The Dallas Cowboys had the Baltimore Ravens on the ropes, dazed and confused, on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They left Lamar Jackson and Co. with a solitary, ever so slight opening to steal an improbable victory.
The two-time MVP quarterback didn't waste it.
Let's take it to the Cowboys' almost impressive last offensive possession of the game, with Dallas down 31-28. After an extremely dubious defensive pass interference call on cornerback Nate Wiggins against CeeDee Lamb. I was unaware receivers were allowed to armbar defenders from making relatively easy interceptions against their quarterback. Huh, the more you know. The Cowboys had four plays and a timeout to work with from the two-yard line to drive a dagger into the Ravens' heart and steal
a win after coming back from a 24-13 deficit with just under 19 total minutes remaining.
They utilized this gift by:
- Throwing an incomplete short pass to George Pickens.
- Taking a false start, going backward, and turning second-and-short into second-and-long.
- Running Dak Prescott a paltry two yards on a desperate scramble.
- Missing a wide-open Pickens at the right pylon.
- Settling for a Brandon Aubrey chip shot to tie the game at 31 points apiece.
OK, so the Cowboys had an unserious offensive possession with a real opportunity to win. That's fine. It happens. That's football. At the very least, they still had overtime against a Ravens team they clearly match up well against in their back pockets. There's no way Jackson could manufacture a decent chance at a game-winning score with seven seconds and a single timeout from the Ravens' own 35-yard line. That's too little time and too far to expect a reasonable field-goal attempt, even if it did, somehow, work out.
About that. Jackson launched an absolutely perfect, pinpoint laser to a previously injured Zay Flowers in the middle of the field for 27 yards. The kicker? Jackson had the presence of mind to call a timeout with just a single second on the clock and defer it to the Ravens' other kicker, Tyler Loop. An unfathomable and kind of unacceptable defensive lapse for the Cowboys in a clutch, prevent situation where you expect to get to overtime on nine out of 10 occasions.
LAMAR TO FLOWERS WITH 1 SECOND LEFT@BALvsDAL on CBS/Paramount+
— NFL (@NFL) September 27, 2026
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/waTW7TbhSQ
Oh, well. Loop still had to make a 56-yard kick to win the game. The second-year kicker was just 1-of-5 on field-goal attempts of at least 50 yards. There's no way he was going to launch the ball like a powerful medieval catapult and barely squeak it in through the left upright to devastate the Cowboys.
Welp. This time around, the football gods made an unfortunate, dramatic exception at the expense of Dallas.
TYLER LOOP WINS IT FOR THE RAVENS pic.twitter.com/fqMQ09xGYI
— NFL (@NFL) September 27, 2026
And so, instead of earning a benchmark win over an AFC contender in another country, the Cowboys found a way to pull defeat out of the jaws of victory. Brian Schottenheimer's group could've used a tentpole victory like this to solidify themselves in what seems like a down year for the NFC East. Instead, in typical recent Cowboys fashion, they're left scratching their heads, wondering about what happened on their flight back to the United States.
More accurately, they're probably asking themselves why it happened to them in the kind of loss that can wind up defining a season.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: The Cowboys really let Lamar Jackson break their hearts with just 7 seconds
