Dak Prescott Takes Blame After Rio Goal-Line Stalls

Dak Prescott called himself embarrassed after Dallas outgained Baltimore and still lost 34-31 in Rio de Janeiro. The Cowboys piled up 415 yards and 27 first downs in the NFL’s first game at Maracana Stadium, then settled for a field goal from the 2-yard line with 7 seconds left. Lamar Jackson hit Zay Flowers for 27 yards, called timeout with 1 second on the clock, and Tyler Loop made a 56-yard kick as time expired.

Prescott took the heat at the podium. The snaps that actually closed the night belonged to the people who called a pass from the 1, took a false start at the 2, and boomed a kickoff through the end zone.

Dallas Outgained Baltimore and Still Left Rio 1-2

The Cowboys moved the ball for most of Sunday and still flew home 1-2. Baltimore left 2-1. Dallas held the ball for 30:38, ran 71 plays to 58, and posted its first 100-yard rushing game of the season, 148 yards, with Javonte Williams going 19 carries for 98 yards and a 2-yard score. CeeDee Lamb caught 7 passes for 112 yards, including a 49-yard strike that flipped the field. George Pickens added 7 for 82. Prescott finished 25 of 40 for 276 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, and one sack.

Baltimore was leaner and more efficient. The Ravens averaged 6.5 yards per play to Dallas’s 5.8, ran for 192 yards, and converted 4 of 6 red-zone trips. Jackson went 15 of 20 for 186 yards and two scores and added 50 yards on 6 rushes. Derrick Henry carried 26 times for 89 yards and scored from 4 and 3 yards. Flowers led Baltimore with 5 catches for 84 yards and a 20-yard jet sweep. The Week 3 box score from Rio is the night in one grid: more volume for Dallas, more points for Baltimore.

THE RIO BOX SCORE

Dallas led 10-0 after a 28-yard Brandon Aubrey field goal and Williams’s 2-yard run. By the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter the Ravens were in front 31-28, and the Cowboys still had time. Volume was never the problem. Finishing was.

Two Visits to the 1-Yard Line, Two Field Goals

The opening series told on them. Williams was averaging 7.3 yards a carry and had just ripped off 44 when Dallas reached second-and-goal at the 1. The call was a pass. It fell incomplete to Ryan Flournoy. The next snap was another pass, and Roquan Smith sacked Prescott. Aubrey’s 28-yard kick made it 3-0, a four-point swing the Cowboys never got back. On the next drive they lined up near the same paint and this time handed it to Williams, who scored from the 2.

The last drive copied the first. Nate Wiggins was flagged for pass interference on Lamb, and Dallas had first-and-goal at the 2 inside the final half-minute, down 31-28. Jake Ferguson was in the medical tent. Backup tight end Luke Schoonmaker false-started, and the ball went back to the 7. Prescott threw incomplete, scrambled, then threw it away. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer later called that throwaway overcoaching. Aubrey tied it from 23 yards with 7 seconds left.

Between those two empty trips, Dallas kept handing Baltimore free field. The team’s own recap of the five snaps Dallas still rues reads like a list of self-inflicted first downs.

THE PLAYS THAT LEFT POINTS IN RIO

• Pass from the 1: Second-and-goal, Williams hot, incompletion to Flournoy, then a sack, then a 28-yard field goal.
• Kickoff out of bounds: Aubrey’s third kick rolled out at the 1 and was spotted at the Baltimore 40, and Henry scored to make it 10-7.
• Ferguson fumble: A shuffle pass in the third quarter, forced by Travis Jones and recovered by Trenton Simpson at the Ravens’ 25.
• Steele holding: Terence Steele’s flag wiped out a George Pickens catch at the Baltimore 24, and Aubrey’s 59-yard try was blocked by Keondre Jackson.
• Schoonmaker false start: Second-and-goal at the 2, Ferguson off the field, the offense backed to the 7, then a 23-yard kick instead of a winner.

After the block, Baltimore needed four plays to go 51 yards. Jackson threw a 4-yard touchdown to Chris Moore, and the Ravens led 24-13 with 3:44 left in the third. Dallas answered with a 15-0 burst, Ferguson’s 19-yard score plus a two-point catch by Lamb, then KaVontae Turpin’s 9-yard run after Lamb’s 49-yarder, for a 28-24 lead. Rookie linebacker Jaishawn Barham had stuffed Henry for a 3-yard loss on fourth-and-1 at the Dallas 1 in between. The defense even got Henry down three times inside the 5 early in the fourth. None of it survived the last 90 seconds.

Boom It Through Was the Overtime Plan

Aubrey’s tying kick left 7 seconds. For the first time all afternoon, Dallas let him kick it out of the end zone. The new touchback spots the ball at the 35, which is where Jackson lined up with a timeout in his pocket. Schottenheimer said Aubrey had already knocked two kickoffs out of bounds, both of which gave Baltimore the ball at the 40, and the staff did not want that again.

At the end of the day, we just felt like, Hey, let’s boom it through. Let’s put them out there, make them throw the ball short and we’ll be fine. Play for overtime.

Brian Schottenheimer, Cowboys head coach, postgame in Rio de Janeiro

Ravens coach Jesse Minter said the number on the clock is what made the next play possible. Anything under 7 seconds, he said, and Baltimore may have just run it out. Seven seconds, a touchback at the 35, and one throw that takes about 6 seconds was the math they had practiced. Safety Jalen Thompson had already left with a hamstring injury, and Dallas was already thin at safety without Malik Hooker and P.J. Locke. Defensive coordinator Christian Parker kept the coverage sticky. Jackson still found the hole.

How Seven Seconds Became a 56-Yard Walk-Off

Jackson’s throw to Flowers traveled 27 yards to the Dallas 38. Flowers went down. Jackson turned for the official. The crew put 1 second back on the clock after a look. Loop, the second-year kicker whose last season ended when he missed a kick that would have put Baltimore in the playoffs, pushed a 56-yarder just inside the left upright. Teammates chased him into the corner, and he hit Cristiano Ronaldo’s celebration in a soccer stadium that had never hosted an NFL game.

Everyone was on the same timing. The line did a great job protecting, Zay ran a great route and I just had to deliver the baby. He caught it and as soon as he got down, I was like, Please see me ref.

Lamar Jackson, Ravens quarterback, postgame in Rio de Janeiro

Tyler Loop’s walk-off field goal recap on the Ravens’ site puts the kick at the end of a night Baltimore also won at the line. Jackson had already hit rookie tight end Matt Hibner for a 2-yard lead at 1:30. Henry kept the chains moving. The Ravens lost no fumbles and threw no interceptions. Dallas lost the Ferguson ball and never forced one.

pic.twitter.com/rUUXu5BKf2

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) September 27, 2026

The Cowboys’ own account posted the finish while the locker room was still hot. The clip does not need a caption. Loop’s ball is through, and the purple sideline is already on the field.

What Prescott Said When the Defense Tried to Own It

Prescott was angry at the microphone, and he shut down the easy version of the night, the one where the last 27-yard completion is the whole story. Defenders were already telling him the collapse sat with them. He would not take that handoff. Dak’s postgame comments on the loss put every empty trip, not just the last one, on the people who had the ball.

Frustrated as hell. Excuse me. Embarrassed. We don’t call ourselves the best offense, GOTI, and get down to the one-yard line and don’t put it in. Yeah, it just sucks. Not a lot of words or full explanation of it. Defense shouldn’t even have been in that position. Those guys were over there saying it’s on us, absolutely not. We’ve got to put the game away, period.

Dak Prescott, Cowboys quarterback, postgame in Rio de Janeiro

He said he thought they would score after the interference flag, then said the offense got in its own way, on the first drive, on a fourth down, on the last snaps. Schottenheimer said he has to call better plays to get it in. He also said he thought they would score from the 2. Both men were describing the same tape. One of them wore a headset on the goal-line snaps. One of them took the questions.

The loud read of the night, from people who watched the kickoff and the play sheet rather than the podium, is that Dallas passed when Williams was gashing the Ravens, kicked when it still had downs, and then kicked the ball out of the end zone when a return would have burned clock. Prescott’s presser asked the room to look at the offense. The offense did move it. The staff still chose overtime and got Loop instead.

Houston on Oct. 4, With No Bye After Brazil

Schottenheimer did not dress up the travel. He said he was hurting, the players were hurting, and nobody cares that the trip is long. They still have to fly home. Prescott was asked about the 10-hour flight back to Dallas and did not soften.

THE WEEK THAT DOES NOT WAIT

• Record: Dallas is 1-2 after a 28-20 loss at the Giants, a 37-20 win over Washington, and this 34-31 loss.
• Next: The Cowboys play at Houston on October 4 at 1 p.m. Eastern.
• Then: Tampa Bay visits AT&T Stadium on Thursday, October 8.
• Rushing: The 148 yards were the first time this season Dallas topped 100 on the ground.

Baltimore hosts the Tennessee Titans next Sunday at 1 p.m. Dallas gets no pause after the longest road week of the season, and the next opponent arrives five days after Houston. Prescott said that when they land he will be just as pissed. The 1-yard line will still be on the tape.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was this the first NFL game in Brazil?

No. It was the league’s third game in Brazil and the first in Rio de Janeiro, played at Maracana Stadium on September 27, 2026, with Dallas as the home team on the schedule card.

How far was Tyler Loop’s game-winning kick?

Loop made it from 56 yards as time expired, one yard short of the 57-yarder he hit in Week 1 against Indianapolis, and 12 yards longer than the 44-yard miss in Pittsburgh that ended Baltimore’s last season.

Why did a touchback leave the Ravens in field-goal range?

Since the 2024 kickoff change, a touchback is spotted at the 35-yard line, so Baltimore needed about 20 yards to give Loop a makeable try, and Jackson’s 27-yard throw to Flowers reached the Dallas 38.

How big was the crowd for Cowboys-Ravens in Rio?

The announced attendance was 72,792, and the game lasted 3 hours and 19 minutes from kickoff to Loop’s walk-off.