drop-Kick
Cole Beasley has made a lot of clutch plays for the Dallas Cowboys, but none felt so easy as catching the Seahawks’ 40-yard floater of an onside kick attempt at the end of Saturday night’s NFC Wild Card playoff game.
No other clutch play might have felt so important, despite the level of difficulty.
On the last meaningful play of the Cowboys’ 24-22 victory, Pete Carroll lined the Seahawks’ hands team up alongside punter Michael Dickson, who attempted a “sky” drop-kick, or a hand-to-turf-to-boot floater that would sail over the Cowboys’ front wall and into the open field for a recovery.
It didn’t quite work out that way. Dickson may have drop-kicked the ball farther than Doug Flutie’s record-breaking XP conversion for New England. Beasley made the catch surrounded by his own players. From that, the ‘Boys simply kneeled on the ball and escaped to meet the Los Angeles Rams in the Divisional Round this weekend.
Carroll can be forgiven in-part for the anticlimax. His main placekicker, Sebastian Janikowski, pulled a hamstring and was unable to play in the 2nd half. But the bungled onside kick effort fits into a pattern of very late-game decision making from the Seattle coach that is questionable at best, especially when it comes to conversion tries.
Everyone knows the infamous “Jedi Mind Trick” of modern Super Bowl history – Bill Belichick’s decision to let the clock tick down on Carroll as the Seahakws attempted to beat the Patriots and win a 2nd NFL title under the ex-USC skipper. Carroll chomped on his trademark chewing gum a little too hard and called a risky pass over the middle instead of simply running it in on the goal line, and the Pats stole a Super Bowl trophy.
But years before that, Carroll called a weird timeout after a go-ahead Vince Young touchdown with seconds left while coaching Southern Cal in the BCS title game. Out of ways to stop the clock, the coach watched as his tailback Reggie Bush scampered into Texas territory, but the Trojans were unable to capitalize due to the spent T/O.
