"There's no excuse for that" - Cowboys' Ezekiel Elliott left fuming after questionable officiating against Patriots
Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott was not happy after his team's narrow win against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA.
From @EzekielElliott .."It's ridiculous the way they called that game..we overcame the Patriots..and the zebras."
Elliott told the media after the victory via the Cowboys' website:
There's no excuse for that. That's ridiculous, the way they called that game tonight. But at least we were able to overcome the Patriots-- and the zebras.
And he was not the only player who thought that the "zebras" were playing against the team. Cowboys defensive end Randy Gregory said:
I think it was a poorly-called game by the refs if I want to be honest. You've got to fight through it. We can only worry about ourselves, and that's what we did. Luckily, we came out the winner.
At one point, the Cowboys were flagged for six penalties for a total of 71 yards, while the refs had not flagged the Patriots a single time.
Elliott unhappy with refs after Patriots' game
Instances that upset the Cowboys were questionable holding calls that either hindered drives and/or erased big plays, but one in particular nearly plagued the Cowboys going forward.
After throwing an interception into the end zone in the second quarter, Prescott had a chance to erase the mistake when he drove downfield late in the quarter to the Patriots' one-yard line.
Prescott tried a QB sneak into the end zone on third down and entered the endzone, but officials ruled it down, and Prescott fumbled on the next play when attempting another sneak on fourth-and-1.
Assuming the extra point, a touchdown on third down would have given the Cowboys a 17-14 lead going into halftime and applied pressure on Mac Jones and the Patriots entering the second half.
Speaking of the sequence mentioned above, Elliott said:
We have to figure out a way to get in there. I thought we got in there. The refs thought different, but that was kind of the story tonight.
The Patriots finished the game with five penalties for 47 total yards. In comparison, the Cowboys finished with 12 penalties for 115 yards, making the Dallas franchise the first team in NFL history to land a win despite incurring that amount of penalty yardage on the road while allowing four touchdowns and also converting less than 25% of their third downs, according to Bobby Belt of NFL Network.
Ezekiel Elliott: "Don't ask me any officiating questions. I'm never going to be the guy to say, 'Hey, we lost because of the refs.' At the end of the day, we got to look in the mirror as a team and realize that we shot ourselves in the foot too many times. It wasn't the refs."
Elliott is surely proud of that.