There is no doubt that if you have follow the Cowboys in pretty much any capacity, you have heard the term “Romo Friendly” thrown around more than once as the new offensive philosophy for the Cowboys. Of course though, we all got very little info on what that term actually meant as descriptions were cryptic to say the least.

The general consensus is that “Romo Friendly” likely refers to a more balanced offensive attack than previous years.

How unbalanced were we in the past? Well, I was curious on this myself, and in a post on my blog, I broke down the amount of pass and run plays we ran. What I discovered was that since the Romo/Wade/Garrett era (starting in 2006), we’ve become more dependent on the pass, going from 51.7% pass plays in 2006, to 55.9% pass in 2007, and finally 57.7% last season.

So the question is, will this “Romo Friendly” offense truly show us balance this season? Will the absence of T.O. led to a better distribution of the ball? And most importantly, will this “Romo Friendly” offense even be effective this season? Every week this season, I will break down the “Romo Friendly” offense to the best of my ability. Obviously, we are now two weeks into this young season, so prepare for a special double dose of analysis in this weeks entry.

Week 1 @ Tampa Bay

If we want to go with pure results, the offense was most definitely clicking against the Bucs, whom definitely looked like a shell of themselves. “Romo Friendly” must have been an understatement this week as Romo had a career day going 16/27 for 353 yards, 2 TDs, and most importantly 0 turnovers.

As far as balance goes, the Cowboys went to the air 27 times and ran the ball 24 times (one of these rushes was a Romo scramble). That’s 52.9% pass for the 51 plays in the game. Not a bad balance at all to say the least; however, after the end of this game, I was left wondering on what the spread of plays would’ve looked like had the Bucs defense not given up three gigantic pass plays.

For our passing plays, Romo seemed to be spreading the ball all around the field. Roy Williams and Jason Witten tied for the team lead in times targeted by Romo with 7 each. Crayton followed right behind the pair with 6 targets. Bennett, Choice, and Austin all received two targets from Romo. Anderson rounded out the day by receiving a single toss his way. While Romo obviously had his favorites (and every QB does), he definitely made it clear Tampa was going to have to cover the entire field.

Another interesting note from this game were the new formations that the Cowboys displayed. While the Wildcat is obviously en vogue right now in the NFL and isn’t such a big shock, since Bennett like up as a WR several different times was definitely a surprise. If you happen to have any DVR footage of the game, just watch as the DBs for Tampa were scrambling to figure out just how in the world they were going to cover the giant that was all of a sudden lining up on the outside. Not only did this create a constant mismatch for Bennett, but it also created mismatches for the rest of our WR on the field, which I believe helped out in some of the major defensive lapses that Tampa suffered from.

So verdict from week 1 is all is well! This “Romo Friendly” offense is amazing!!! Well…

Stay tuned for Week 2′s verdict tomorrow.

Similar Posts:

• The Romo Friendly Offense: Week 2
• The “Romo Friendly” Offense – Week 4 vs Denver
• Romo Friendly Offense: Week 7 vs Atlanta
• Romo Friendly Offense Kills the Playoff Drought
• The “Romo Friendly” Offense – Week 3 vs Carolina