Cowboys at Saints: Why the Cowboys Lost

Ranching · Oct 2, 2019

aria said:
Zeke’s an overpaid diva who is more dependent on a good O line than most other backs in the league. He’s been spoiled since college with an above average O line, we’ve seen glimpses of what happens when that O line isn’t top 5-10 and it’s not pretty.

As I’ve always said, Barkley would have destroyed Zeke’s numbers last year running behind the Dallas O line and Zeke would have been lucky to break 1K yards running behind the Giants O line. But nope, I was told the the O line wasn’t that important, Zeke was reliable and the best at getting “dirty yards” and our O line last year wasn’t that good to begin with.

I’d love to reply to you with a page out of your book by saying “Zeke sucks”! but even I won’t go that far. He’s good but not worth what we paid him and by the time his contract is up he may go down as one of the worst contracts in Cowboys history. Time will tell.

Lucky for him, he’s faced some of the worst rushing defenses in the league and gets another one this weekend which will make people forget about Sunday but when the games really matter (ie Rams) or against good rushing defenses (ie Saints) he’s been nowhere to be found. For the price he was paid, and demanded, I expect a difference maker in those types of games not a guy who gets a free pass and excuses made for him every time.

Zeke is the smart one, I'd be pissed at Jerry for giving him 90 million.

Mad_max · Oct 2, 2019

xwalker said:
The Cowboys lost because of turnovers and Zeke rushing for 1.9 yards/carry.

The defense did their job and Kellen Moore's play calling didn't cause the fumbles.

Regardless of Play Calling, Zeke should average more than 1.9 yards/carry.

The run blocking scheme might be a problem.
- The run blocking scheme often requires reach blocks.
- Reach blocks are sometimes impossible due to the how defenders align pre-snap.
- There were multiple problems with reach blocks in this game.

Cowboys Defense

12 points allowed (defenses win 93% this season if 12 or less points allowed)

Kamara held below career and 2019 season averages for rushing and receiving.

Kamara 69 yards rushing, 20 yards receiving.

Defense had an INT.

Defense had 5 sacks.

The Rams started at NO 49 after a punt return.

The Rams started at NO 47 & DAL 44 after each Cowboys fumble.

Cowboys Offense

Zeke had 1.9 yard/carry rushing.

Offense lost 2 fumbles.

Dak 66.7% completion rate (66.6% career average)

Dak 10.13 yards/completion (11.3 career average)

Dak zero INTs prior to Hail Mary on final play.

Turnovers
There have been 63 games this season (Jets & Niners had a bye already).
Teams that had a negative turnover margin have won 17.5% of the 63 games.
Teams that had a -2 or worse turnover margin have won 10.2% of the 63 games.
The Cowboys had a -2 turnover margin in the Saints game (-1 without the Hail Mary INT).
Cowboys Offense -3, Cowboys Offense +1
The Cowboys turnovers are 1/2 of the turnovers by Saints opponents this season.

Rushing

Zeke averaged 1.9 yards/carry.

Regardless of play calling, Zeke should get more than 1.9 yards/carry.

Only twice this season have RBs with 15+ carries had a lower rushing average.

Points Allowed

The Cowboys Defense held the Saints to 12 points.

There have been 23 times that a defense has held an opponent to 12 or less points.

Those defenses were on the losing team 2 times of the 23 instances (i.e. They won 93% of the time).

Defense Limited Kamara

Kamara had 69 rushing yards for a 4.1 yards/carry average.

His career average is 5.1 yards/carry. His season average is 4.7 yards/carry.

Kamara had 20 yards receiving for with an average of 6.6 yards/catch.

His career average is 9.5 yards/catch. His season average is 10 yards/catch.

His career average is 49.5 receiving yards/game. His season average is 49.8 yards/catch.

Actually the Cowboys lost because time ran out. Garrett's teams need lots of time.

xwalker · Oct 2, 2019

Mad_max said:
Actually the Cowboys lost because time ran out. Garrett's teams need lots of time.

That's the reason for all games lost...

texbumthelife · Oct 2, 2019

xwalker said:
The Cowboys lost because of turnovers and Zeke rushing for 1.9 yards/carry.

The defense did their job and Kellen Moore's play calling didn't cause the fumbles.

Regardless of Play Calling, Zeke should average more than 1.9 yards/carry.

The run blocking scheme might be a problem.
- The run blocking scheme often requires reach blocks.
- Reach blocks are sometimes impossible due to the how defenders align pre-snap.
- There were multiple problems with reach blocks in this game.

Cowboys Defense

12 points allowed (defenses win 93% this season if 12 or less points allowed)

Kamara held below career and 2019 season averages for rushing and receiving.

Kamara 69 yards rushing, 20 yards receiving.

Defense had an INT.

Defense had 5 sacks.

The Rams started at NO 49 after a punt return.

The Rams started at NO 47 & DAL 44 after each Cowboys fumble.

Cowboys Offense

Zeke had 1.9 yard/carry rushing.

Offense lost 2 fumbles.

Dak 66.7% completion rate (66.6% career average)

Dak 10.13 yards/completion (11.3 career average)

Dak zero INTs prior to Hail Mary on final play.

Turnovers
There have been 63 games this season (Jets & Niners had a bye already).
Teams that had a negative turnover margin have won 17.5% of the 63 games.
Teams that had a -2 or worse turnover margin have won 10.2% of the 63 games.
The Cowboys had a -2 turnover margin in the Saints game (-1 without the Hail Mary INT).
Cowboys Offense -3, Cowboys Offense +1
The Cowboys turnovers are 1/2 of the turnovers by Saints opponents this season.

Rushing

Zeke averaged 1.9 yards/carry.

Regardless of play calling, Zeke should get more than 1.9 yards/carry.

Only twice this season have RBs with 15+ carries had a lower rushing average.

Points Allowed

The Cowboys Defense held the Saints to 12 points.

There have been 23 times that a defense has held an opponent to 12 or less points.

Those defenses were on the losing team 2 times of the 23 instances (i.e. They won 93% of the time).

Defense Limited Kamara

Kamara had 69 rushing yards for a 4.1 yards/carry average.

His career average is 5.1 yards/carry. His season average is 4.7 yards/carry.

Kamara had 20 yards receiving for with an average of 6.6 yards/catch.

His career average is 9.5 yards/catch. His season average is 10 yards/catch.

His career average is 49.5 receiving yards/game. His season average is 49.8 yards/catch.

I mean, it's obvious why we lost. We were playing against New Orleans AND the Rams!

xwalker · Oct 2, 2019

foofighters said:
If Brees was playing we wouldn't be talking about how great the D was. If anything, Teddy helped our defense.

There are enough nfl games each week.

We don't need to create hypothetical games that didn't happen. Leave that for the off-season...

Whirlwin · Oct 2, 2019

foofighters said:
So you're basically saying Teddy=Brees...

No that's what you're saying. What I said was Drew Brees would have went down the field quicker and we would have played Bend don't break football like usual. Which would have given us more opportunities to get the football.

Idgit · Oct 2, 2019

Crazed Liotta Eyes said:
I'd have to watch the replay again but wasn't that call a load of crap? I thought the lineman pushed him into the legs.

It was the sort of thing here his momentum was taking him there and the tackle helped him along. But they're going to call those hits below the knees every time these days. Sucked, though. The Witten and Elliott fumbles weren't too far out of fg range. We had the lost possession on the low hit on Bridgewater, and we missed out on 7 just off of Cobb's fingertips. In an otherwise close game. That's the kind of stuff that ends your season if you're lucky enough to get to the playoffs.

aria · Oct 2, 2019

Ranching said:
Zeke is the smart one, I'd be pissed at Jerry for giving him 90 million.

Lol, can’t argue with that. He played Jerry like a fiddle...and a large part of the fan base.

Again, I’m not saying he sucks or won’t be good for another year or two but I would be shocked if he delivers on what that contract is worth.

Diehardblues · Oct 2, 2019

Idgit said:
This matches my own assessment. I count the Lawrence roughing penalty as a turnover as well, since we’d stopped them on downs otherwise. Really tough to win when you don’t take care of the football.

Yep

The 2 turnovers were critical. Also 4 of 13 on 3rd downs after leading the league coming in at 58% was a contributing factor.

Saints deserve credit for shutting Elliott down which when he’s held to less than 75 yards we are 1-8.

foofighters · Oct 3, 2019

Whirlwin said:
No that's what you're saying. What I said was Drew Brees would have went down the field quicker and we would have played Bend don't break football like usual. Which would have given us more opportunities to get the football.

I really don't think the bend but don't break principle works well when you have a good QB and a running back like they have. Eventually with yards teams have gained against us and winning ToP is going to translate into more scores for them when they do have a good QB.

buybuydandavis · Oct 3, 2019

xwalker said:
Regardless of Play Calling, Zeke should average more than 1.9 yards/carry.

When a team with a good front 7 decides to stop the run instead of the pass, and you keep running into it regardless, don't be shocked if you end up with 2 yards a carry.

Certainly 1st down results would indicate they decided to stop the run. 1st down runs sucked. 1st down passes rocked.

Coaching matters.

Verdict · Oct 3, 2019

xwalker said:
The Cowboys lost because of turnovers and Zeke rushing for 1.9 yards/carry.

The defense did their job and Kellen Moore's play calling didn't cause the fumbles.

Regardless of Play Calling, Zeke should average more than 1.9 yards/carry.

The run blocking scheme might be a problem.
- The run blocking scheme often requires reach blocks.
- Reach blocks are sometimes impossible due to the how defenders align pre-snap.
- There were multiple problems with reach blocks in this game.

Cowboys Defense

12 points allowed (defenses win 93% this season if 12 or less points allowed)

Kamara held below career and 2019 season averages for rushing and receiving.

Kamara 69 yards rushing, 20 yards receiving.

Defense had an INT.

Defense had 5 sacks.

The Rams started at NO 49 after a punt return.

The Rams started at NO 47 & DAL 44 after each Cowboys fumble.

Cowboys Offense

Zeke had 1.9 yard/carry rushing.

Offense lost 2 fumbles.

Dak 66.7% completion rate (66.6% career average)

Dak 10.13 yards/completion (11.3 career average)

Dak zero INTs prior to Hail Mary on final play.

Turnovers
There have been 63 games this season (Jets & Niners had a bye already).
Teams that had a negative turnover margin have won 17.5% of the 63 games.
Teams that had a -2 or worse turnover margin have won 10.2% of the 63 games.
The Cowboys had a -2 turnover margin in the Saints game (-1 without the Hail Mary INT).
Cowboys Offense -3, Cowboys Offense +1
The Cowboys turnovers are 1/2 of the turnovers by Saints opponents this season.

Rushing

Zeke averaged 1.9 yards/carry.

Regardless of play calling, Zeke should get more than 1.9 yards/carry.

Only twice this season have RBs with 15+ carries had a lower rushing average.

Points Allowed

The Cowboys Defense held the Saints to 12 points.

There have been 23 times that a defense has held an opponent to 12 or less points.

Those defenses were on the losing team 2 times of the 23 instances (i.e. They won 93% of the time).

Defense Limited Kamara

Kamara had 69 rushing yards for a 4.1 yards/carry average.

His career average is 5.1 yards/carry. His season average is 4.7 yards/carry.

Kamara had 20 yards receiving for with an average of 6.6 yards/catch.

His career average is 9.5 yards/catch. His season average is 10 yards/catch.

His career average is 49.5 receiving yards/game. His season average is 49.8 yards/catch.

Good write up, as usual. I think if you look strictly at causation and the end result we lost the game because of the two turnovers. If we don’t have the two turnovers the odds of Dallas winning the game is significant. Also, we end up with more points, better stats, and the dike breaks and Dallas probably wins the game soundly.

I is hard to trash Moore for that game because of the very small sample size of drives in that game and the two fumbles. I realize reasonable minds may differ on that (legitimately) and it’s hard to be too hard on those who say we reverted back to our old ways. (Although I’m not in that camp personally).

If you look solely on the 12 points one could reasonably take the position that the defense did it’s job, and feel good about the defense. I personally don’t subscribe to that theory.,

The run defense has been weak at times. Most importantly the defense failed to stop the run at critical times in the game when they knew the run was coming. I think we are weak at DT, but scheme also seems to be an issue. The splits were far too wide on obvious running downs.

JohnsKey19 · Oct 3, 2019

They could've played that game for 16 quarters and the run game as they coached it that night vs. that opponent would still prove to be ineffective. You have to be willing to adjust.The refusal to do so killed the offense's ability to establish scoring drives. There's nothing wrong with admitting the opponent is whipping you in a certain aspect of the game and forcing you to an alternate plan of attack, whether it's playcalling or personnel. This is what makes Bellicihek's team difficult to beat on any given day.

Pollard, who they claim is such an explosive weapon, got 2 snaps. Stuck on stupid...

CowboysFaninHouston · Oct 3, 2019

JD_KaPow said:
We had 9 drives, the same number of drives we had against the Giants, Commanders and Dolphins (okay, we had kneel-down drives and a 25-second drive before the half against Miami that I'm not counting). We scored on 2 of them instead of 5 like we did against those teams. We only needed to score on 3 to win. The Saints drives didn't cut down the number of drives we had. The fact that we couldn't move or hold on to the ball when we had it is what limited our drives.

this was the same issue as last year against the Rams....we had several very short drives, except the defense couldn't stop the Rams and we needed to keep up and couldn't.....in this game, the defense kept us in and gave us plenty of opportunity to get in position to kick a field goal and we fumbled, penalty or dropped passes

Whirlwin · Oct 3, 2019

foofighters said:
I really don't think the bend but don't break principle works well when you have a good QB and a running back like they have. Eventually with yards teams have gained against us and winning ToP is going to translate into more scores for them when they do have a good QB.

I don't think Bend don't break ever works but that's what we do. Not necessarily what I like doing

GMO415 · Oct 3, 2019

Granted Romo was able to win a five turnover game, but that was against an inferior team.

You turn the ball over in someone's house you usually lose.

Cowboysheelsreds053 · Oct 3, 2019

daboyzruleperiod said:

LLLOOOLLL

xwalker · Oct 3, 2019

Verdict said:
I think we are weak at DT, but scheme also seems to be an issue. The splits were far too wide on obvious running downs.

You didn't reference Kamara but several people have posted that Kamara and the Saints OL dominated the Cowboys DTs.

I don't really see it.

https://cowboyszone.com/threads/2019-cowboys-defense-vs-kamara.441993/

RodeoJake · Oct 3, 2019

T-RO said:
This game was a demonstration of football intangibles:
-Home Field Energy
-The benefit of desperation

It's a mirror image of last year: Saints came into Dallas w/high flying offense. Cowboys were desperate for win and hungry to trump more heralded team. Dallas fans fed the energy. Dallas won 13-10.

Flip the home field, energy and desperation and you get 12-10 Saints.

I also believe we weren't properly prepared for the crowd noise. It kept Dak from changing calls at the line after the Saints backed out of their intial defense. This should be something a veteran coach would know how to counteract.

Still, it was only one game. Let's give our guys this week to show how they bounce back. We're still a talented team that should go far.

Bigdog · Oct 3, 2019

The Saints scored more points that we did is the reason why they lost.

Cowboys at Saints: Why the Cowboys Lost

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