GLENDALE, Arizona - Dallas Cowboys Coach Jason Garrett said he called time out to make sure that his field goal kicking unit had settled in - well if they had been any more settled in they would have looked like hefty John Goodman sprawled out on the beach down in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Coach Garrett said that the clock management skills that he gets paid the big bucks for simply kicked in and he did what he had to do.
But Cowboy fans from Thousand Oaks, California to Bangor, Maine are livid at having seen the first NFL coach in history to ever call a timeout when his OWN kicker is getting ready to kick a field goal.
Opposing coaches do it all the time to try and psych out the kicker and to make him nervous and place stress on him in hopes of having him think about the kick so much that he misses; this strategy is called 'icing the kicker.'
The Arizona Cardinals on the sidelines were so shocked to see Coach Garrett call time out icing his own kicker that they all practically fell down to the ground from laughing so hard at the bonehead call.
And so Cowboys rookie kicker Dan Bailey did his job and he kicked the 48-yard field goal through the uprights which actually won the game for the Cowpokes from Dallas.
But it was not to be since Sheriff Garrett had called time out one-thousandth of a second before the ball had been snapped.
The Cowboy fans booed and the Cardinal fans cheered so loud that there are reports that the cheering was heard all the way up in Utah.
One could clearly see that Garrett knew that he had messed up when the Fox cameras panned to him on the sidelines and he was shown taking off his baseball cap and nervously running his hands through his red hair (twice).
And prior to that, Garrett had never taken his cap off during a game, in fact many Cowboy fans wondered if perhaps he was bald like another noted redhead Ron "Opie" Howard.
So Danny boy Bailey lined up to kick the ball again and this time he missed it. He blames himself, but everyone knows that there is no way he should have had to have kicked the ball a second time. He did his job. He won the game, but sad to say his coach "Unwon" it for him and the team.
And the Cowboys ended up eventually losing the game in overtime 19-13.
Afterwards Coach Garrett could have owned up to the big blunder and said "Hey, look, I messed up. I'm sorry. We lost because of me."
And fans would have accepted that and respected him for admitting his mistake. But no, instead Garrett went into a dissertation of "We felt, and we thought, and we did, and we believed, and we, we, we, and we."
No Jason. There is no "We" in "I." You messed up. Jason Garrett messed up and please do not further insult your devoted fans by trying to find some lame excuse as to why your team lost.
Please don't try to do a little crayfish backpedaling number and blame your clock management skills, or your over thinking analytical strategy, or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, who were back in Dallas, or even try putting the blame on the dreaded Jessica Simpson curse.
So be a man and accept the blame. A lot of your most dedicated fans have already chosen to give Coach Jason Garrett the Game Blame Ball. Accept it with dignity and at least make a promise to yourself that you will never, ever do such a stupid thing again.
SIDENOTE: After the game Sport Territory Magazine's Tango Brisket asked Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to comment on Coach Garrett's icing of his kicker. Jones started coughing uncontrollably and when he finally gained his composure he said that he would not be making a comment until he reviewed the video replay.
