ARLINGTON, Texas -- Carl Cheffers admitted after the game his crew mistakenly blew the whistle after the Seattle Seahawks attempted to call back-to-back timeouts in the second quarter of their 13-12 win against the Dallas Cowboys.

With 1:38 left in the first half, Seattle coach Pete Carroll attempted to call timeout to avoid a 12-men-on-the-field penalty. Because the Seahawks called a timeout after Matt Cassel’s 7-yard completion to Darren McFadden, Cheffers said the second timeout request should have been ignored.

It is against the rules to call consecutive timeouts to freeze a kicker, but that was not part of this play.

Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett talks to the officials during Sunday's loss to the Seahawks. AP Photo/Brandon Wade

Had the Cowboys been able to snap the ball for Dan Bailey’s 35-yard field goal attempt, however, Seattle could have had too many men on the field.

“The second scenario, and the scenario that happened in this case, is that we felt the defense was still milling about, trying to figure out where they were supposed to go,” Cheffers said. “The 12th man realized he was not supposed to be on the field and he was making a legitimate effort to get off the field. In this case it would have been a live-ball foul had he not made it off the field.”

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett was never able to fully address the issue with Cheffers, who made only a brief announcement to the crowd, on the field. Garrett was left to plead his case with other members of Cheffers’ crew.

“I don’t want to get into the officiating,” Garrett said after the game.

Had the Seahawks been penalized, the Cowboys would have had a fresh set of downs at the Seattle 12 with the score 10-3 and more chances to score a touchdown. In a one-point game, the mistake was costly, but owner and general manager Jerry Jones did not want to put the loss on the officiating error.

“You can’t, with a game as close as that, and a game with the defense playing as hard as they played -- and as hard as both teams played -- blame the game on that call,” Jones said.