I saw Monday night's Fail Mary the same as everyone else: Green Bay's M.D. Jennings had full possession of the ball, but a crew of incompetent, unqualified officials who are only patsies for the NFL's 32 greedy owners wrongly decided the game.
It was a travesty, and the game we all love has indeed been made into a farce over the early part of this season. It's a true shame, because eternally lost in the controversy is the fact that the game was actually very well-played. As Nick Eatman will write for DallasCowboys.com today, the game will surely have some bearing on the playoff chase, and, quite directly, many of the other 14 teams in the NFC.
Your Cowboys are one team that could be affected, positively or negatively. If the playoffs started today – which thankfully they don't, because the real officials wouldn't be working – the Cowboys would trail the Seahawks based on a head-to-head tiebreaker. A week ago, it still seemed unbelievable that the Cowboys had been so dominated in Seattle. But with their third game in the books, it doesn't seem so implausible.
The Seahawks look like a pretty formidable opponent. I agree, they should be 1-2, not 2-1, but the farce of an outcome Monday didn't change how tough a game Seattle gave the Packers, the class of the conference a year ago.
In Week 1, the Seahawks lost 20-16 goal to Arizona, but Braylon Edwards couldn't hang onto a Russell Wilson pass in the end zone on their last offensive play. Maybe if there had been a defender there to wrestle with one arm, the game might've turned out differently. Anyway, the Cardinals went on to win in New England, which no one does, and are now 3-0 after handling Philadelphia last week.
We all saw the Seahawks' dominating performance in Week 2. They beat the Cowboys easily, and deserved to win.
Last night, the same Seattle defense that had so dominated Tony Romo and Co. again got the better of reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers. They sacked him eight times, limited him to a mere 223 passing yards and held Cedric Benson to just 2.6 yards per carry. Even before their sham of a game-winning drive, Wilson was throwing into the end zone to take the lead late, only to have Golden Tate drop yet another pass.
On the ensuing Packers possession, they stripped Benson for what easily could've been a game-winning fumble recovery, but the Packers got the ball back, only to go nowhere and have to punt out of their own end zone, setting up the "result."
Seattle looks incredibly tough on their home field. The replacement referees robbed the Packers and somehow managed to not even factor into the Cowboys' loss at CenturyLink Field, but the Seahawks look like legitimate competition, notwithstanding.
That probably doesn't make Cowboys fans feel any better about the 27-7 blowout in Week 2. But maybe some should divert their YouTube efforts from yelling about the Cowboys loss to the lowly Seahawks, to imploring the league office to get the real refs back to work.
