With his team's season potentially Washington Commanders T Shirts on the line, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy left the game at the feet of his punter.Down 19-12 in the fourth quarter of Sunday, the Cowboys put together a drive to forget with 2:59 left in the game from their 18-yard line. Quarterback Dak Prescott went 0 for 2 and took a sack in a critical spot.On fourth down, McCarthy went the conservative route, sending out punter Bryan Anger to boot the ball back to a hot 49ers offense. While field position and a seemingly unmakeable fourth-and-10 worked against Dallas, the deeper numbers didn't agree.MORE:According to ESPN's win-probability metric, the Cowboys had a better chance at a NFL Washington Commanders Jersey win by going for it in that spot rather than giving the ball back to the 49ers. The odds of a win in either scenario were slim, though. The Cowboys had a 4.9 percent chance at victory if they went for it (and converted), while the punt left them at a 3.3 percent chance of winning.Cowboys punt on 4th-and-10 at DAL 18WP Go: 4.9%WP Punt: 3.3%Late error by McCarthy. Seth Walder (@SethWalder) MORE: The Surrender Index didn't feel as if the punt was too egregious, however:DAL decided to punt to SF from the DAL 18 Da'Ron Payne Jersey on 4th 10 with 2:05 remaining in the 4th while losing 12 to 19.With a Surrender Index of 4.56, this punt ranks at the 86th percentile of cowardly punts of the 2022 season, and the 83rd percentile of all punts since 1999. Surrender Index (@surrender_index) Following the game, McCarthy had a short explanation for the decision to punt, saying the field position and a potentially difficult fourth-down conversion played into it:McCarthy:"What was the down and distance?"Reporter:"Fourth-and-10."McCarthy:"That's the answer. Yeah."Decision to punt aside, the Cowboys didn't exactly rush to get the punt team out on the field, which added to the play's troubles. Dallas allowed the clock to tick down, losing about 39 seconds before Sean Taylor Jersey Anger got the punt off. Once Ray-Ray McCloud fair-caught the punt, there was 2:05 left in the game effectively forcing the Cowboys to use all three timeouts after the two-minute warning, as opposed to before.MORE:As Fox analyst Greg Olsen pointed out, the ideal scenario is to have the punt team ready for a Antonio Gibson Jersey fire drill get the punt unit out on the field the second that Prescott hits the turf, so that Dallas can use those timeouts before the two-minute warning, leaving itself as much time as po sible.On the other hand, the decision to punt may have made some sense, in a results-based analysis kind of way. The Cowboys' defense has the pa s rush to get after Brock Purdy, and they had all three timeouts.Dallas did get the ball back, but the final drive left a lot to be desired and so did the end of its season.