The Cowboys definitely made me eat my words this past Sunday. The Cowboys were flat out dominant against the Eagles in round two of their three round bout. For the most part, the worries I had last week about the lack of execution that plagued the Washington effort were not to be found this time around. Last week I felt like the Cowboys were fortunate to have a great defensive effort. This week I felt like they could not be stopped.

While I will go through my usual breakdown of last week’s game, I will also take a look forward to Saturday’s final showdown against the Eagles. We now have two games of offensive data against the Eagles to take a look at as well as an entire season’s worth of information. Armed with this information, I will give you my “Romo Friendly” keys to a Cowboys victory.

There’s a lot to run through this week, so let’s get started.

Just How “Romo Friendly” Were We?

Tony Romo ended the season unlike any other in his career. Instead of limping to the finish line, Romo went 24/34 (70.6%) for 311 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT. Romo once again went over the 300 yard plateau and save for one unfortunate red zone INT, had a very solid performance.

This game allowed Romo to put a cleat to the throat of the “December swoon” gorilla that has been clutched to his back these past few seasons. In the final five games of the season, Romo went 131/191 (68.6%), for 1,550 yards, 9 TDs, and only 2 INTs, leading to a QB rating of 104.4. These five games have lead to Romo’s best month by far. The only stat in which he feel short of any month was INTs, as he threw only 1 in October (however, he played 2 less games in that month).

Even more surprising was that Romo was able to do this while being sacked 9 times in the past five games, which was only second to his November sack numbers of 14. This is significant because it completely blows my theory of “Romo is awful when he is sacked a lot” out of the water as November and December/January were easily his best stretches of football.

Simply put, Romo has figured it out despite the performance of his line or the month the calendar reads.

Checking the Balance

The Cowboys ran 68 plays this past Sunday against the Eagles; however, 3 of those were Romo taking a knee to kill the clock, so we will exclude those this week. With that in mind, Jason Garrett dialed up 29 runs and 36 passes, resulting in a pass play being called 55.4% of the time. Once again, we called a very balanced game and stayed within the sweet spot of upper-50 to mid-60% passing that seems to have been working so well for us. There are absolutely no complaints from me in this department.

In the targets department though, we seem to have a repeat of a very shocking development that started last week with everyone’s favorite stone-handed receiver. However, that wasn’t the only trend that continued. Romo top targets were once again Miles Austin and Jason Witten whom saw 9 and 7 throws go their way respectively. Patrick Crayton stepped up as Romo’s third option having 6 targets on the day (and he made the most of them, leading the Cowboys in receiving yards on the day with 99 on just 4 catches). Marion Barber followed with 4 balls coming his way. Fellow RB, Felix Jones, was the fifth option with 3 targets. John Phillips was next in liine with 2 targets. Rounding out the day was the trio of Kevin Ogletree, Martellus Bennett, and Roy E. Williams with a single pass being thrown each of their ways.

That’s right, Romo once again completely cut Roy Williams out of the offense. After that single pass, the camera had a telling replay of Romo’s face. His expression spoke volumes, and looked to say “well, here we go again, I gave you a shot and you completely screwed it up, no more for you.” Save for pump fakes going Roy’s direction, Romo didn’t even bother thinking about throwing the ball his way and Roy saw as many passes come his way as a TE and a WR that are quite low on the depth chart.

Sure wish we had those draft picks back…

Anyways, Romo did his job spreading the ball and making life miserable for the Eagles secondary. He threw the ball to nine different targets and seven of them recorded receptions (only Bennett and Williams failed to record a reception). You can’t ask for much more than that.

The Verdict

This NFC East Championship effort was exactly the kind of offensive effort I look for from the Cowboys. Romo had yet another solid game and our rushing game helped to compliment it as Barber and Jones each had 91 yards to their credit. The Cowboys made great use of all of their offensive weapons and kept the Eagles defense off balance all game long.

Not only was the Eagle’s defense off balance, but they were also constantly on the field. While that is of course a testament to superb defensive play, you don’t hold the ball for over 40 minutes in a game without some great game planning and play calling. And when you face an offense that can strike quick like the Eagles, the more they are off the field, the better.

“Romo Friendly” Keys to Victory

So now that we have taken a look at how the Cowboys were able to emerge victorious, how can the Cowboys ensure a three game sweep over the Eagles to get their first playoff win in 13 years?

First, let’s take a look on how the season ended up for us as far as balance goes. Overall, the Cowboys ran 1020 plays on the season with 436 on the ground and 584 called passes. This equates to a 57.2% rate of pass plays being called on the season. There is no doubt that we do lean to the pass to find our success, which has been one of the main reasons I have been saying for quite a while now that our “sweet spot” is somewhere between mid-50 to low-60% pass being called.

But does that number really have merit? Let’s consider our losses this season. In the five games the Cowboys have lost, the Cowboys ran 326 plays, with 118 being runs and 208 being called passes, leading to a total of 63.8% pass being called in the losses. While that does seem to be close to the “sweet spot” I initially claimed we had to hit, we need to consider that one of those losses did see a decent balance in play calling. That game was against the Giants in week 2 in which we were a perfect 50% split. If you remember though, turnovers were our doom in that game (although, I did later say <http://www.dallasprosports.com/the-romo-friendly-offense-week-2/> that with our success on the ground, I wondered why we bothered even passing). So without that loss in the equation, our passing rate then gets bumped up to 66.8%, which is definitely far too high and clearly outside the “sweet spot” boundary.

However, while this is all well and good, what of the games against the Eagles? What did those two wins look like?

We’ve seen that Dallas had a rather balanced attack this past week; however, in week 9 at Philly, Dallas actually leaned quite heavily on Romo with a final pass rate of 62.3%, which, as I noted <http://www.dallasprosports.com/romo-friendly-offense-week-9-vs-philadelphia/> , was one of the biggest leans on Romo that actually lead to a Cowboys victory. However, that passing rate still falls within the upper end of the “sweet spot” I feel we need to stay within.

The lesson from our losses should be loud and clear: we must remain balanced. Garrett deciding to go pass happy will spell our doom. Even though we can pass more than 60% and still find success, if you will remember the week 9 effort against the Eagles was quite a hard fought battle and did not come nearly as easily this last victory did. So with that being said, for the Cowboys to find success, I want to see a passing rate between 55-60%. As blitz happy as the Eagles will be, we will need to protect Romo and a great way to do that (as well as counter blitzes) will be to ensure we run the ball.

The other key to the game should be fairly obvious to everyone: Romo needs to play well. In both wins against the Eagles, Romo threw for over 300 yards and only turned the ball over once in each game; in fact, everyone should be pulling for yet another 300+ yard performance from him. Romo is 7-1 when he throws for over 300 yards and 4-4 when he goes sub 300. Romo also must ensure he protects the ball. Romo has only three games in which he has turned the ball over more than once; however, he is 0-3 in those efforts.

The final key to the game is the red zone. While, the Cowboys have been successful against the Eagles despite red zone woes, I definitely feel like this must change. In the two games against the Eagles, the ‘Boys have been 3/7 in the red zone and 1/3 in goal to go situations. While those subpar statistics have yet to spell our doom against Philly thus far, we are in the playoffs and red zone failures can easily lead to disaster. The Cowboys simply cannot leave points on the board in any fashion, and the difference between a red zone FG and TD is huge, especially considering our kicker woes all season.

To summarize, the “Romo Friendly” Keys to the Game:

1) Balance: Pass rate must fall within a sweet spot of 55-60%
2) Romo: 300+ could be a clincher; however, more than one Romo turnover will likely spell doom
3) Red Zone: Cowboys need to convert more red zone opportunities and not leave easy points on the board.

Similar Posts:

• Romo Friendly Offense Kills the Playoff Drought
• Romo Friendly Offense: Week 7 vs Atlanta
• Rating the Romo Friendly Offense on Thanksgiving
• Romo Friendly Offense Hits the Wall
• The Romo Friendly Offense – Manning Up Against New Orleans