SEATTLE – Even after Tony Romo made the mistake of his sporting life, the Cowboys had a chance. Hold Seattle down near the goal line, use all three timeouts and get the ball back with time for another shot at the winning field goal. A 20-yard burst by Shaun Alexander ended that option and assured the Cowboys the misery of a 21-20 playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Now it's time to let Bill Parcells out of his misery.
Sure, the Cowboys had a chance to win Saturday night. A good chance, in fact.
Romo's bobbled snap on what would have been a go-ahead field goal from extra-point range will live in Cowboys' infamy.
The fact is the Cowboys didn't win.
The small picture says to blame it on Romo or on a defense that couldn't make a big stop at the end after playing its best game since November.
The big picture points to Parcells.
The fact is that for the fourth straight year, a Parcells team got worse as the season wound down, not better.
And the educated guess is that Parcells' days in Dallas are over.
I expect him to announce his resignation fairly soon, even though he said he had no plans to meet with owner Jerry Jones this week.
Jones more likely has plans to meet with him.
Jones is greatly disappointed in Parcells and the job he has done – or not done – in his fourth season.
Read between the lines when Jones speaks, and you understand that whenever the coach and owner meet at Valley Ranch, Jones will let Parcells know that staying for a fifth season is not an option.
That will leave it up to Parcells to take the graceful way out rather than accept the embarrassment of dismissal.
And after this awful ending, including last week's give-up loss to Detroit when the NFC East was still possibly up for grabs, the time is right for Parcells to go.
Something new, something fresh is needed here.
Four games over .500 with two playoff defeats – that record got Chan Gailey fired after two seasons.
It has taken Parcells four years to get to that same so-so record – four games over .500 and two playoff losses. And he has worked at about five times Gailey's salary.
Taking one reflective glance at this failed season, one in which the Cowboys slipped from 8-4 to 9-8, Parcells said, "We were a little inconsistent from time to time. I know we have a better team than we've had.
"I did the best I could. It wasn't enough."
You wouldn't look at Saturday's game and say that Parcells was necessarily outcoached by Mike Holmgren. It wasn't that kind of game.
Neither team executed particularly well. You can say that both defenses rose to the occasion for most of the game, but the offensive failures weren't all related to great defense.
This team with the way it was clicking in November should have been more than a one-and-done playoff team. The Cowboys had the opportunity to play the worst team to qualify for the playoffs and take advantage of it.
Instead, they showed that there was one team even more up-and-down, more inconsistent than the Seahawks.
Seattle had all kinds of injury excuses to use had it lost.
Dallas doesn't. Missing one linebacker at the end of an NFL season is no excuse.
In four years, Parcells has presided over one really good draft. He has taken a defense that was efficient, if not dominating in the 4-3, and made it very inefficient in the 3-4.
Does it say anything that the NFL coach of the year is the Saints' Sean Payton, who displayed far more imagination in New Orleans than he was ever allowed to show as Parcells' play-caller?
What's almost certain to be the final game of Parcells' stay in Dallas will be remembered for Romo's fumbled snap. But keep in mind one important fact.
Had the Cowboys executed the field goal to take a 23-21 lead, the Seahawks would have had about 1:15 to get into field goal range for a winning kick.
The way the Seahawks were exploiting that big hole in the deep middle of the Dallas defense, you think they couldn't have gotten the job done?
Romo messed up, ultimately, but this Cowboys team is a mess, anyway.
Good teams don't lose their last three home games to force themselves on the road for the playoffs.
This is not a good team.
And that can only be put on the coach who exerts more control over the team than any coach since Jimmy Johnson reigned at Valley Ranch.
Time on the Parcells reign is up.
E-mail wtcowlishaw@dallasnews.com
