Tony Romo: Most of the game, they'd been doubling Dez. Even when they didn't, they would hide it well and come off late. We started to get to that a little bit and understand what they were conceptually trying to do. What happened then was, we went into an empty formation. At a point earlier in the game, I end up throwing the ball to Terrance on a spread-out formation. I think we had a running back in on that play. He ends up scoring a touchdown. He's not the first read on that play, but based on the configuration, not that dissimilar from what this one is. They try and hide the same coverage, which turns into what we call a "cover zero," so it's an all-out pressure. But they hide it by the safeties being a little lower and they're almost like gonna help and double people. You can tell by the mannerisms of some of the linebackers and nickel cornerbacks that they're coming after you.
In that process, my initial thought right at that moment was, 'I'm not going to be able to hold onto the ball. You have to get it out. It's gotta go somewhere. You can't just go through progressions and read.' I have three options on the play. Cole's got a route that's really quick. Witten has a route that's very fast and Dez has a go route. The go route is dicey because it's fourth-and-two, you just need two yards, you can throw the ball to anybody on the field. The problem is, at that moment, as I'm getting ready to throw the ball ... I think Cole and I think Jason, but I want to look at the leverage of the players that are on them. When I look at it, it's bad leverage. In other words, they're gonna have to take an extra two steps to get past that. So, in that moment, I wanted the two yards but it's gonna be real dicey. It's gonna be one of those bang-bang type of slants ... they're inside leverage and our guy's not. I can't adjust that with the route this late in the count as I'm about to snap the ball.
So I say, 'Hey, it's one-on-one; Dez hasn't gotten this but three times the whole game. It's our season on the line. Let's do what we do.' You give him a chance. He went up and made the play and obviously we didn't get the call. I changed the protection to try and give myself the ability to go through the progression to them and then finish with Dez. My thought was, let's get the first down. Get through 1, 2 and my third option is gonna be Dez on a go route. The problem was we only had five men and they were rushing six. I tried to manipulate the line and change the call so we could pick up the fifth guy and I did that, the problem was the sixth guy came. I couldn't go 1, 2 to three, and then the leverage came into play. Either you trust in that or you don't. In that situation, you're dying to get Dez one-on-one with a press corner. He was up on top, pressing him, trying to take away a slant, something quick. You have to be aggressive. That's how you win those games and that's how you win championships.
