49ers outlast Cowboys in farce no one deserved to win

Jimmy Garoppolo and Kyle Shanahan tried to gift the Cowboys a playoff win at least three times on Sunday night, with the game ending on the Cowboys flamboyantly rejecting the final attempt.

With 14 seconds left and no timeouts remaining, Dallas attempted to outsmart the Niners’ prevent defense with a quarterback draw up the middle of the field. It didn’t work, as the Cowboys were unable to snap the ball before time expired, and San Francisco walked away with a 23-17 win and a date with the Packers in the divisional round.

The last 20 minutes of the game was an absolute comedy of errors, with both teams making horrendous decisions and worse plays.

Down 23-7 with four minutes remaining in the third, Mike McCarthy appeared to have given up, punting on 4th & 2 from his own 33-yard line. But that was only the beginning of the academic decathlon between McCarthy and Shanahan that would have no winners.

On the Cowboys’ very next possession, they were able to use McCarthy’s conservative reputation to their advantage, successfully faking a punt from midfield in what should have been an obvious do-or-die go for it scenario.

McCarthy then outdid himself on the very next play, leaving the punt team on the field for half of the play clock before rushing the offense on the field, causing a delay of game penalty that appeared to be at least partially the official’s fault for obstructing the snap.

Dallas settled for a field goal, cutting the lead to 23-10 with 12 minutes left. Four plays later, Niners QB Garoppolo threw a backbreaking interception. The Cowboys capitalized, scoring a touchdown 90 seconds later, and the collapse was on.

Actually, it was just beginning, but Shanahan and the Niners met their match in Dallas. Twice more, they tried to gift-wrap the game, and they would be slapped away both times.

Garappolo managed to burn five minutes of clock on the next possession, getting the ball to the Dallas 49 for a fourth & 1 before the two-minute warning.

The sequence that followed was a very, very simple illustration of why it can be advantageous to make aggressive decisions on fourth down.

Shanahan elected to take a delay of game and then punt. It then took Dallas just two plays to get the ball to midfield, the exact scenario Shanahan feared so badly that he was willing to give the ball away. The defense bailed out Shanahan at that point, sacking Dak Prescott and then forcing three straight incompletions. But he would get one more chance.

Deebo Samuel managed to come within inches of what would be a game-clinching first down, and this time, Shanahan had the presence of mind to go for it on 4th. But the Niners set tackle Trent Williams in motion behind the rest of the line, and snapped the ball too quickly before he was set. Penalty and time to punt. (Shanahan said after the game that Garoppolo called for the snap too early.)

With 30 seconds and no timeouts, Prescott quickly worked the sidelines for 30 yards, putting his team in Hail Mary territory after the discombobulated Niners called timeout with 14 seconds remaining. That’s when Dallas called the ill-fated draw. Prescott sprinted to the 24-yard line, then clocked the ball as time expired. Game over, season over.

After the loss, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he couldn’t remember the last time a loss was so disappointing. “I don’t even want to discuss anything like that at this particular time,” he said of possibly moving on from McCarthy after two years.

For the final play, the man himself said he made the right call and blamed the refs. “That was the best option,” McCarthy said. “It’s the right decision...the execution between us and the officiating spotting the ball — we shouldn’t have had any problem getting the ball spotted there.”