Cowboy fans, I hope every last one of you have braced yourselves and taken cover for the wonderful storm that has hit us all. Another December game, another December loss and now the Cowboys can do no better than 2-2 this month, and that would mean knocking off undefeated New Orleans this Saturday.
Things do not look good.
Last week, the Cowboys feel victim to everything else besides the play by the offensive. This game, however, the offense was most definitely a major culprit and there was simply no doubt about it. While, yes, there were other things that went wrong in the game, it is my job to focus on what went wrong with the offense. Sadly, I have a lot of bullets to spread around this week, so let’s get started.
Just How “Romo Friendly” Were They?
Romo had a statistically decent game going 19/30, 249 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INTs. However, those stats are quite misleading. Save for leading a 99 yard TD drive, Romo was not very good at all in this game. In fact, there were three separate instances in which Romo completely lost sight of linebackers dropping into coverage, hitting said linebackers square in the hands. Somehow, those errant throws did not end up as turnovers and each of them very easily could have.
You also have to consider that the final TD drive was against a prevent defense and when the Cowboys did finally punch the ball in, it didn’t matter as there was basically no time left in the game.
The numbers may look decent, but overall, Romo did not bring his A-game at all.
Checking the Balance
The Cowboys ran a total of 58 plays, 27 of which were runs and 31 which were passing, giving the Cowboys a passing play called 53.4% of the time. Again though, these numbers are misleading. A huge chunk of these running plays all came from one very run-happy drive that ended in goal line failure. The failed drive spanned 14 plays, 13 of which were runs. Take those 14 plays away and you have 44 remaining plays and only 14 of them were runs while we passed 30 times. That would be 68.1% pass for the rest of the game.
Once again, Jason Garrett panics when he perceives that the run has failed him and knee jerks out of the run and goes back to his comfort zone with the pass. This just outright boggles my mind considering the three-headed monster combined for 4.0 yards/carry over the entire game. Once again, the run was not failing, save for an awful goal line situation, which I will address later.
As I stated last week, I wanted to compare the play calling balance to other months this season. Thus far in December the Cowboys have run 138 plays with 50 being runs and 88 being passes. That leaves us with a pass being called 63.7%, which is still quite the leap over 57.1% pass for the rest of the season. The play calling remains extremely unbalanced in the most crucial month of the season and clearly the ill effects of said strategy are showing.
However, in good news, the Cowboys only gave up one sack, which leaves us with 3 this month, keeping us out of the dangerous sack numbers we’ve seen in previous Decembers.
As far as Romo’s targets go, it was much of the same as we have seen the majority of the season. Miles Austin and Roy Williams tied for Romo’s favorite target of the day with 8 targets each. Witten followed closely behind with 7 looks his way. Patrick Crayton followed with 3 targets. Barber ended the day with 2 passes going his way. Finally, Jones and Phillips rounded out the day with 1 pass each thrown in their direction.
Once again, we have three clearly defined targets and Romo still spreading the ball around to four more. Of the seven targets that Romo threw to, six of them recorded receptions. Romo did another fine job of spreading the ball around, even if his results were less than optimal.
A Goal Line Disaster
The failed goal line attempt in the second quarter was the turning point of the entire game and very much deserves its own section an analysis. This massive failure capped off a drive in which the Cowboys were doing nothing but running the ball down San Diego’s throat. The one pass on the drive was incomplete, yet the Cowboys still amassed 61 pushing the San Diego defense up against the wall with only four yards to go, and four downs to get it.
After a heavy dose of Felix Jones, in comes the battering ram Marion Barber to get those final four. Barber gains three yards on 1st down, meaning the Cowboys now had three downs in which to just get one single, solitary yard.
Three Barber runs later, they failed and barely gained a few inches.
The entire situation is maddening and proves once and for all the Cowboys just flat out do not have a power running game at all. Any running success has been off of misdirection and draw plays. That mentality flat out doesn’t work when you need just that final yard and it comes down to which line wins the battle in the trenches. Frustrating as it may be, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the Cowboys couldn’t pound the ball in.
Even more mind boggling is the fact that our pass happy offensive coordinator didn’t even try to pass the ball once in this situation. I’m all for going old school and shoving the ball down someone’s throat, but even I was screaming “Run play action now!” on third and fourth down. Instead, we pound our heads against the wall that was the San Diego defense and turned the ball over. A Chargers’ linebacker even went on the record saying that they knew what was coming, especially on the 4th down play that saw the dual back package with Barber lined up as a fullback. The lineback said “everyone in the league knows he ain’t paid to block” and went on to say they’ve seen the formation before in film studies, knowing that the play would result in either a FB Dive or a fake FB Dive with a pitch to the outside. So, they sold out on that play call, clogging up the middle and containing the outside just in case.
Once again, Garrett feel in love with his own “genius” and was certain his little package would fool San Diego. He was dead wrong. A simple playaction pass would’ve likely given the Cowboys a better shot. Even if we wanted to use the Barber as FB package, why don’t we run a fake FB dive, fake the toss to the outside and then laugh as we have three wide open TEs in the end zone?
Seems like a such a simple solution for every armchair QB, yet Garrett seems to flat out not get it; in fact, the play action play is something that has been suspiciously lacking from our play book all season. The only play action we run is in the reverse direction in the form of draw plays. Something is seriously wrong with your offense when your best play fakes can only result in runs that barely go ten yards most of the time.
The Verdict
Blame can be tossed all over the place in this one. Garrett had his usual awful play calling, Romo didn’t have a game to write home about, the Cowboys line as a whole proved to be a pathetic pushover when crunch time hit on the one yard line, and you can even throw some daggers Barber’s way for not being able to perform in his supposed specialty.
Once again, we are on a dangerous slide in the wrong direction and it seems that the offense is not learning from history and cannot snap out of it. There are very few bright spots at all to hang my hat on at all this week and I don’t see much reason to be more hopeful for the Cowboys to be able to keep up with a high-powered New Orleans offense as well.
The December swoon is most definitely back in full swing.
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When I saw the Chargers receivers running their routes and catching passes, it became obvious who would win. The Cowboys' secondary looked like skinny midgets in comparison.
When I saw the Chargers receivers running their routes and catching passes, it became obvious who would win. The Cowboys' secondary looked like skinny midgets in comparison.
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