I would NEVER say that Dez isn’t a great wide receiver. He’s the best the Cowboys have had maybe ever.
And I would never say he isn’t clutch. The number of catches he’s made that the Cowboys have needed is, by itself, ridiculous, but you add the way he fights for the extra yards they need, and you get a really special player.
And yet….
You have to say that the guy has a pretty amazing ability…To not QUITE make an unbelievable catch.
Oh sure, we all remember the “Dez Caught It” play. I got over that one pretty fast because I think Aaron Rodgers had a 100% completion percentage throwing the ball in the second half and he’s pulled out more ridiculous games when he hasn’t been that good. Hell, he hit two crazy last-second Hail Marys in last year’s playoffs alone.
Dez probably caught it. And if there’s some technical way that he didn’t, it’s because the rule is bad. But it’s also definitely true that he could have caught it more, and not left the thing so much to anybody’s discretion.
Then, you’ll all surely remember another game against the Giants a few years back where this happened again. Dez came down at the back of the end zone with a catch you could not believe, with six seconds left, to win the game, between two defenders and yet somehow he managed to get one pinky out of bounds. It was a catch that wasn't.
The non-catch in the opener last Sunday against the Giants game was the most non-catch of all these catches, in which it was clear that Dez had not caught it from the first replay. The rare Dez Didn't Catch It of the Dez Caught It moments.
And I would say that a lot of Dez’s supposed problems in this area, like Tony Romo’s, come from how often they need him to do the impossible. There aren't many players in the NFL who come close to catching some of the balls Dez catches and maybe none that get the ones he non-catches.
But like, what would you say is 100% the deal with that? If I had a nickel for every ridiculous, game-saving catch that Dez made that he didn’t quite make I would have several nickels or maybe even MORE than several nickels. You know?
Did Dez catch it? Let Andy know on Twitter @andytobo.
