Jim Schwartz on Dez Bryant Celebrating Incompletion: Had to Set Him Straight

Dez Bryant had a splendid game for the Cowboys on Sunday, catching two touchdown passes from Tony Romo in a 34-30 loss to the Lions. He finished with 3 catches for 37 yards, but he missed out on even better stats when a spectacular catch he made along the sidelines was reviewed and ruled incomplete. Bryant was fired up over the catch, but Jim Schwartz challenged the call and won. The friction between the men was apparent throughout the game, and it culminated with Schwartz calling Dez a naughty name.

On his weekly Lions Review show on WXYT, Schwartz got in a nice little dig at Dez.

“I don’t talk to a lot of players, but when you’re celebrating an incomplete pass, and you’re taunting a defense and taunting the sideline because you thought you made a great catch, and it was incomplete, we have to let you know you,” Schwartz said. “We had to let him know he didn’t make a catch since midway through the first quarter, and that was going to be incomplete.”

And according to the Detroit Free Press, Schwartz added on Tuesday that he’s “never seen somebody celebrate an incomplete pass so much, so we wanted to make sure that he knew that it was incomplete.”

Even if the catch didn’t count, it was a heck of a play. I can understand why Dez was fired up. But Schwartz pretty much killed Dez’s buzz by going “scoreboard” on him. There’s nothing wrong with Dez getting pumped about a nice play (even if it didn’t count), and there was nothing wrong with Schwartz trying to put him back in place. And of course the Lions reserved their celebrating until after the game.