Drama wasn’t abundant in the first two days of Super Wild Card Weekend. The Bills torched the Patriots, the Buccaneers quashed the Eagles, the Chiefs retired Ben Roethlisberger and even though the Raiders fell just short of another miraculous last-second win, the Bengals led for the final 49 minutes of that game.

Even though the 49ers led by multiple possessions heading into the fourth quarter of Sunday afternoon’s game, there were decisions made by both coaching staffs, (and the referees, for that matter) that were questionable. From Dallas kicking a field goal to keep a two-possession game a two-possession game, to San Francisco’s decision to take a delay of game instead of going for it on fourth-and-1 from midfield with less than three minutes to go, dropping their win probability 5%, there were several moments that could have been key momentum swingers had the other team taken advantage.

But perhaps no play from this weekend will be talked about more than this:

The Cowboys, needing a touchdown and playing with just 14 seconds left on the clock, decided a quarterback draw from the 49ers’ 41-yard-line was the correct play-call with San Francisco parting their defense to protect the boundaries, leaving just three players lined up inside the numbers within 20 yards of the line of scrimmage.

Clearly, the motivation for San Francisco was simple, protect the end zone, keep Dallas in bounds and let the final seconds of the clock bleed out. The 49ers aren’t interested in creating a negative play here, they only rushed two defensive ends and aren’t even covering three of the five Cowboys receivers who go out in decoy patterns, opening up running lanes for Dak Prescott up the middle.

Obviously, there weren’t many great options for the Cowboys in this situation. Their win probability stood at just 7.4%, but running a quarterback draw with no way of stopping the clock outside of a spike is bold in the same way unicycling into oncoming traffic is bold.

“Do you want to be running a Hail Mary play from the 50-yard line or do you want to run five verticals from the 25-yard line?” Mike McCarthy rhetorically asked reporters following the game. “So, that’s the decision, it’s the right decision.”

The numbers somewhat back up McCarthy’s thinking and Kellen Moore’s play call. The Cowboys win percentage did jump to nearly 12% before the clock ran out, their highest mark in the final two minutes after Prescott failed to connect with Cedrick Wilson on a fourth down prayer that turned the ball over on downs.

There is a lot of blame to go around here. Is it on the coaching staff for scheming up a hair-brained idea that relied on leaving just a couple seconds on the clock to perform a season-saving play? Sure. Is it on Prescott for getting greedy and waiting until there were just 10 seconds left on the clock to start his slide when he could’ve sacrificed a few yards to ensure Dallas would get one shot at the end zone? Of course.

Even Prescott leaving the ball on the ground and not handing it to the umpire who needed to spot the ball proved to be a costly mistake. Still, none of this makes up for the fact that McCarthy and Moore thought their team could pull something off that no team has ever done in the postseason since 1994, which is as far back as Stathead’s play index goes. No team has attempted a run with less than 20 seconds remaining while trailing in a playoff game in that time span and the four rushing attempts by teams who were tied were either to run out the clock and send it to overtime or set up a potential game-winning field goal, not get into better position for a desperate heave into the end zone.

Perhaps the best news for Cowboys fans is just how smooth Prescott looked as a runner, his 17 yards gained on that play represented his longest rush since Week 4 and the second-longest since he suffered his ankle injury in 2020. The once-mobile quarterback averaged just 3.0 yards per attempt this season, which makes it even more insane that running a quarterback draw is even in the playbook let alone a part of the gameplan in a last-second situation.

Questions will be asked and blame will be tossed around by fans throughout the offseason. McCarthy’s job security will come under fire, as will the integrity of the refs. But the Cowboys were in a no-win situation at that point due to their undisciplined play and lack of execution. In fact, Jerry Jones probably put it best:

“The team shouldn’t have been in position for that last play to be something controversial.”