FRISCO -- Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy took plenty of heat after the Falcons game Sunday for Dallas calling a fake punt on its own 38-yard line early in the third quarter. But special teams coordinator John Fassel told reporters Monday the call came from him.
“Just so I can clear the air, Coach McCarthy said punt, and I was on the headset, and I said, ‘I like the nine stop’,” Fassel said. “So it was my recommendation, and I can own that and take all the blame for the inability to execute it.”
The failure to convert on fourth-and-2 proved to be the turning point in a third consecutive Cowboys loss. Atlanta, already leading 14-10, was set up in prime field position, and Ray-Ray McCloud III caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from Kirk Cousins on the ensuing Falcons drive to make it a two-score game. With backup quarterback Cooper Rush playing in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys failed to mount a comeback.
McCarthy said the last time the Cowboys tried this particular fake punt play was in the 2021 Wild Card game against San Francisco, and it was successful. The head coach also said that had nothing to do with why Dallas ended up running the play again on Sunday. When the call came from Fassel, even though he had the ability to kill it, he stuck with it because he liked the matchup he saw.
“It’s definitely matchup-based, looking for the one-on-one on the outside, which we had with the young corner [Natrone Brooks]. We had the matchup we were looking for,” McCarthy said.
Of course, what can go wrong has gone wrong for the Cowboys this season, and rookie cornerback Brooks, elevated from the practice squad before Sunday’s game, looked like prime Deion Sanders shutting down the pass intended for C.J. Goodwin.
“He did a great job playing it. We haven’t run this in about two and a half years, and he squatted on it like he knew it was coming,” Fassel said. “Usually there’s a turn and run on punt returns to match the speed of the gunner, but he wasn’t playing the punt return, he was playing to get that stop. They knew it was coming.”
Conventional wisdom would maybe suggest the Cowboys punting the ball away on their own side of the field trailing by four with plenty of time left to go in the game, but Fassel felt if Dallas was going to run a fake punt at all, it had to do so in that situation, because he believed his unit could catch Atlanta napping.
“Once it becomes a two-score game, then they’re much more in tune with protecting against that,” Fassel said. “But in a one score game, coming out of the half, you think maybe they’re not as in tune with it.”
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