Monday, September 25th 2017, with 11 minutes and 11 seconds left in the 4th quarter against the Arizona Cardinals. That was the last time the Dallas Cowboys benefitted from an offensive holding call. That is no joke, in the 8 games since there have been exactly 0 offensive holding calls against Dallas’ opponents. Coincidentally, during that time the Dallas Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott was involved in a lengthy legal battle with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell over his 6 game suspension. Furthermore, owner Jerry Jones had reportedly threatened to sue the NFL in an attempt to derail Goodell’s contract extension. All of these factors have led to the popular notion that Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys are the victim of a conspiracy. Could this be a possibility?
As a fan of soccer, a sport with a long history of match fixing and one whose international president was banned for corruption, I would not be shocked to learn that it is true. 8 games is a ridiculous amount of time to go without one holding call when there have clearly been several instances. Cowboys star defensive end and sack leader DeMarcus Lawrence has certainly taken notice
DE DeMarcus Lawrence has only one sack in last 4 games, so what are teams doing to slow him down?: "I’ve been getting a lot of holds and no calls, a lot of chips, they’ve been doing a lot of things, but I don’t have time to complain. I just have to get to the quarterback faster."
— Brandon George (@DMN_George) November 27, 2017
There has also been some instances where the Cowboys star players have been abused with no consequences. Namely the facemasks, and that is not a typo there was more than one, not called against Dak Prescott VS the Falcons. Then there was the body slam on future HOFer Jason Witten on Thanksgiving against the Chargers, again no call there. There is certainly a legitimate argument supporting the conspiracy theory.
On the other hand over the course of the season there is no large discrepancy in penalties called for and against the Cowboys. The Cowboys have been called for 65 penalties compared to 61 for their opponents. Holding calls in particular are a bit of an anomaly seeing as there is probably a hold that takes place on every single play. I think the better offensive linemen in the league are just good at doing it subtly so they do not get caught. Then of course for a conspiracy to exist there has to be a motive. Goodell and Jones both have enormous egos and it is not outside the realm of possibility that Goodell wants to put Jerry in his place and teach him a lesson. However, the Dallas Cowboys are probably the most popular team in the entire NFL. When the Cowboys do well, ratings go up, ticket prices increase, jersey sales increase and the NFL is all about shared revenue. As the commissioner of a multi-billion dollar company in the midst of a contract extension negotiation, why would Goodell want to sabotage the Cowboys?
Maybe there is a conspiracy and maybe there is not. Either way the Cowboys have to go out there and play the game. The way Dallas has played the last 3 games, I don’t think all the holding calls in the world would have made the difference. Bad calls are a part of the game but winners don’t make excuses, they overcome obstacles and win in spite of them.
All data collected and verified through www.profootballreference.com https://www.pro-football-reference.com/
*Photo by Keith Allison (c) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode