Controversial Call on Dez Bryant Catch Ends Cowboys’ Playoff Run

First off, congrats to the Dallas Cowboys on a great season and for making it to the playoffs for the first time in five years. The Cowboys put up quite the fight in Sunday’s loss against the Packers and even led for most of the game until the fourth quarter. Late in the game, the Packers took a 26-21 lead when Aaron Rodgers threw a touchdown to tight end Richard Rodgers. On the following drive, the Cowboys were stopped on third down. With a little under five minutes left in the game, they decided to go for it on 4th and 2. Tony Romo threw a pass up in the air and Dez Bryant leaped up and stretched his body over cornerback Sam Shields to grab the ball out of the air, landing just short of the end zone.  

You can watch a replay of the amazing catch here:

It was originally ruled a complete catch and would have moved the Cowboys inside the 1 yard line, giving them a very strong chance of scoring and sealing the victory. However, Packers’ head coach Mike McCarthy challenged the ruling on the field, requiring the referees to perform a video review of the play. On what would be the second major controversial call of this year’s playoffs, the ruling of a catch was reversed because the refs determined that the ball hit the ground and popped out as Dez landed. Even though Dez had control of the ball after he caught it, he did not “complete the process” because the ball hit the ground at the end of his catch. According to the NFL rule book, “If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball throughout the process of contacting the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.” Dez was visibly upset upon hearing that the call was reversed and had this to say after the game.

At the end of the day, it was the correct call. It just ended up being a very unfortunate situation for the Cowboys and a very fortunate situation for the Packers, who were able to get the ball back, run the clock down, and close out the game.

For those of you who watched the Cowboys game last week against the Detroit Lions, you’ll remember the controversial overturned pass interference call that helped the Cowboys to advance to the second round of playoffs. Ironically enough, Lions’ wide receiver Calvin Johnson had a similar type of catch called back in 2010 against the Chicago Bears, which cost them the game. And since the Lions still felt some type of way about how their season ended last week, they took to Twitter to take a shot at the Cowboys.

With the second round of playoffs over and four teams left to compete for the Super Bowl, what are your predictions for next week?