Down 15 points in the fourth quarter, deep in their own territory, facing first-and-11 after a false start penalty, the Las Vegas Raiders ran a plunge into the line. It went worse than you might expect.
It is worth pausing here to mention that the Dallas Cowboys are a joke. This once-proud franchise, winners of five Super Bowls, is now known for loud and expensive mediocrity even in years when they manage to win a playoff game. They have not won consecutive playoff games in 30 years, and two years ago their season ended on one of the funniest plays of all time. On Monday night, they led the Raiders 31-9 going into the fourth quarter. If there were any NFC East team that could blow that lead… well, it’d be the Giants. But the Cowboys are a close second.
The Las Vegas Raiders, however, are an even bigger joke. Their history is as rich as that of the Cowboys, but their best days are even more distant. Their last Super Bowl victory was 42 years ago. They should fold the team and give their awesome nickname, logo, and color scheme to an organization that wins more often. They were absolutely not coming back in this game.
But they tried, at first. They cut the lead to 15 with an early fourth quarter TD then forced a three-and-out. That was as good as it’d get. Tre Tucker lost three yards on a punt return, which put the Raiders at their own 2 with 11:43 left. That false start pushed the Raiders back another yard. The playbook is admittedly limited in this situation, but head coach Pete Carroll drew up a terrible play. His team’s execution was even worse. The result was a play that wasn’t so much blown up by the Cowboys defense as it was imploded by the Raiders themselves.
Vegas was looking to move off the goal line. Though the Raiders had rushed for 29 yards on 10 carries at that point, Carroll called for an Ashton Jeanty plunge into the line. FTN’s DYAR metric ranks the rookie sixth-worst in the NFL. The line is bad, too: Jeanty’s average yards before contact is just 1.1, second-worst in the NFL. But he’s middle of the pack against stacked fronts, with 3.9 yards per attempt. So the Raiders might have hoped to get to the 4 or the 5 after this play. Maybe, in their wildest dreams, they’d be facing second-and-5 at their own 7.
Instead the play was A Nightmare On Al Davis Way. Jeanty ran into the line, or in the direction of it, but never got there. To say that he didn’t get any positive yards before contact or after it is correct, but somehow an understatement. The Cowboys tackled him in the end zone for a safety. What made this play particularly funny was just how many Cowboys were involved. Let’s take a look.
Here is what went wrong on the play: everything that happened from the moment the Raiders snapped the ball. Two defenders came through unblocked. Jeanty hit the brick wall of Cowboys DE Donovan Ezeiruaku a yard or two deep in the end zone, maybe a second after being handed the ball. As Troy Aikman noted during the broadcast, Jeanty came very nearly to a complete stop before Ezeiruaku even hit him, which is not ideal, but is easy enough to understand. Two yards deep in your own end zone is a surprising and upsetting place to encounter a defensive end.
As Jeanty pushed as hard as he could to avoid the safety, three more Cowboys rushed into the fray, with one more just behind. These six defenders were closer to the ballcarrier than any of his teammates, on a play that, once again, was a plunge into the line.
It was incredible. The Raiders ran a play worthy of the Cowboys. They’re not a good football team, but they are one of the best comedies of 2025.
