In Sunday night's game against the Texans, the Cowboys were in the perfect position to flex the third-most expensive offensive line in football. In overtime, the Cowboys ended up with a fourth-and-1 on the Texans' 42-yard line. Ezekiel Elliott had been bottled up all game, picking up just 54 yards on 20 carries, and head coach Jason Garrett elected to punt instead of going for it.
The Texans responded by going down the field, helped by a huge play from DeAndre Hopkins, and the Cowboys ended up losing on a field goal. This comes just a week after the Browns' Hue Jackson elected to punt against the Raiders up by eight in regulation on fourth-and-short, which led to the Raiders completing their comeback and winning in overtime. Around the NFL, there were some other weird coaching calls, including a bizarre challenge from Doug Pederson on a play where the Vikings' Stefon Diggs had three feet in bounds. In the Rams vs. Seahawks game, Sean McVay showed that you can, in fact, go for it on fourth down, converting a fourth-and-1 with a quarterback sneak to close out a 33-31 win.
On Monday's "Off the Bench" podcast, Danny Kanell and Raja Bell are joined by Brady Quinn to break down these coaching decisions around the league. As always, hindsight is 20/20, but with Garrett's decision to punt coming back to bite him with a loss and the Rams walking out with a win, coaches around the league may be able to learn something from the youngest among them.
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