Cincinnati at Dallas
Tied 17–17 with 57 seconds left, one timeout, from their own 35.
The situation
| Teams | CIN @ DAL · week 2, regular season |
| Score when the drive started | CIN 17 – DAL 17 |
| Time left | 0:57 (57 seconds) |
| Timeouts | DAL 1 · CIN 2 |
| Where the ball was | 1st & 10 at their own 35 |
| The first real play | (:57) (Shotgun) 10-C.Rush pass short left to 88-C.Lamb to DAL 43 for 8 yards (21-M.Hilton). Penalty on CIN-33-T.Flowers, Defensive Holding, declined. |
What actually happened
Fifty-seven seconds is barely a drive. Dallas had one timeout, the ball on its own 35, and a tie game. Cooper Rush was under center because Dak Prescott had broken his thumb in Week 1.
Rush hit CeeDee Lamb for eight to start. Then he went to Tony Pollard twice underneath: seven yards, then three and out of bounds. By the time the third-down throw to Dalton Schultz fell incomplete there were eighteen seconds left and the ball was still on the Cincinnati side of midfield.
That was enough. Brett Maher kicked from fifty-four yards with nine seconds on the clock, and it went through. Cincinnati's last snap of the game was a kneel.
20–17, Dallas, on the back of a kicker and a backup quarterback.
The part that gets lost in the highlights: this drive was never about scoring seven. It was about three completions, two clock stoppages and a kicker who could reach from 54. That is the shape of most real two-minute drills. Not a miracle, just arithmetic done fast.
What 57 seconds buys you
The clock is the opponent, so here is the same 57 seconds counted three ways, using the tempo numbers this site grades against.
| No huddle, 17 seconds a snap | 3 snaps |
| Normal huddle, 34 seconds | 1 snaps |
| Milking it, 38 seconds | 1 snaps |
How it ended
| Final score | CIN 17 – DAL 20 |
| Plays recorded | 7 |
| Result of the drive | Points |
| Who was calling it | Mike McCarthy (DAL) vs Zac Taylor (CIN) |
The drive put points on the board. You can replay the calls. The result is the result.
More
| Every drive so far | The whole calendar back to 1 January 2026, plus the 97-game library. |
| What is a two-minute drill? | The term, the clock rules and the spike, in plain words. |
| How to play | How the calls are graded, and what the four marks mean. |