However, stories of future Trojan sanctions and Kiffykins’ special “recruiting methods” will have to wait for another time and be written on in another place. It’s time to get back to work, break down the Cowboys offense and see what lead to our team’s first postseason victory in 13 long years.

Throughout the regular season, my goal was to analyze just exactly what the “Romo Friendly” offense means. Last week was the culmination of all of that research, allowing me to isolate the most important aspects of the Cowboys offense and come up with the three “Romo Friendly” keys to victory. This week, we will take a look at each key and see how well the Cowboys did in achieving each one. Based on this analysis, I will judge the validity of these three keys and see if they need to be changed for this Sunday’s matchup against the Vikings.

Key #1: Play Calling Balance

For this key, I said the Cowboys offense needed to stay within the lower end of what I determined was the “sweet spot” of pass plays being called: 55-60%. While the Cowboys have found success staying around the lower 60-percentile of pass plays in a game, I felt the rushing attack needed to be featured more prominently than usual based on the success the Cowboy have had against the Eagles on the ground and also the fact a solid running game would keep the quick strike offense off the field.

In round three against the Eagles, the Cowboys ran a total of 72 plays with 35 being runs and 37 coming through the air. This means we had an incredibly low rate of 51% pass for the entire game, which was even lower than I was expecting. However, digging a little bit deeper into the game, I realized the Cowboys did most of their damage in the first half of this game and understandably went very ground heavy in the second half.

So to get a better idea of Garret’s initial game plan, I did some additional analysis. I took a look at all the drives before the two minute warning. I choose this point for two reasons. First, the Cowboys were able to put up a sizable 24-7 lead at that point. Second, running a drive in the two minute drill means nothing but passing as a necessity (and in that drive the Cowboys were indeed 100% pass) and fails to give a good picture of the gameplan Garret had. With this in mind, the Cowboys ran 40 plays in that period of time with 16 rushes and 24 pass plays being called. This leads to a total of 60% pass plays being run in the first half pre-two minute drill, falling quite perfectly into the upper bound that I had set in my “Romo Friendly” key.

Garret came into the game with the perfect game plan. Key #1 was definitely achieved.

Key #2: Tony Romo

Last week, I found out that Tony Romo had two big statistical figures pop out. First was that he was 7-1 when he passes for over 300 yards, but more importantly Romo was 0-3 whenever he turned the ball over more than once in a game. With that in mind, for this key it was absolutely critical that Romo not turn the ball over more than once, and that getting over 300 yards would likely be a clincher in this game.

The result: Romo went 23/35 (65.7) for 244 yards and 2 TDs. More importantly, Romo did not turn over the ball at all. While Romo had a sub-300 yard game, as with the play balance, this should be taken in better context as the Cowboys clearly went more conservative in the second half. Romo’s numbers definitely reflect this as Romo threw the ball 27 times in the first half for 203 of his 244 yards. It’s quite hard to grab those 97 yards in the second half when you only throw the ball 8 more times.

The point here is that while Romo didn’t hit the 300 yard mark, it could be argued that if the Cowboys didn’t call of the dogs, he could’ve easily hit that mark. However, no matter which way you slice it, Romo didn’t turn the ball over at all and that was easily the bigger part of this key in my eyes. Needless to say, key #2 was also very much achieved.

Key #3: Red Zone

For this key, I didn’t really give exact numbers; however, I didn’t want to see the repeated woeful red zone efforts that had plagued much of the Cowboys season, especially against the Eagles. The mantra for this key was more or less to not leave a ton of points on the field.

This time around, the Cowboys were converted 3 of their 6 red zone visits into TDs. All three TDs came in “goal to go” situations, in which the Cowboys finished 3/4. Even more encouraging is the fact that the Cowboys were able to get points in all “goal to go” situations as the only failure resulted in a field goal. The other two red zone failures, however, did not result in points and penalties were to blame. While one of these failures came in the fourth quarter when it didn’t matter, the first failure came on the first drive for Dallas. Instead of getting points to start the game, the Cowboys were forced to punt.

Thankfully, that did not come back to haunt the Cowboys; however, it remains a very big point of concern going forward. Getting points on the board early is always a great boost and, when on the road, can silence a crowd.

For the most part, key #3 was a success.

The Verdict

The Cowboys hit perfectly on the first two “Romo Friendly” keys and did a very good job in following the third key. It is no surprised to me that the Cowboys were not able to win, but win easily against the Eagles because of this. Based on this success, I feel it is safe to say that these three “Romo Friendly” keys will again need to be followed when the Cowboys travel up north to Minnesota.

The only addendum that I wish to add is to the third key of scoring while in the red zone. Considering the Cowboys are going to be in quite the hostile environment, the first time they sniff the red zone they must score a touchdown. Preferably, this will happen on the first couple Cowboy possessions to take the crowd out of the game fast. The Cowboys simply cannot afford to leave the door open for Brett Favre and company by failing to put 7 points on the board. This will only feed a hostile crowd and it would also have the potential to make the Cowboys dig their way out of a hole they shouldn’t have been in to start.

So, to refresh, the three “Romo Friendly” keys to become NFC Title game bound:

1) Balance: Gameplan must be within the bounds of 55-60% pass.
2) Romo: Critical that he does not turn the ball over more than once and must shoot for the 300 yard plateau.
3) Red Zone: Must score points when in the red zone and it’s critical that the Cowboys turn their first red zone visit into a TD

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.

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.

I’ve heard some radio personalities this week say that Philip Rivers is playing like the best NFL quarterback in the league right now. Let’s just stop right there and call BS. I don’t care what he’s done lately. He hasn’t done what Peyton or Brees have done this year.

But let’s give Rivers his due. His team is 9-3. That’s the record we hoped the Cowboys would have going into this week’s matchup.

Most fans and analysts alike see the Chargers and the Saints as both the biggest challenges and the biggest litmus tests of the quality of this Cowboys team. You can play your heart out against a rival and lose because they’re slightly more amped up than you are. But throw in an top notch AFC opponent with no emotional strings and you’ll see just what Wade Phillips’ team is really made of.

If you watch ESPN.com videos and pay attention to what national media people think, let me save you some time and tell you that they’re mostly idiots. Yes, San Diego has won 15 straight in December. Yes, Dallas has lost far more than its won in December. But these are the moments when the national media hangs their hats on irrelevant stats because they have no actual expertise on the subject at hand. They know a little about a lot of teams.

So don’t be discouraged when Mark Schlereth says the Cowboys “fold like crepe paper in December.” He’s trying to sound smart about a team he doesn’t pay enough attention to, so he’s going with the cheap and easy gimmicky statements.

The Cowboys may lose to the Chargers. They may even lose the majority of their games in December and miss the playoffs. But if they do, it’s not because the Cowboys “can’t win” in December. It will be because the Cowboys aren’t a very solid team and they lack reliable players on the team who can carry the team in a crunch. It all goes back to leadership.

Of course the Cowboys players themselves think they have plenty of leadership. When a person is blind, they don’t see the problem in front of them. A blindspot is a blindspot because you don’t see it. Deep, I know.

I think the Cowboys’ cornerbacks have a fight ahead of them. They face larger wide receivers than they’re used to, and Terrence Newman may not play, only making the situation more dire. Dallas has an above average pass rush, and a legitimate run defense. The question is whether Cowboys receivers can burn the Chargers secondary and keep the score close.

So if you’re going to pick the Chargers to win, pick them for the RIGHT reason. Pick them because of the receiver / cornerback mismatch. Pick them because Philip Rivers has a will to win that we can only wish Romo had. But don’t pick ‘em because of some stupid December statistic.

Go Cowboys!

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.

Just How “Romo Friendly” Were We?

Romo had a fantastic game going 18/29 for 309 yards for 2 TDs, no turnovers and one rush to his credit for a yard loss. There was just simply no doubt about it, Romo was on and clicking this week on the offense. He was able to get over the 300 yard mark by completing less than 20 passes which is just incredible. Romo also made the needed decisions to not turn the ball over, save for one comedic play in which Oakland failed to get an INT by colliding into each other.

All in all though, you simply cannot complain about Romo’s performance in this game.

Checking the Balance

The Cowboys ran a total of 56 plays with 25 of those being rushes, resulting in a pass play being called 55.3% of the time. We seem to have returned to the sweet-spot of majority pass, but not overloading on it. We’ve seen the best performances by the offense reside around 55-60% or so and this game follows that norm. The running game was also allowed to be an essential part of this game as it torched the Raiders for 195 yards, resulting in 7.8 yards/carry.

Once again, no complaints in this area.

In the targeting department, we have a shorter list than usual as only six players saw the ball thrown there way. Miles Austin lead all receivers on the day with 11 targets. Jason Witten followed with 8. Roy Williams was the third option with 4 targets. Running Backs, Marion Barber and Felix Jones, were right behind with 3 and 2 targets respectively. Finally, Patrick Crayton rounded out the day with a single pass thrown his way.

So not a whole lot of impressive spreading of the ball around as we’ve seen in previous weeks in which eight to ten receivers would see the ball come their way. However, I still can’t complain about this spread, especially when five of the six players thrown to were able to record receptions.

Again, well done.

Numbers Don’t Lie

I need to channel Chad Ochocinco for this section title.

If you had any doubt that the Cowboys were completely dominate on the offensive side on the ball, plenty of stats can be tossed in your direction to ensure all doubt is erased. Besides Romo’s 300 yard game, the Cowboys also had two receivers over 100 yards on the day: Miles and Witten. Our three-headed monster at running back all had 60+ yard efforts. We gained 8.8 yards/play throughout the entire game (just think about that number for a bit). We were 2/2 in “goal to go” situations and only had one Red Zone chance shot in the foot due to a horrible penalty (however, we still got a FG).

There is just no other way to slice it, the offense was flat-out impressive.

The Verdict

The verdict for this game is simple, everyone had a solid hand in making this game an absolute field day for the offense. The play calling was well balanced, Romo had a great game, the running attack plowed through at full force, and the receiving corps had a very solid effort.

Simply put, you can’t ask for much more than that.

This was a great way to end the month; however, every Cowboys fan knows what is looming: December. Not only is this the usual time of the year that everything seems to fail, but this stretch of games is going to be the toughest without a season without a doubt. With games at the Giants, against the Eagles, and at New Orleans, this offense is going to be put to a true test.

It’s time to see who is up for it and if Romo can get that December Swoon monkey (that has turned into a gorilla) off his back.