Sydla
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So the day after explanations for some of the key moments in yesterday's game are that 1) they ran Elliott twice in order to chew up clock as to not give the Vikings time to move the ball themselves, 2) the two run plays weren't runs but rather RPOs, 3) they told Austin to return the punt if he felt he had a chance.
But how much of this is just spin after the fact?
1) The chew up the clock angle makes no sense. For starters, the ran a play right before the two minute warning. If you want to just run time, there's no need to run a play there. Just get to the two minute warning. Further, the official game play by play shows the "we wanted to chew clock" makes little sense.
The first play after the 2 minute warning was the Cooper pass for 8 yards at 1:57. The Cowboys next snapped the ball at 1:33, which was the Elliott run. The problem here is that with a 40 second clock, they didn't have to snap it at 1:33. They could have snapped the ball closer to 1:15. But they didn't. They then did it again on 3rd down. After snapping the ball at 1:33, they snapped the ball again around 1:07. But with the 40 second clock, they didn't have to snap the ball until around 50 seconds. So this idea that they ran the ball to eat up clock makes no sense given they snapped the ball well before they had to on 2nd and 3rd down.
2) The next explanation is that the play calls were RPOs on 2nd and 3rd down. xwalker did an analysis of the blocking on the 2nd down play in another thread. When you watch that play in slow motion, Witten is in the slot at the bottom of the screen and it looks like Cobb is in the slot at the top of the screen. At no point do either Witten or Cobb even look for the ball. Watch Witten and it's clear as day he's run blocking. Cobb just kind of slowly moves out looking for someone to block. So it doesn't look like that was a RPO at all. Maybe it was just a read option?
3) The Austin situation, I guess could be chalked up to miscommunication. But frankly, after 1 and 2 above appear to be some stretching of the truth, it would not surprise me if the coaches aren't exactly being honest on what they told Austin either.
But how much of this is just spin after the fact?
1) The chew up the clock angle makes no sense. For starters, the ran a play right before the two minute warning. If you want to just run time, there's no need to run a play there. Just get to the two minute warning. Further, the official game play by play shows the "we wanted to chew clock" makes little sense.
The first play after the 2 minute warning was the Cooper pass for 8 yards at 1:57. The Cowboys next snapped the ball at 1:33, which was the Elliott run. The problem here is that with a 40 second clock, they didn't have to snap it at 1:33. They could have snapped the ball closer to 1:15. But they didn't. They then did it again on 3rd down. After snapping the ball at 1:33, they snapped the ball again around 1:07. But with the 40 second clock, they didn't have to snap the ball until around 50 seconds. So this idea that they ran the ball to eat up clock makes no sense given they snapped the ball well before they had to on 2nd and 3rd down.
2) The next explanation is that the play calls were RPOs on 2nd and 3rd down. xwalker did an analysis of the blocking on the 2nd down play in another thread. When you watch that play in slow motion, Witten is in the slot at the bottom of the screen and it looks like Cobb is in the slot at the top of the screen. At no point do either Witten or Cobb even look for the ball. Watch Witten and it's clear as day he's run blocking. Cobb just kind of slowly moves out looking for someone to block. So it doesn't look like that was a RPO at all. Maybe it was just a read option?
3) The Austin situation, I guess could be chalked up to miscommunication. But frankly, after 1 and 2 above appear to be some stretching of the truth, it would not surprise me if the coaches aren't exactly being honest on what they told Austin either.
