OmerV
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The funny thing is early in the season we had some fast starts, but of course, those were lesser teams. The offense still appears to be more than capable, but for whatever reason 2-3 possessions go by before they start clicking. Seems like it's avoidable things that derail us, like a penalty or sack that puts us in a long yardage situation.Here’s a blatantly obvious “must fix” for this team: GETTING OFF TO A BETTER START, as opposed to falling behind double digits before seemingly waking up. What evidence do we have of the need for a faster start?
Well, the great Bob Sturm wrote an article this week in THE ATHLETIC called “The Morning After: After Ominous Cowboys Loss, Familiar Feelings of Mediocrity Creep In”. (I would link it but it’s a paid site) Sturm points out in the article how bad this team’s starts have been in their four losses, especially against good teams, and how this bad habit of needing to rally from behind every game is killing this team.
Adding up those cumulative scores in those games created an opponent lead of 75-9 before the Cowboys’ could finally wake up and rally. Wow. 75-9. Even with a Cowboys rally, they lost all four of those games.
- The Saints jumped out to a halftime lead of 9-3
- The Packers jumped on them for a 31-3 lead
- The Jets amazingly were up 21-3 late in the first half
- The Vikings had a 14-0 lead midway through the second quarter
If this team is ever going to turn this thing around, one simple fix for them is to stop with the horrible starts. Looking unprepared out of the gate is not a sign of a team that’s going anywhere. Let’s hope that is fixed soon or 2019 will become another wasted season.
Of course, the defense plays a part in this. We could much more easily survive a slow start on offense if the defense were holding up, but they are starting slow as well. In many games they never really inspire much confidence throughout.