Dallas had just completed a 21-point comeback. The stadium was shaking. Brandon Aubrey drilled a 42-yard winner. Yet Michael Irvin couldn’t stop yelling not about the kick, not about the comeback, but about the moment the Cowboys almost threw it all away. To Irvin, Brian Schottenheimer’s fourth-down gamble wasn’t gutsy. It was reckless. And he wasted zero time calling it exactly what he thought it was.

“The defense bailed coach out of a bad decision,” Irvin said bluntly on his podcast. “I don’t want to forget the bad decision because it was a pi** poor bad decision.”

Irvin replayed the sequence that still had him heated. Fourth-and-one at the Philadelphia Eagles’ one-yard line, with the game tied 21-21. Instead of kicking an easy field goal to go up 3 points and forcing Philly to drive the field for a touchdown, Schottenheimer went for it. Quarterback Dak Prescott got pressured immediately, and his pass fell incomplete.

What stung most was that it could have been an easy field goal long before the fourth down. 1st and Goal at Philly’s 8, 2nd and goal at Philly’s 2, and 3rd and Goal at Philly’s 1. Any of these downs could have been a sure-fire three-pointer from kicker Brandon Aubrey. But Dallas had momentum, having erased a 21-0 gap, and Brian Schottenheimer thought that the momentum would carry into another 7-pointer.

Here’s the thing. The Eagles’ offense had been dead. After jumping out to 21-0, Philly’s offense went ice cold over the rest of the game. They managed only punts, a 56-yard missed field goal, and a Saquon Barkley fumble, plus a disastrous Xavier Gipson muff on a punt return. Even star running back Saquon Barkley admitted the offense had stalled. The easiest thing would have been to take the point and make Philly try to beat you.

“Everybody else said, ‘Well, it worked out.’ Yeah, it worked out, but it was a pi** poor bad decision. You can’t make that decision,” Michael Irvin doubled down. “And that defense did bail him out when they got that big sack. … Way to save coach’s life. Way to save the Dallas Cowboys’ playoff life.”

Irvin credited defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa’s clutch third-down sack that gave Dallas one last shot. Brandon Aubrey nailed the 42-yarder as time expired, and the 24-21 comeback was set in stone. But it wasn’t just that one fourth-down call that raised eyebrows around Schottenheimer. He had a similar miscue early on in the game, and he faced the criticism head-on.

Brian Schottenheimer’s stance on the questionable calls

Brian Schottenheimer also decided to go for it on a fourth-and-three on the opening drive for Dallas. They were at Philly’s 50-yard territory. On the opening drive, Schottenheimer went for it on fourth-and-three at midfield instead of punting and playing field position. Prescott’s incompletion at the 50 gave the Eagles a short field, and they immediately made him pay with a touchdown drive.

The mood turned sour quickly as Philly jumped out 21-0. The Cowboys had buried themselves early. CeeDee Lamb dropped passes, KaVontae Turpin fumbled, and Dak Prescott threw a pick in the end zone. Irvin’s point wasn’t about results; it was about the process. You don’t gamble when you can control the game. You don’t rely on your defense, the same unit that’s been shredded all season, to save you from sketchy decisions. But the head coach wasn’t backing down.

“It’s part of sitting in this chair. You make decisions in 10, 15, 20 seconds,” Schottenheimer said post-game. “You don’t have five minutes to talk about it. When you sign up to sit in this chair and be the play called, you have to make those calls, and again, did the defense bail me out? Yeah. Sometimes that’s a good thing for a coach.”

So Schottenheimer stands by his calls. That’s his style, after all: momentum over math, aggression over caution. And he has no regrets after their Week 12 win. “But I’m comfortable,” he added. “I’d do it again, I thought we had some momentum and I wanted to capitalize on it.”

To his credit, the defense did show up. After Philadelphia’s 21-0 lead with 11:32 left in the second quarter, they went ice cold. The Eagles managed nothing the rest of the way. Philly’s quarterback, Jalen Hurts, finished with 289 yards but got shut out completely in the second half.

And now, at 5-5-1, Dallas’ playoff hopes are still burning. Thursday’s Thanksgiving showdown with the Kansas City Chiefs will tell us if that flame burns brighter. But for now, Cowboys Nation got its revenge for the Week 1 24-20 defeat. Even if Michael Irvin thinks they nearly gave it away.