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FRISCO, Texas — A day after the Dallas Cowboys were flagged 14 times for 153 yards in a 27-23 win over the Indianapolis Colts, chief operating officer Stephen Jones said Monday that the officials made correct calls. Jones spoke during his weekly appearance on 105.3 The Fan’s K&C Masterpiece.
Jones is a co-chairman of the NFL competition committee. He said Dallas is not the best team in the league at avoiding flags, and that other teams get penalized more.
“I think they call what they see. I think those were, they were fouls. I mean, consistency at times, which is just part of the human judgment, and one guy’s look versus another guy’s look from week to week,” Jones said. “But those were obviously, I think they were correct calls. I’m not saying they weren’t correct, but they’re certainly, it goes on a lot.”
Nine of the 14 flags came against the offense, and penalties wiped out 103 yards of Dallas gains. Indianapolis was penalized 9 times for 67 yards.
Stephen Jones Says Hand Fighting Makes For ‘Tough Ones’
Where hand fighting at the line becomes a foul is a judgment call that comes up all the time. Receiver CeeDee Lamb was called for a false start and two offensive pass interference penalties Sunday, and the interference calls took away third-down catches of 18 and 13 yards.
“The hand fighting that goes on between a receiver and a coverage player, you see a lot of that, and it’s just when does it rise to the level of being a foul. Those are tough ones,” Jones continued. “We certainly didn’t play a disciplined game yesterday with 15 penalties. We have to be better than that.”
Lamb finished with 10 catches for 195 yards and 1 touchdown. He said after the game at Lucas Oil Stadium that he did not get an explanation from the officials on the interference calls.
“There’s been plenty instances where I let the DB touch me first, and then I create separation,” Lamb said. “So like I’m just kind of confused, if I don’t create separation, I just let him hold me. Are they gonna call the hold?”
Dak Prescott, Brian Schottenheimer Want The Flags Cleaned Up
Referee Clay Martin’s crew worked the game. Dak Prescott said after the game that the number of offensive penalties made the game closer than it had to be, a week after Dallas could not overcome its mistakes in an overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
“We can’t do that. Simple as that. We can’t do that. We can’t have this many penalties, especially on offense. I don’t know the number on defense, but I know on our side of the ball that’s purely unacceptable,” Prescott said.
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer wanted to see every flag on film before speaking on them. Dallas outgained Indianapolis 508 yards to 271.
“I think the one area I know for a fact that we need to clean up is the penalties,” Schottenheimer said. “I want to see them. I want to see them all. But it could have been maybe more than 500, and they were untimely penalties.”
The Cowboys, now 4-5, host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Nov. 15, at AT&T Stadium. Kickoff is set for 3:25 p.m. CT on FOX.
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