Dallas cornerback Anthony Brown faced the music following a brutal four-penalty game in the Cowboys’ 36-33 Thanksgiving loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
“It’s frustrating. But at the same time, we’ve got to deal with it,” Brown said, via the team’s official transcript. “We’ve got to try to fight through it. The other team is dealing with it too. They’re getting calls too. So, we can’t complain about that. We’ve just got to keep fighting.”
Brown was flagged four times in Thursday’s game for defensive pass interference. All four penalties happened on third downs, keeping Raiders drives alive. The biggest came in overtime after the Cowboys forced a third-and-18. The final DPI helped set up a Vegas chip-shot field goal to win the game.
Brown didn’t hide after the contest.
“It’s just one of them days,” he said. “I’ve just got to watch the film, see what we can improve and get better. I feel like I was in position for all of them. I’ll just try to turn my head… just got to get better. Just trying to get better.”
Brown said on the final DPI he thought he was in good position on a short throw.
“By that time, I wasn’t even trying to put my hands on the guy. I guess it was an underthrown ball. You know, receivers are taught to jump back into the DB. So, I really don’t know. He grabbed the back of my helmet. I had my hands up. I just have to turn my head, I guess. I have to get my head around as quick as possible.”
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones lamented the amount of defensive pass interference calls flagged Thursday.
“I call it ‘throw up ball,'” Jones said, per Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News. “This will arguably be the most-watched game other than the Super Bowl. I hate that it got down to just throwing the ball up and getting the penalties to get you big plays.”
Flags were aplenty on Thanksgiving, with the Raiders (14 penalties, 110 penalty yards) and Cowboys (14 penalties, 166 penalty yards) combining for 28 penalties and 276 penalty yards, the most combined penalties and most combined penalty yards in a game on Thanksgiving since at least 1950, per NFL Research.
The majority of Dallas’ penalties came in high-leverage situations. The Cowboys had 110 penalty yards just on third down, most in any game since at least 1991 (second-most was also by the Cowboys and on Thanksgiving, 106 in a loss versus Minnesota in 1998). The Raiders had just 16 penalty yards on third down. Dallas’ 94 penalty yards margin on third down is the largest discrepancy in a game since at least 2000. Combining third and fourth down, the Cowboys had 130 penalty yards (the next most in a game on third/fourth down was 117 by the New York Giants versus Baltimore in Week 6, 2016).
For Brown, all he can do after the bad day is move on to the next game as the Cowboy try to end their two-game losing skid in Week 13 against the New Orleans Saints.
“As a DB, you definitely got to have a short memory, you know, onto the next play,” Brown said. “We’re in it until the end. Unfortunately, that last penalty was crucial. We’ve just got to keep fighting. We can’t control when the ref is throwing flags or not throwing flags. We can’t argue with them because it’s not going to change anything. We just have to go back to the drawing board and get ready for New Orleans.”
