Cowboys special teams coach John Fassel isn’t blaming Amani Oruwariye for the team’s loss on Monday night, and he doesn’t want the cornerback blaming himself either.
Fassel, who consoled a distraught Oruwariye after the game, said he communicated with Oruwariye through text and in a phone call on Tuesday.
“If we can put ourselves in his shoes and how fast things happened, I think that’s probably what you expect for him to do,” Fassel said Tuesday, via Josh Tolentino of lonestarlive.com. “I told Oruwariye, ‘If I’m a football player in his shoes, and I see the ball bouncing, and I don’t know how it got there, I’m probably going to handle it, too. It’s fair to absolutely say it’s a peter call [to not touch the ball]; it’s a poison call for the guys who see what happened. But he wasn’t part of that core and didn’t have any idea what happened. Like if it was an incomplete pass or a fumble or a blocked kick. Who knows how many different things could have happened [in Oruwariye’s mind]. It’s a unique one for sure. It’s a crazy play and it happens fast.”
On the first play after the two-minute warning in a tie game, Cowboys linebacker Nick Vigil blocked the kick of Bengals punter Ryan Rehkow. Oruwariye, who didn’t know the punt was blocked, touched the ball. The Bengals recovered, and Joe Burrow threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Marr Chase three plays later for the game-winner.
Some of Oruwariye’s teammates protected him from questions from the media Monday night, and Fassel defended Oruwariye on Tuesday.
“I asked him how he was doing, word for word, and he said, ‘I’m doing good,’” Fassel said. “I said, ‘Good because you should be doing good. You have no reason to think you cost us the game or you made a mistake or that you let the team down.’ All words that came out of his mouth. All those things are not true in my opinion. He did not let the team down. He worked incredibly hard to come off IR after missing [five] games. He tried to make a play on the ball. So none of that stuff should be written about [Oruwariye]. He didn’t let the team down. He felt bad about it. I’m glad that he is good today. Football happens.”