Jason Garrett’s abusive language penalty elicits joke from Jerry Jones

[Rowdy]

Jason Garrett received a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct after he spiked the challenge flag in front of side judge Scott Edwards after a blown call late in the third quarter.

“Obviously, I didn’t handle that situation as well as I should have,” the Cowboys coach said. “I knew we were going to get the play because I saw it. Unfortunately, had to use the flag [to challenge] there. He made that decision to throw a flag on me.”

Garrett said Edwards “apparently didn’t like how I threw the flag.”

According to a pool report from referee Ron Torbert, though, Garrett was penalized for “abusive language.”

“Oh, I hope the little darlin’ didn’t hear something he hadn’t heard before,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “We should all have stopped the wheel over there if he got [upset] over abusive language.”

The Cowboys appeared upset about the officiating after getting 11 penalties for 124 yards, though they didn’t come right out and say they were upset about the officiating.

“It’s not my place to share my opinion about that,” said Garrett, who surely will share his opinion with the NFL’s supervisor of officials, Al Riveron, on Monday morning.

Garrett’s penalty followed a 27-yard completion from Dak Prescott to Amari Cooper in front of the Cowboys sideline. Edwards ruled the Cowboys receiver did not get both feet down before going out of bounds, forcing Garrett to use his final challenge.

The play was overturned on replay, but the Cowboys lost 15 yards on the penalty. They faced a first-and-25 from their own 42, but Prescott completed a 26-yard pass to Ezekiel Elliott on the next play.

“It was just a big play in the game,” Garrett said. “I knew we had used the flag once, and I knew we were going to have to use it again to correct their error. When you do that and the first one doesn’t get overturned, you’re out of challenges. I knew that was the situation. We had to use it in that particular situation to correct the mistake that they made. Didn’t handle it well. Our team handled it really well, though. I don’t know if you saw the rest of the game after that. We completed a 26-yarder on the next play, and we went right down and scored. Our team did a really good job handling that adversity.”