We’re half a week behind due to scheduling issues, so we’ll make this our week to catch up. I’ll cover Week 4 today and hit Week 5 later in the week. Week 3 left me scratching my head as to why Garrett wanted to get far too cute with the offense and not shove the ball down the Panthers’ collective throat via the ground game. So how did the Cowboys fare against what seemed to be a rather stout Denver defense? Let’s find out.

Just How “Romo Friendly” Were We?

Let’s just come out firing: Romo had another awful game. We’ve gone from career performance, to one of his worst, to a decent performance, and back to awful. Let the roller coaster begin. Romo went 25-42 (59.5% completion) for 255 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT, and 2 fumbles (one of which was lost). This marks the second straight game in which Romo failed to throw for a TD.

Last week, the claim was “Romo Friendly” somewhat succeeded by not having the game completely depend on Romo. Well, this time we needed Romo to come through in the clutch and he couldn’t. To go even further on this point, I highly doubt “Romo Friendly” means that “Romo doesn’t need to throw a TD.” At some point, Romo is going to need to put the ball in the endzone as well.

Checking the Balance

Dallas ran 72 plays in Denver: 25 on the ground and 47 through the air (including 5 sacks). No typos there, we sent in a pass play 65.2% of the time. I understand that we were trailing and needed to pass in the end, but the final drive only accounted for 10 plays (all pass). Take away that drive and you are still left with 37 out of 62 (59.6%) plays going through the air. And before you ask, at the end of the second half, yes, Dallas had the ball and passed 4 out of 6 plays. Again, even taking those 6 out, you are left with 33 out of 56 plays going through the air — that’s 58.9% pass.

There was no balance at all this week.

Sure, the running game may have only gained 74 total yards and 3.0 yards/carry, but it was also how we scored our first (and only) TD. We also more or less abandoned the running game in the second half, as only 7, yes 7, running plays were run the entire half. It was clear Garrett felt the run wasn’t working and it was time to pass. Bad call.

As far as how Romo spread the ball around the field, this game marks the first time Jason Witten did not lead in targets. Patrick Crayton and Miles Austin led the team with 8 each. Williams followed with 7. Next was Choice with 6. And Witten falls all the way down to fifth/sixth option along with Hurd with 5 targets. Rounding out the day was Barber with 2 targets, Anderson with 1 and Bennett with 1.

Someone really, really needs to explain to me how Witten, one of, if not the favorite target of Romo didn’t see the ball coming his way more often, especially since…

Messing with the Champ?!

…we threw in Champ Bailey’s direction 13 times?! I don’t care which direction the play is meant to be called, if Champ is hanging around that area, unless he is completely burned, you just flat out don’t test your luck more than a handful of times. Just let this sink into your head a little bit further: when Romo threw, he went in Champ’s direction more than 1 out of every 4 times (27.6% to be exact). There are just no words for how dumb that is.

So the question is do I blame Romo or Garrett here? The answer is both. Garrett for not trying to mix plays up to get main receivers off of Champ and/or call more plays to Witten. Romo gets the blame for challenging Bailey that often. You have check down routes for a reason which is why I’m even more surprised that Witten didn’t have the ball come his way more often. Even more inexcusable is Romo challenging Champ on the two most crucial plays at the end of the game…with Hurd as his option to go against him.

That’s right, throw to your #4 receiver against one of the top CBs in all of football twice to try to win. Not smart.

The Verdict

It’s pretty simple: failing marks across the board.

This game was an offensive disaster. We weren’t even close to balanced or effective. Romo also looked horrendous and made awful decisions on top of poor throws (just ask Williams how his ribs are feeling when he was hung out to dry).

I’m not sure what the solution is to this thing, but it is clear that the running game needs to be getting 5-6 yards/carry for Garrett to even considering running the ball. He is clearly in love with the pass and this game absolutely takes the cake on that end.

To top it all off, Romo just looks plain lost. The only exception was the one play that even gave the Cowboys a chance Sunday and that was the long gain by Hurd. Romo went back to instincts there — I’m screaming “run for the first!” and Romo scrambles around just enough to find Hurd wide open. Not only does Romo find him, but he hits him in stride. Perhaps it may be just time to tell Romo to stop thinking so much in the pocket and trust his gut. I’d much rather have the gunslinging mentality over what I’m seeing right now.

I’m starting to get the feeling that whatever “Romo Friendly” gameplan that is being put in place is becoming the furthest thing from it. Save for torching an awful Tampa Bay team, nothing has really clicked this season like it should. If this current trend continues, I expect a very, very long season for Romo and company on the offensive side of the ball.

Thank God we play the Chiefs next week.

Last we left the “Romo Friendly” offense, Romo found himself in anything but a friendly situation. I more or less blasted Garret for being rather stubborn and trying to continue passing the ball when Romo was having a less than stellar outing, all while the running game was clicking on all cylinders. Did Garrett learn from his mistakes last week? Did we have an actual return to “Romo Friendly” territory? And of course, most importantly, how effective was the offense on Monday night? Let’s dive into Monday night’s game and find out.

Just How “Romo Friendly” Were We?

Romo had a rather pedestrian night going 22/33 for 255 yards and also had 22 rushing yards on 5 scrambles. Romo threw for zero TDs, but he also did not turn the ball over. It wasn’t a night to write home about for sure, but he did his job and didn’t hurt the team. One of the supposed benefits to having a “Romo Friendly” offense was to not force Tony into a position to where he had to win the game for the team win after week. So in that regard, mission accomplished.

Checking the Balance

On 67 total plays, the Cowboys ran the ball 32 times. 35 pass plays were called with 2 resulting in sacks. That’s a 52.2% pass percentage. Keeping in mind though that 5 of those rushes were from Romo on passing plays, this bumps the ratio up a bit. Moving 5 rushing attempts to pass plays, that leaves us with 27 called rush plays and 40 called pass plays, making the percentage 59.7% pass plays called. While the ending stats will show more balance, overall we leaned on the pass very heavily Monday night.

Jason Witten again lead all receivers with 9 targets (Romo also completed all 9 passes to him). Roy Williams and Tashard Choice followed with 7 targets. Crayton was the third option with 4 targets. Rounding out the night was Bennett with 3 targets and Miles Austin and Felix Jones each having a single target in the game.

Overall, the ball distribution was much better this time around. If you remember the previous week, Tony only had two top options and not really a solid third option in the game as far as targets went. This time around, Tony had three solid options; furthermore, one of those solid options was Roy Williams this time around. This was a nice change from last week in which Williams only saw as many passes as Bennett did.

However, this isn’t to say Romo was always able to find the open man every play. The most egregious of his errors was missing a wide open Jason Witten (ironically enough) by the end zone on the first drive of the game. He was literally standing inside the 5 yard-line with no defenders within a few yards around him. If you remember, this drive later ended on a missed field goal by Nick Folk, not exactly a great start. The only other play that I noted Romo missed a receiver was when he missed an open Roy Williams late in the third quarter; however, he did find a wide open Choice on a dump route once the window to throw to Williams closed on him.

Overall, it was a very well-balanced game from Romo when he passed the ball. He was far from perfect, but avoided any major mistakes that would’ve hurt the Cowboys.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

I feel it is time Garrett really needs to use the K.I.S.S. principle when calling plays. Nearly 60% pass plays called is just mind boggling when you are averaging 6.6 yards/carry in the rushing game for a 212 yard total. As a point of reference, we were gaining 6.8 yards per passing play with a 237 yard total. Why call so many passes?

Granted, Carolina was basically daring Garrett to call passing plays as they spent the majority of the game in a cover 1 defense and leaving everyone in single coverage. However, despite the fact Carolina was clearly selling out for the run, we were still able to run the ball. That’s when you know you should be dominating a game via the run in my opinion. They simply could not it, and that is when you simply continue to pound the ball down their throats. Of course, you will need to mix it up, and that’s when a play action pass would open up the field in a big way (especially against a majority cover 1/single coverage defense). Oddly enough, Garrett called very few deep shots in the game despite this.

If Carolina’s defense succeeded anywhere, it was suckering Garrett into continuously going away from the strength of the offense which was the run.

Garrett also needs to apply the K.I.S.S. principle with the type of plays he is calling. The majority of our running plays were draws. While Romo does a superb job of faking the pass, I wonder what the need is to have this called basically every single run. If you catch people off balance, great, but you also leave yourself open to a blown-up play in the backfield if the defense doesn’t bite on the pass fake. In short, Garrett is getting far too cute with the play calls and the draws are just one example of it. It is great to keep a defense off balance, but you can run plays for the simple reason that you know they can’t stop it.

For further examples of getting cute, let’s take a look at our goal line situations. Our first trip down there, from the one yard line, we line up in a 3-wide, shotgun formation…and run a draw. Why we didn’t line up with at least a 2-TE set and run the ball on a simple dive is beyond me. Surely Garrett doesn’t think we can’t get a single yard when our rushing game has been dominate lately. When the Cowboys finally did get in the end zone, it was on a run by Tashard Choice for 5 yards on a shotgun draw (what a surprise, I guess if you do it enough, it works). Then on the last trip to the goal line, again on the one yard line, we run two fade routes that fall incomplete and end up with a FG. And that was after Choice fought for 3 yards on a great second effort run, aka, exactly the kind of run you want by the goal line. Again, Garrett doesn’t believe we can get one yard there on two runs, does he?

Then we also have the 2nd and 28 play call that was a draw. Of all the times Garrett does not call a pass, I find it very odd it wasn’t here.

Why get so cute with the play calling? We can clearly run the ball whenever we want to at this point and I’m not sure why we take a finesse approach to it. Garrett seems to be in love with the draw play as well as the pass. My fear is that the better defenses in the league will quickly pick up on this and stuff what has been to this point a very good running game by the Cowboys. If the running game starts to fail, I fear the rest of the “Romo Friendly” offense will soon go with it. I believe this line can perform just fine with a traditional power running attack, especially down in goal line situations and I hope Garrett will start to realize that soon.

The Verdict

As far as balance goes, we were great across the board; however, as far as effectiveness goes, I have to give failing or near failing marks to the offense. Only being able to score a single TD against a sub-par offense is inexcusable; furthermore, going 1/3 in red zone attempts against said sub-par makes things even worse. Seeing these results when you have 37:04 time of possession and 449 total yards is just mind boggling. How the Cowboys were able to flat-out dominate the Panthers and not walk out of Cowboys Stadium with a blowout is absolutely beyond me.

Week 2 vs. New York Giants

Week 2 had to happen and make us wonder what in the hell Romo and Garrett were thinking. Romo went from his best day as a Cowboy to probably his worst going 13/29 for 127 yards and he threw 3 INTs. Oh boy, this was a mess…anyways, let’s try to find out just where things went wrong here and how “Romo Friendly” became “Romo Hell”.

In 58 plays, the Cowboys passed 29 times and ran the ball 29 times. A perfect 50/50 distribution — the balance that “Romo Friendly” should have constantly been looking for right? Well, I question the need to try to continuously pass when Barber has 124 yards on 18 carries (6.9 yds/carry) and Felix Jones has 96 yards on 7 carries (13.7 yds/carry); in fact the entire rushing offense had 8.7 yds/carry and 15 of 23 first downs were made on the ground…actually forget averages, in the entire game the Cowboys nearly doubled their passing yards on the ground with a 251 yard total (remember, Romo had 127 yards through the air).

This is definitely one of those cases where you just say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and continue running the ball down the Giants throat until they prove they can stop you. Now, of course, you are going to have to pass to keep them honest, but when your QB is throwing with 44% accuracy for the game (ouch…), that might be a good time to hitch your wagon to the two horses that are Barber and Jones. Even when Barber went down, there is no reason you couldn’t then try to rely on Jones and Choice as well.

The offense may have been balanced, but apparently as of week 2, “Romo Friendly” doesn’t exactly adapt to the game on the field. Garret seemed determined to jam the square peg through the round hole by continuing to call pass plays when his QB is struggling. Don’t get me wrong, Romo is not absolved from having a bad game, but having a coach not adapt doesn’t help either.

Tunnel Vision

Speaking of Romo, he had a ever so slight case of tunnel vision in my opinion. There were several plays in which he failed to see wide open receivers, and his ball distribution seems to support this a bit. Witten and Crayton led in targets with 7. After that, the drop off is far more severe than last week, when Romo had a clear third option with just one less target. This week the third option was a tie between Roy Williams and Martellus Bennett with 4 targets each. Hurd and Barber each had 2 targets and Jones, Choice and Austin all had 1 target each.

While many different receivers were targeted, it is a little odd that you only looked your primary receiver’s way as much as your second TE. I don’t expect Williams to always lead in the targets category, but when Romo struggles like this it does make me wonder just a little bit. Being at the game and seeing Williams wide open on a couple of busted plays doesn’t help his cause either.

The Verdict

There are no two ways about it: Week 2 was an offensive disaster and the play calling was hardly what I’d call “Romo Friendly”. If the goal of the offense is to put Romo in better spots and help him out, then Garret gets a solid F.

Whatever the case, let’s wake up and have a little reality check, shall we? We need to see the Terrell Owens situation with a little more objectivity. Was TO a problem in the locker room? Maybe. Yeah, probably. He probably wasn’t the best leader for unifying the team. He definitely was a leader, though. Let’s not kid ourselves. Owens had a following, and he had influence. That means he was a leader.

Tony Romo, on the other hand, hasn’t shown us any sort of leadership on or off the field that should instill confidence in the fans, coaches, or teammates. Who’s got Tony’s back? He needs more than Jason Witten on his side.

Look, it’s been said on the radio, but it needs to be repeated: Michael Irvin was an obnoxious leader on the team in the ’90s, and Troy Aikman still led the team without question. Your quarterback needs to lead, and that’s not something that can be taught. It can be learned by spending copious amounts of time near a good leader, though. We absorb this kind of stuff by spending time with and learning from people. We absorb the essence of people’s attitudes when we spend quality time with them.

So Tony apparently has no role model near enough to rub off on him. So there’s really only one shot: ditch TO and hope that a season of hard won success will help Romo earn the team’s respect and help him feel comfortable in the leadership role. I’m drawing from Colt McCoy’s experience at the University of Texas on this one. Yes, it’s college. But Colt was definitely NOT respected his first year at QB and he won that respect by working hard and fighting for every extra yard on the field. McCoy returned to the field the next year with a newfound confidence and take charge attitude.

That’s what we need to see here in Dallas. Let Tony scratch and claw his way through a season without any major locker room upheavals. Then, MAYBE the following year he can return a new man, full of confidence and take-charge attitude that the Cowboys desperately need.

And if not, Romo will go down in NFL history as a so-so quarterback who disappointed everyone.

While the Rams organization may be impervious to all this hype, it at least forces Jim Haslett and Rick Venturi to at least plan for QB both options: a mobile scrambling play maker, or a pocket passer care taker. That should give the Cowboys some edge early in the game.

I doubt that Romo plays, even though he may take a few snaps. As former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer detailed on ESPN, Romo has a circular motion that places torque on the ball, with a lot of control being imposed by the pinkie, as opposed to a raised motion which pulls the ball and relies very little on the pinkie.

Also worthy of consideration are how will the injury impact such fundamental activities such as hand offs and snaps? Romo developed a penchant for fumbling this season when he had both hands healthy. And what if a snap is errant or hand off gets botched and it compounds the injury to the pinkie. Instead of four weeks are we looking at IR?

This we know: right now Tony is out four weeks. The season is not a complete wash even if they lose three games and have a record of 4-5. Realistically Dallas could be 5-4 when Tony returns and the Cowboys travel to Washington. We need to win the divisional games more than we need to win against the West and South. But the spin on ‘whose your starter’ is off the chain.