George: Is the Dallas Cowboys' offense too Tony Romo-friendly or too Tony Romo-reliant?

[Alexander]

George: Is the Dallas Cowboys' offense too Tony Romo-friendly or too Tony Romo-reliant?


By Brandon George , Staff Writer Contact Brandon George on Twitter: @DMN_George

IRVING -- The Cowboys team plane rerouted from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Houston on Sunday night coming home from their loss at Buffalo.

No, they weren't going to pick up cast-off quarterback Brandon Weeden, who started for Houston on Sunday and led the Texans to a 34-6 win at Tennessee.

Storms near D/FW Airport forced the Cowboys to divert to Houston. They were supposed to land at 8:40 p.m. but didn't get back until after midnight.

That's the kind of season it's been for the 4-11 Cowboys. What can go wrong, has.

But at the top of the list has been the Cowboys' inability to win without Tony Romo. Kellen Moore became the fourth Cowboys' quarterback to start this season on Sunday and met a similar fate as his predecessors Weeden and Matt Cassel.

Cowboys backup quarterbacks are now a combined 1-10 this season. The common denominator among the three: they've played in the same offensive system that has been tailored for Romo to maximize his skill set.

Take a step back to February 2009. That's the first time Cowboys owner Jerry Jones uttered the words "Romo-friendly."

For more than five years now, the Cowboys have tried to build an offense that is Romo-friendly. Perhaps it's too Romo-friendly.

"I think our offense is flexible enough really to adapt to anybody," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Monday. "That's one of the things we like about our offense is that we can feature a guy or protect a guy if need be, not only at the quarterback position but at any position. That's what we try to do. We believe in our system of football on offense.

"You then have to understand who's playing on your team and how you need to tailor it to those guys whether that guy's been here for a long time or he's getting his first start. You've got to make sure the environment is as conducive to them being successful as possible."

Bigger question: Is the Cowboys' offense too Romo-friendly or simply just too Romo-reliant?

Maybe it's both. For the fourth time this season, the Cowboys failed to score an offensive touchdown in losing to the Bills, 16-6.

Meanwhile, Weeden was completing 15-of-24 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns against the Titans. He even ran for a touchdown.

This wasn't check-down Weeden the Cowboys became used to earlier this season before they cut him Nov. 17. Weeden completed eight passes of 10 or more yards down the field, including two for touchdowns.

http://sportsday.***BANNED-URL***/d...-offense-tony-romo-friendly-tony-romo-reliant

 

[Aven8]

He'll never change this O. He's delusional.

We're doomed......

 

[Apollo Creed]

The entire offense is Tony Romo. He finally had a solid running game last year and put up one of the best seasons in NFL history.

Garrett has just firmly held on to that cape and prayed he didn't get hurt.

 

[Alexander]

He'll never change this O. He's delusional.

We're doomed......

Knowing how Garrett is, we know he won't change.

I guess the fun part is the shell game that will filched upon the fan base to make it appear otherwise.

 

[MissionCoach]

So basically our Coaching staff is unable to come up with a game plan that plays to the strengths of any other QB than Romo???

 

[Aven8]

Knowing how Garrett is, we know he won't change.

I guess the fun part is the shell game that will filched upon the fan base to make it appear otherwise.

Putting players in position to succeed? Flexible? What a freaking liar!

 

[Wolfpack]

What a load of crap. Those quotes are totally BS.

 

[Alexander]

So basically our Coaching staff is unable to come up with a game plan that plays to the strengths of any other QB than Romo???

Judging by Linehan's quote there, yes.

That is scary.

 

[superonyx]

We can only hope that Jerry finally sees that this offense is poorly designed and Romo has been carrying it for several years now.

A real change needs to happen or we will be watching this same non scoring offense in the future.

Not knee jerk....just reality.

 

[kevm3]

The offense is too talent dependent. The only way we're really going to succeed is to make Garrett a walk-around head coach. Get rid of his 'system' and hire an OC who has free reign to implement an offense that takes advantage of our talents.

Garrett has never been a coach prior to the cowboys, so he's had no time to develop any real expertise, so his super simplistic schemes are getting exposed by guys who have been int he game for decades as coordinators before getting a head coaching job. It's no surprise we're getting beat on that side of the ball. The problem is that you can only out talent the league for so long in a salary cap era, and once other teams start poaching our players, we go right back towards mediocrity. It's telling that our offense looks best the last 10 minutes of games when Romo is out there improvising and is unleashed because we are behind. There's a reason that Romo has a ton of 4th quarter comebacks, and that's because we were often behind due to mediocre offensive schemes, and then Romo is unleashed and we start putting easy touchdowns on the board.

We will not get anywhere with these overly conservative, overly predictable schemes where we run 90% on first down no matter what... and then when we are behind, we depend on Romo to bail us out.

 

[Staubacher]

"I think our offense is flexible enough really to adapt to anybody," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Monday. "That's one of the things we like about our offense is that we can feature a guy or protect a guy if need be, not only at the quarterback position but at any position. That's what we try to do. We believe in our system of football on offense."

How on God's green earth can he say that - TODAY - after all that has transpired this season? How??

 

[visionary]

The entire offense is Tony Romo. He finally had a solid running game last year and put up one of the best seasons in NFL history.

Garrett has just firmly held on to that cape and prayed he didn't get hurt.

I said it 2 years ago, Romo is Garrett's ideal 'get out of jail free' card

Romo plays: see, the offense is productive. Garrett is a great coach

Romo is injured: well of course we lost, no one can win with a back up QB

And the lap dog Dallas media and CZ homers lap it up

 

[Alexander]

The offense is too talent dependent. The only way we're really going to succeed is to make Garrett a walk-around head coach. Get rid of his 'system' and hire an OC who has free reign to implement an offense that takes advantage of our talents.

Garrett has never been a coach prior to the cowboys, so he's had no time to develop any real expertise, so his super simplistic schemes are getting exposed by guys who have been int he game for decades as coordinators before getting a head coaching job. It's no surprise we're getting beat on that side of the ball. The problem is that you can only out talent the league for so long in a salary cap era, and once other teams start poaching our players, we go right back towards mediocrity. It's telling that our offense looks best the last 10 minutes of games when Romo is out there improvising and is unleashed because we are behind. There's a reason that Romo has a ton of 4th quarter comebacks, and that's because we were often behind due to mediocre offensive schemes, and then Romo is unleashed and we start putting easy touchdowns on the board.

We will not get anywhere with these overly conservative, overly predictable schemes where we run 90% on first down no matter what... and then when we are behind, we depend on Romo to bail us out.

Talent is a subjective thing.

I think we rely too much on "pure" talent.

Kind of Al Davis-ish.

Bigger. Taller. Stronger. Faster.

We don't go to players and find out what they do best and fit the system around it.

There are countless examples of coaches having that level of flexibility.

And those teams can cope with a league where your fourth string player is pretty much the same as their's.

We are so rigid, it really shows.

We don't sign veterans. Ever. Look at Arizona for a clinic on that.

We also do not show much flexibility in scheme.

Romo was the flexibility.

Without him, well.

There you go.

 

[DallasDomination]

" Too Romo friendly" is something a moron would think. I'm outta here with that nonsense. Romo makes this garbage system Garrett has been running for years.

 

[Staubacher]

" Too Romo friendly" is something a moron would think. I'm outta here with that nonsense. Romo makes this garbage system Garrett has been running for years.

Yup it's elite QB "friendly" that's all. The QB has to be so good as to overcome the putrid system.

 

[DallasCowboys2080]

Yup it's elite QB "friendly" that's all. The QB has to be so good as to overcome the putrid system.

true that. QB has to adlib and adjust at the Line and extend plays too. essentially a coach on the field. you cant just plug an elite QB in here and run some cookie cutter scheme with no adlib-ing what so ever. the beauty of Romo behind this scheme is that he adds that irregularity or improvisation to an otherwise bland, antiquated, stale, scheme that most of the league has caught up with.

 

[StylisticS]

"I think our offense is flexible enough really to adapt to anybody," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Monday. "That's one of the things we like about our offense is that we can feature a guy or protect a guy if need be, not only at the quarterback position but at any position. That's what we try to do. We believe in our system of football on offense.

Unbelievable.

 

[Staubacher]

Unbelievable.

Did anyone in the media ask a follow up to that ridiculous answer from Garrett? Or were they entranced by his Princeton degree on the wall and his signed Springsteen photo?

 

[gmoney112]

Talent is a subjective thing.

I think we rely too much on "pure" talent.

Kind of Al Davis-ish.

Bigger. Taller. Stronger. Faster.

We don't go to players and find out what they do best and fit the system around it.

There are countless examples of coaches having that level of flexibility.

And those teams can cope with a league where your fourth string player is pretty much the same as their's.

We are so rigid, it really shows.

We don't sign veterans. Ever. Look at Arizona for a clinic on that.

We also do not show much flexibility in scheme.

Romo was the flexibility.

Without him, well.

There you go.

Pretty much. The offensive scheme is purely on talent and execution. The problem is that you're rarely going to get a bunch of NFL players all executing flawlessly in perfect harmony. It's one of those schemes that's great and unbeatable in theory, but in the real world not so much.

I don't even know how to reply to that quote of his. The real life case study is pretty much the perfect antagonist to that whole quote.

I think Linehan gets one more year, and I wouldn't be surprised if they hamstring Garrett a little on the OC game plan.

We have a lot of young talent on this team but we avoid even contributing veterans like the plague. Hardy is one of the only vets we actually gave any money. I understand the point, you don't want progress stoppers and you need to manage the cap, youth is always the #1 priority, but if you can bring a guy in and improve your football team you do it.

NE, Arizona, etc are examples of teams that aren't afraid to spend a little bit more than a Gachkar signing, to bring in guys that fit their scheme and will improve their performance on the field.

As often as you want to rely on building through the draft, and you should, you just can't ignore glaring holes and expect them to all be plugged through 1-4 solid players you get from a draft class. We're attempting to plug flats with Scotch tape.

 

[SultanOfSix]

Garrett is the master of claptrap.

When he says "we" believe in our offense, he's either talking to his own reflection in the mirror, or the voices in his head.