Jerry Jones Disappointed With The Way Cowboys Vs Raiders Game Was Officiated

During Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day game, The Cowboys and Raiders were each penalized 14 times. The Cowboys were awarded a franchise record of 166 yards off those penalties. Similarly, the Raiders were awarded a franchise record of 110 yards off those penalties.

The game ended with a final swing coming on a 33-yard pass interference penalty on Cowboys cornerback Anthony Brown. He did not turn around for a deep pass thrown by Derek Carr on third-and-18, he set up the game-winning field goal attempt.

Cowboys owner and General Manager Jerry Jones was not a fan of the “throw up ball” he saw in his team’s penalty-fest of a Thanksgiving loss to the Raiders. He addressed that the real issue is not the NFL’s rules, but over-officious officials. Jones expressed that he cannot blame the Raiders for the way their deep balls drew so many pass interference penalties.

While speaking to the media, Jones said that he thinks that the NFL’s rules encourages under-thrown passes to draw flags. And that the officials don’t need to throw a flag on every bit of ticky-tack contact.

“To their credit, I think [the Raiders] just did a real good job of getting their big plays, and a bunch of them were penalties in the throwing game,” Jones said, via the Star-Telegram. “They took advantage of it, and I think it influenced the win. We had some plays go with us too, it wasn’t like it didn’t go against them. So again, this is really not a criticism of the rules. It is a criticism of the discretion of how you use them and what play. Everybody knows you can call a penalty on every play many different ways, every time the ball snapped. And so you have to have a feel for what you’re trying to do in the ball game and this one turned out that way.”

It looked like the officials were calling out a penalty often on Thanksgiving. The league doesn’t have much encouragement to change things even if it affects their popularity. One thing is clear hereafter the Raiders-Cowboys game is that the NFL will remain staggeringly popular.