Dez Bryant should have caught that game-winning touchdown (VIDEO)

Replays of Dez Bryant's catch late in Sunday's Dallas Cowboys game against the New York Giants focused solely on Bryant's left hand, which landed out of bounds and turned a miracle touchdown into a disappointing incompletion. This was for good reason: The hand was the reason the catch was nullified.

The full replay is just as interesting. After multiple viewings, we've noticed two clear things:

1. Dez Bryant should have caught the ball. He didn't need to brace himself for the fall. More importantly, he may not have needed to lay out so much to make the catch.

2. New York's Michael Coe (No. 37) was so close to batting down the pass. He timed it wrong and whiffed.

Watch both players in the live shot and the first replay.

Playing backseat "woulda, shoulda, coulda" is a fool's errand, especially in sports with so many variables and quickly-moving parts like football. To say another receiver would have made the reception or that Bryant shouldn't have put his hand down to brace his fall or that he could have caught the ball without diving so wildly makes it seem like it's all an easy, thought-out process. In reality, Bryant had to make up his mind faster than it takes you to read the last word of this sentence. And he had to do it with two defenders in his face while sprinting into the end zone and catching a bullet from 40 yards away.

One of those defenders was Coe. If you watch the close-up replay, you'll see he's in perfect position to make a play on the ball. He's looking at the pass and waiting, waiting, waiting, then swings his arm. Like the Detroit Tigers flailing at fastballs, he was a little late. It didn't matter in the end.

"When they took it away, my heart just dropped," Bryant told reporters after the game. "I had my mind set that if the ball was thrown to me -- I don't care -- I was going to come down with it. And I came down with it. And I thought I was in. It's just frustrating."