Sunday’s game is easily the most confusing and frustrating game that I have broken down all season. Throughout the year, it has been fairly easy to point out the offensive shortcomings that have caused this team to fail in their losses. However, as we all will soon see in this week’s breakdown, the story is not so clear at all. The theories, axioms, and recipes for success that I have hung my hat on all season have been shaken to the core.

Taking a Step Back

Before we move on to the game though, I think it is prudent to take a look at where we came from. This is of course, the time of the dreaded December swoon. As I stated in my first article in this series, I had a theory that one of the main issues our offense faced was increased reliance on the passing game. While that unbalanced play scheme was part of my theory, as I detailed in my blog, another part of the theory was that sacks also continued to increase as the year went on.

As far as balance goes this season, before this game, the Cowboys ran 672 plays. 288 of these have been runs and 384 have been passes, leaving us with 57.1% pass calls being called. Compare this to last season in which we ran 57.7% pass, and 2007 (our best season in the Romo era, and best December: 2-2) which saw 55.9% pass. It would seem that thus far, we were trending slightly back towards more balance in our play calling.

As far as sacks go, this season we saw 3 sacks in September, 8 in October, and 14 in November. Not a good trend to say the least. Compare this to 2008 in which we saw 2 sacks in September, 4 in October, and 1 in November. December that season? A horrific 12 sacks. In the successful 2007 campaign, the sacks were recorded 6, 5, 5, and 8 respectively.

Checking the Balance

So with all that in mind, how did the first outing in December fair against those previous numbers?

Answer: Not good at all.

The Cowboys ran 80 plays against the Giants, and only 23 were runs, leading to 71.25% pass for the entire game. Yes, we completely abandoned the run yet again. It wasn’t like we had much success running the ball though, considering we only had 45 rushing yards for the entire game, resulting in just under 2 yards/carry. Considering the Cowboys were also playing catchup for most of the second half, the gross imbalance isn’t all too surprising.

The defensive game plan for the Giants was clear: make Romo beat you and stuff the run.

This game bumped up our current balance in play calling to 58.6% this season, which thus far is the highest of the Romo/Garrett era. Again, another disturbing pattern if this continues throughout the month.

As far as sacks go, the line gave up two in the entire game. Nothing too alarming as of yet, as that pace would put us at eight sacks for December. While that number isn’t great, it would actually be an improvement from November and equal the number of December sacks in the 2007 season.

In the targets department, Romo spread the ball out to nine different receivers and eight of them recorded a reception. Jason Witten by and far led the day with 16. Miles Austin and Roy E. Williams were close behind with 12 and 10 respectively. A large drop-off then occurs as Marion Barber followed with 5 targets. Felix Jones was next with 4 targets. Martellus Bennett had 3 passes thrown his way. Patrick Crayton saw two targets on the day, and finally, Tashard Choice and John Phillips rounded out the day with a single target each.

Romo did a fine job in this department once again. Three clear top targets and forcing the Giants to cover everybody.

So Wait…Where We “Romo Friendly”

Shockingly, yes, we were very “Romo Friendly”. Usually in games such as these, Romo doesn’t preform all too well; however, this time around Romo went 41/55 (74.5%) for 392 yards and 3 TDs. Romo also had zero turnovers on the day. To say the least, Romo had a fantasy football owner’s dream in this game.

Romo’s 14 incompletions weren’t too awful either. The only real fault you can pin on him in this game was missing a very wide open Roy Williams towards the end of the game. However, keep in mind, completing that pass would have only tied the game at that time.

The fact of the matter is that Romo flat out did not lose this game for the Cowboys and it is absolutely impossible to place blame on a guy that threw for nearly 400 yards and 3 TDs.

So Uh…Something HAD to Have Gone Wrong…Right?

I really tried to find something here. However, save for the Marion Barber fumble that ended up turning into a New York TD, there isn’t anything at all. Every stat reads as if it was a Cowboys blowout.

The Cowboys had the ball for 38:50, nearly doubling up the Giants T.O.P of 21:10. The Cowboys had 27 first downs to the Giants 15. 3rd down conversions weren’t the problem either as the Cowboys went 9/17 (52%). Even the Red Zone wasn’t too big of an issue as the Cowboys were 2/3 in that department. You can’t even blame this on penalties as the entire team only had 5 penalties for just 30 yards.

You can try to blame the running game, but the passing game more than made up for it. The Cowboys were flat out offensively dominate and there are no two ways about it.

The Verdict?!

I’d love to blame Garrett for awful play calling, but he followed the K.I.S.S. principle and went with what was working, and make no mistake about it Romo was definitely on. Romo more than made up for the lack of a running attack, and did pretty much everything he could to get the ‘Boys the victory.

So if the offensive is absolved, what in the world happened?

The fact of the matter is that the Cowboys feel victim to the Giants because of the following reasons: a costly Barber turnover cost them a TD, the defense gave up huge plays, special teams gave up a punt return for a TD, and yes, becoming a one dimensional team didn’t exactly help matters out, even if Romo was on.

When you give up 7 points on a turnover, 7 on a special teams blunder, and 7 more on a defensive brain fart, it becomes quite hard for any team to come back. That’s 21 points in the hole already (and since we are keeping score, Romo got 21 points himself through his play) and that is simply crippling.

The Cowboys were forced to go pass-happy and the Giants were ready for it. Romo had a great game, but he did so by only taking what the defense gave him and didn’t force plays down field that were well covered. It is impossible to score at a rapid pace when a defense does that to you. The Giants ensured that Romo would be the one that beat them, but furthermore, they ensured that the only way Romo could even have a chance at beating them was through passes underneath.

That’s an equation for absolute disaster and is the reason the Cowboys feel this past Sunday. The offensive performance was actually a bright side to the game if you take an in-depth look at it (despite the running game short comings); however, it was greatly dwarfed by other mistakes throughout the game.

Similar Posts:

• Rating the Romo Friendly Offense on Thanksgiving
• The Romo Friendly Offense – Manning Up Against New Orleans
• The Romo Friendly Offense: Week 2
• Grading the “Romo Friendly” Offense: Week 10 vs Green Bay
• Romo Friendly Offense: Week 7 vs Atlanta