Offensive funk or Fatigue?

[SDCowboy]

To me, the only thing that was confusing is why the playcalling never changed. When the oline is having a bad day, one would typically switch to quick pass plays. Similar to what the team did against the Ravens. For whatever bizarre reason, that didn't happen on Thursday.

 

[1972COWBOY]

3rd game in 12 days against the #1 defense in the league with 60% of your big plays being called back on penalties. Without the penalties they would have won by two scores. Give Minnesota credit. They played well and had a great defensive game plan. They were on an emotional high due to having their head coach out with a serious eye injury. The crowd was loud and rocking like a playoff atmosphere. After all of that, they still won. There is nothing to worry about at all. Go look at any good team's schedule for any year and you will see tough games with very close scores. Denver barely beat the Browns last year and went on to win the super bowl. Teams have bad games from time to time. Dallas is not all of a sudden a mediocre team because of one tough week against the best defense in the NFL.

Penalties killed us. Some of those penalties also didnt effect the play. Had Free not held, Zeke would have still got that yardage and the same goes for Hitchen's interception (totally useless penalties) we got 3 in a row also. And we were also riding a good streak without turnovers that helped us immensely get the past wins we did.

I think some of the players may be playing under the weather also with a sickness bug going around.

 

[nalam]

I don't understand this alleged blueprint? I don't see teams doing anything different. And how are the results different?

The Vikings threw the ball 71% of plays. Skins 74%. Is that what you are thinking teams will do?

I guess I don't understand your post.

By having the bend and break we let teams pass short , and thats how both skins and vikings kept our D on field winning TOP. Add occasional breakdowns , which lead to long passes too. No one fear our pass rush .

So offense has to score every possesion to keep the lead , but with a good D like Minny , we could be challenged in that.

 

[KJJ]

I think some folks underestimate the affect of those penalties (whether they were good calls or bad calls). Those flags really took the wind out of our sails. It's near impossible to get our offense rolling the way we like when we're consistently facing long down and distance, and multiple big, game changing plays are called back. Plus we were facing one of the best defenses in the league, which happened to be our 3rd game in 12 days, and followed a huge divisional win.

If the stage was ever set for Min to beat us, Thursday night was it. And we still won. And it was a couple of plays from not even being that close.

The penalties were putting us behind the chains, killing drives and preventing us from getting into a rhythm. That could've been an easy win if we didn't keep shooting ourselves in the damn foot. That big run that Zeke had called back could've really deflated them but it ended up taking some of the wind out of our sails.

 

[Proximo]

The penalties were putting us behind the chains, killing drives and preventing us from getting into a rhythm. That could've been an easy win if we didn't keep shooting ourselves in the damn foot. That big run that Zeke had called back could've really deflated them but it ended up taking some of the wind out of our sails.

Yea the big Elliott run being called back was tough to swallow. The Hitchens interception being negated was another huge one.

 

[MagicMan]

So the blueprint against the Cowboys is have us commit drive killing penalties, unforced errors and lackluster play? Sounds more like self inflicted wounds to me. It's like planning to kill someone by having him die of old age. Don't get me wrong, the Vikings defense played great, but the Cowboys could have won by 10-14 points easily if we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot trying to pull the gun from our holster.

That last Viking drive should have never happened, and the Zeke long run that was called back should have turned into a TD drive. I agree we should have run more plays that would have burned those blitzes much like we did against the Ravens and Skins. Witten and Beasley weren't utilized like we should have. This was not a very good game offensively due to the Vikings D, but also the Cowboys had a lot to do with it.

I just think if Dallas plays their game, they can beat whoever is on the other side, blueprint or no blueprint.

 

[Thomas82]

Yea the big Elliott run being called back was tough to swallow. The Hitchens interception being negated was another huge one.

It's awfully frustrating to see Zeke keep getting robbed on long runs.

 

[CATCH17]

I think there is some over analyzing going on by our fans more than anything.

It's the NFL. It can't always be a walk in the park.

 

[cowboys1981]

We gave Minnesota every chance to win it all and they failed. On top of that we managed to come away with no injuries. I can't just look at one game, I'm tying the last three games together and we went 3-0 against some physical teams. All 3 contending for the playoffs. Proud of how we did it and care less how it was done.

 

[starfrombirth]

What we saw the other night was mostly a result of playing the #1 defense and some stupid penalties that put us behind the chains and cost us some nice plays. We were in 3rd in long much of the night mostly due to our own mistakes. Their defense was affecting us causing some of those penalties but we have to clean the mental mistakes up or they will cost us a game.

There were also some really bogus calls, that killed big plays,that hopefully, wont always go against us.