Week 2 vs. New York Giants
Week 2 had to happen and make us wonder what in the hell Romo and Garrett were thinking. Romo went from his best day as a Cowboy to probably his worst going 13/29 for 127 yards and he threw 3 INTs. Oh boy, this was a mess…anyways, let’s try to find out just where things went wrong here and how “Romo Friendly” became “Romo Hell”.
In 58 plays, the Cowboys passed 29 times and ran the ball 29 times. A perfect 50/50 distribution — the balance that “Romo Friendly” should have constantly been looking for right? Well, I question the need to try to continuously pass when Barber has 124 yards on 18 carries (6.9 yds/carry) and Felix Jones has 96 yards on 7 carries (13.7 yds/carry); in fact the entire rushing offense had 8.7 yds/carry and 15 of 23 first downs were made on the ground…actually forget averages, in the entire game the Cowboys nearly doubled their passing yards on the ground with a 251 yard total (remember, Romo had 127 yards through the air).
This is definitely one of those cases where you just say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and continue running the ball down the Giants throat until they prove they can stop you. Now, of course, you are going to have to pass to keep them honest, but when your QB is throwing with 44% accuracy for the game (ouch…), that might be a good time to hitch your wagon to the two horses that are Barber and Jones. Even when Barber went down, there is no reason you couldn’t then try to rely on Jones and Choice as well.
The offense may have been balanced, but apparently as of week 2, “Romo Friendly” doesn’t exactly adapt to the game on the field. Garret seemed determined to jam the square peg through the round hole by continuing to call pass plays when his QB is struggling. Don’t get me wrong, Romo is not absolved from having a bad game, but having a coach not adapt doesn’t help either.
Tunnel Vision
Speaking of Romo, he had a ever so slight case of tunnel vision in my opinion. There were several plays in which he failed to see wide open receivers, and his ball distribution seems to support this a bit. Witten and Crayton led in targets with 7. After that, the drop off is far more severe than last week, when Romo had a clear third option with just one less target. This week the third option was a tie between Roy Williams and Martellus Bennett with 4 targets each. Hurd and Barber each had 2 targets and Jones, Choice and Austin all had 1 target each.
While many different receivers were targeted, it is a little odd that you only looked your primary receiver’s way as much as your second TE. I don’t expect Williams to always lead in the targets category, but when Romo struggles like this it does make me wonder just a little bit. Being at the game and seeing Williams wide open on a couple of busted plays doesn’t help his cause either.
The Verdict
There are no two ways about it: Week 2 was an offensive disaster and the play calling was hardly what I’d call “Romo Friendly”. If the goal of the offense is to put Romo in better spots and help him out, then Garret gets a solid F.
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