Prescott doesn’t throw wide receiver under bus

Clock runs out after Williams fails to get out of bounds

The legend of Dak Prescott is ... on hold. It was tackled in bounds, and the clock ran out.

Prescott had his chance to inject more buzz, hope and debate into the indomitable Dallas Cowboys hype machine when the lights came on for the regular season at AT& T Stadium on Sunday. But just when it appeared the rookie quarterback would get all Staubachian and lead his team to a storybook victory in his NFL debut, the clock struck midnight.

The snapshot that defined a 20- 19 loss to the New York Giants was that of Cowboys wide receiver Terrance Williams crumpled to the turf after the game ended, floored by the weight of what might have been.

Williams caught Prescott’s last pass in the flat and opted to cut inside and fight for extra yards — with no timeouts — rather than attempt to get out of bounds to stop the clock and at least give the Cowboys a chance for a long field goal attempt. A few feet away, Dez Bryant waved furiously for his teammate to race to the sideline.

It was the type of mistake you’d expect from a high school baller, not a professional player in his fourth NFL season, apparently losing his sense of situational football with the game on the line and just 12 seconds to play when the ball was snapped.

“It’s still a poor decision for me,” Williams said. “It’s one of those things that just happened at a bang- bang moment. Just looking back, I’ll never do it again.

“It doesn’t bother me. I’m used to people blaming me anyway. It’s not something new. I know what type of guy I am. I know how I work; hearing different people talk about me, that’s not going to bother me. At the end of the day I’m still here, I’m still doing my job, and I’m trying my best to put my team in the best position to win. I can’t pay attention to what

people are going to say.”

Williams was tackled at the Giants’ 40- yard line for a 14- yard gain. Run out of bounds with maybe 3 fewer yards, and the Cowboys would have been positioned for Dan Bailey, who kicked a 56- yard field goal in the second quarter, to try a kick perhaps inside of 60 yards.

Said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, “I will spend from this moment forward believing that he would have made it.”

It would have been anything but a gimme kick. But it was a chance, with strong- legged Bailey one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history.

“A poor decision,” is how Cow- boys coach Jason Garrett put it. “His instincts took over. We’ll all learn from that situation.” What a tough lesson. Prescott, who has impressed the Cowboys with his leadership skills while learning the NFL ropes, demonstrated as much in refusing to throw Williams under the bus for the big blunder.

“The guy’s trying to make a play,” he said. “You never want to knock a guy for trying to make a play.”

The bottom line is this: Rather than a glorious comeback job engineered by the impressive rookie, the Cowboys found themselves in a familiar position: losing without Tony Romo.

The Cowboys were 1- 11 without Romo last season, and now they are 0- 1 as the franchise quarterback rehabs from the broken bone in his back that has him sidelined indefinitely.

Sure, there’s hope with Prescott, who completed 25 of 45 passes for 227 yards. His 69.4 passer rating was rather average, but he never committed a turnover. For the most part, Prescott didn’t appear nervous nor rattled, neither shaken nor stirred. There was none of that on the big stage.

He was poised, and his stat sheet didn’t account for the plays he made by escaping with his feet to avoid potential disasters.

Problem was, the Cowboys squandered two opportunities to score touchdowns in the first half that might have made it a different game. Instead, they settled for field goals, once after Cole Beasley bobbled a third- down pass over the middle and later when Bryant couldn’t hang on to what would have been a difficult catch in the back corner of the end zone as he crashed to the turf.

At least they found the semblance of a formula that might work that takes pressure off a suspect defense. In building a 6- 0 lead, the Cowboys controlled the ball for 30 plays on two possessions, chewing up 17 minutes of clock time.

On the flip side, the Giants took the lead just like that. Eli Manning’s 45- yard completion to Odell Beckham Jr. set up a 15yard scoring strike to Larry Donnell that capped a drive that lasted all of 1 minute, 33 seconds.

That’s a bitter truth that seems so ominous for the Cowboys. The defense cannot be counted on. This doomed Dallas late, too, as it surrendered a 54- yard drive that ended with what turned out to be the game- winning, 3- yard TD pass to Victor Cruz.

It was a great moment for Cruz, playing in his first game since October 2014, following a torn patellar tendon and other injuries. He celebrated with his customary end- zone salsa.

There was no such celebrating for the Cowboys. Just more of the customary gloom without Romo.