The Linehan play calling thread

[popp1234]

[quote="skinsscalper, post: 5771616, member: 5687"]No team will ever be the Cowboys of the 90's, dude. Be real. We lost to an inferior team. It happens in this league every week. There are no truly dominant teams in the league anymore.[/quote]

Of course not, that's my point. But I heard it mentioned a few times last week. I thought is was absurd then, also.

 

[skinsscalper]

I think trying something that has a legitimate chance to shorten the field by a good stretch and possibly shift them out of blitzing is a good call. They probably should have run on one of the two after that, but that second down play was a good smart aggressive call that just didn't work.

I could get along with that argument if the clock was an issue. It wasn't. I would have run Murray like no one's business until you at least get to mid field. At that point you play your blitz breakers and play action game. JMHO.

 

[skinsscalper]

[quote="skinsscalper, post: 5771616, member: 5687"]No team will ever be the Cowboys of the 90's, dude. Be real. We lost to an inferior team. It happens in this league every week. There are no truly dominant teams in the league anymore.

Of course not, that's my point. But I heard it mentioned a few times last week. I thought is was absurd then, also.[/quote]

It is absurd at ANY time. Agreed.

 

[Dale]

We're at our best when running the ball or presenting the threat of the run. Not only did I dislike throwing it on the final three plays of the game, but I hated the spread-out look with Murray on the bench, particularly on fourth down.

Those final plays resembled the helter-skelter, chaotic, pass-happy offense we saw last year and in seasons past. And that kind of style is simply not our strong suit. Passing is a key part of the game, and with Romo's creativity and playmaking, that will always rightfully be a huge part of who we are. But it's not all we are, and we acted those final two possessions as if we didn't have the best back in the league. And that made it hard to watch.

 

[mmohican29]

Not adjusting to the blitz has been a Garrett staple. Not running the ball on 2nd and 2 in OT is a Garrett trademark. Problem is: Scott Linehan's calling the plays, and I think he needs to answer to both of these. If Romo audibled out of a run on either 2nd or 3rd down then he needs someone in his face to tell him that's it's a problem.

 

[50cent]

19 carries is just unacceptable! Point, blank, period!

 

[Derinyar]

We're at our best when running the ball or presenting the threat of the run. Not only did I dislike throwing it on the final three plays of the game, but I hated the spread-out look with Murray on the bench, particularly on fourth down.

Those final plays resembled the helter-skelter, chaotic, pass-happy offense we saw last year and in seasons past. And that kind of style is simply not our strong suit. Passing is a key part of the game, and with Romo's creativity and playmaking, that will always rightfully be a huge part of who we are. But it's not all we are, and we acted those final two possessions as if we didn't have the best back in the league. And that made it hard to watch.

The last possession of regulation we ran once, and it burned half our available clock and we only had two time outs left. We basically couldn't run the after that first play to get us off of the 3. You needed longer chunks of yardage there.

 

[Dale]

19 carries is just unacceptable! Point, blank, period!

It's really quite astonishing. Take away his longest run of 51 yards, and he had 90 yards on 18 carries. And on a night where we had a backup QB in the game and then our injured starter replace him. It's crazy we didn't find the opportunity to run a bit more, particularly on the decisive drive.

 

[Dale]

The last possession of regulation we ran once, and it burned half our available clock and we only had two time outs left. We basically couldn't run the after that first play to get us off of the 3. You needed longer chunks of yardage there.

I might be in the minority here, but backed up on our 3-yard line with an injured QB, I would have tried a couple of safe plays -- a run, a screen, maybe another run -- and just see what happens. If they net a good amount of yards, I'd have gotten more aggressive. If they didn't, I'd have played for overtime. With Washington only having one timeout, we had the opportunity to control the clock and adjust as the situation changes and not really run the risk of them getting the ball back with a ton of time.

I would have certainly gone conservative following the Romo fumble that backed things back up to the 4-yard line. To me, that drive was odd. All passes were short and over the middle of the field, eating up time; we were inviting the blitz and taking on a lot of risk. Just an odd sequence to me.

 

[50cent]

It's really quite astonishing. Take away his longest run of 51 yards, and he had 90 yards on 18 carries. And on a night where we had a backup QB in the game and then our injured starter replace him. It's crazy we didn't find the opportunity to run a bit more, particularly on the decisive drive.

The time to run more came at the exact moment Weeden took his first snap. Murray ran for that 51 and it should have kept coming. I got sick at that moment when we didn't get 6 that drive and I didn't see all runs from the 6!

 

[BAT]

We're at our best when running the ball or presenting the threat of the run. Not only did I dislike throwing it on the final three plays of the game, but I hated the spread-out look with Murray on the bench, particularly on fourth down.

Those final plays resembled the helter-skelter, chaotic, pass-happy offense we saw last year and in seasons past. And that kind of style is simply not our strong suit. Passing is a key part of the game, and with Romo's creativity and playmaking, that will always rightfully be a huge part of who we are. But it's not all we are, and we acted those final two possessions as if we didn't have the best back in the league. And that made it hard to watch.

Can't put a big enough exclamation point on this post.

 

[CanadianCowboysFan]

2 and 2 , 3 incomplete passes.

2nd down was complete but lost a yars.

 

[Coy]

Peter King just wrote this in his Tuesday Column:


3. Dallas did a bad job calling plays late in the game.
Running back DeMarco Murray is the biggest weapon the Cowboys have this season. With 1,054 rushing yards through eight games, he’s officially apace to set the NFL’s all-time single-season rushing record (2,105, Eric Dickerson, 1984). But that wasn’t good enough to carry the mail with the game on the line Monday night.

On the last 13 plays of regulation and the last three plays of overtime, Murray didn’t get a rushing attempt. All of this despite the fact that Murray’s last five runs Monday night were for 51, 3, 5, 9 and 8 yards. Here’s where the play-calling mismanagement really cost Dallas: Trailing 20-17 in overtime, the Cowboys took over at their 20 with 9:43 left. Murray went over right tackle for eight fairly easy yards. Then the Cowboys called a pass in the flat to Murray (loss of one), and then incomplete passes to Witten and Dez Bryant. Second-and-2 at the 28 is where you just want Murray to take over the game, which he’d shown every sign of being able to do … and he never got the ball with a head of steam again. Awful play-calling by the Dallas coaches.

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/10/28/dallas-cowboys-washington-Commanders-tony-romo-back-injury-nfl/

 

[Zman5]

On the last drive in OT, it felt like they panicked. It was as though they were playing like they had no time left and 3 downs to score a TD for the win.

They forgot that they only needed to get 2 yards for new set of downs and just keep the drive going.

They better get this blitz solved quickly. I think AZ is the most blitzing team in the NFL this year.

 

[Dale]

Peter King just wrote this in his Tuesday Column:
3. Dallas did a bad job calling plays late in the game.
Running back DeMarco Murray is the biggest weapon the Cowboys have this season. With 1,054 rushing yards through eight games, he’s officially apace to set the NFL’s all-time single-season rushing record (2,105, Eric Dickerson, 1984). But that wasn’t good enough to carry the mail with the game on the line Monday night.

On the last 13 plays of regulation and the last three plays of overtime, Murray didn’t get a rushing attempt. All of this despite the fact that Murray’s last five runs Monday night were for 51, 3, 5, 9 and 8 yards. Here’s where the play-calling mismanagement really cost Dallas: Trailing 20-17 in overtime, the Cowboys took over at their 20 with 9:43 left. Murray went over right tackle for eight fairly easy yards. Then the Cowboys called a pass in the flat to Murray (loss of one), and then incomplete passes to Witten and Dez Bryant. Second-and-2 at the 28 is where you just want Murray to take over the game, which he’d shown every sign of being able to do … and he never got the ball with a head of steam again. Awful play-calling by the Dallas coaches.

Absolutely spot-on. The only hope is that we learned something from the situation and won't repeat the same mistake moving forward. We got cute and wanted to outsmart the opponent at the line of scrimmage to win the game. And we got burned badly.

 

[Zman5]

Absolutely spot-on. The only hope is that we learned something from the situation and won't repeat the same mistake moving forward. We got cute and wanted to outsmart the opponent at the line of scrimmage to win the game. And we got burned badly.

I hope so but I also have doubts. You would think they would have learn by now after the GB game last year and Detroit game few years back.

 

[Dale]

I hope so but I also have doubts. You would think they would have learn by now after the GB game last year and Detroit game few years back.

So very true. I love the artistry of a well constructed pass game as much as anyone, and watching the mind games made by a QB audibiling in and out of plays at the line of scrimmage is so fascinating. But ******, we've got to stop pretending this is our go-to style of play. I'm just beating a dead horse, but that OT drive was not the time to revert back to that.

Following Murray's eight-yard run on first down, you know it's four-down territory. I didn't mind the second-down pass because that's a good chance to catch them anticipating a run. That's the beauty of 2nd and 2; you have a multitude of plays at your disposal. But how in the world did we never hand Murray the rock again? Ugh.

 

[Zman5]

So very true. I love the artistry of a well constructed pass game as much as anyone, and watching the mind games made by a QB audibiling in and out of plays at the line of scrimmage is so fascinating. But ******, we've got to stop pretending this is our go-to style of play. I'm just beating a dead horse, but that OT drive was not the time to revert back to that.

Following Murray's eight-yard run on first down, you know it's four-down territory. I didn't mind the second-down pass because that's a good chance to catch them anticipating a run. That's the beauty of 2nd and 2; you have a multitude of plays at your disposal. But how in the world did we never hand Murray the rock again? Ugh.

After seeing how Romo was playing when the drive started, I thought they were going to just run mostly and get few first downs until we were on their side of the 50 before taking some shots down field.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

 

[Idgit]

Absolutely spot-on. The only hope is that we learned something from the situation and won't repeat the same mistake moving forward. We got cute and wanted to outsmart the opponent at the line of scrimmage to win the game. And we got burned badly.

To be fair, the last two drives in regulation were a touchdown and a two minute offense situation, weren't they?

 

[DOUBLE WING]

The two straight passes inside the 5 with Weeden, and the three straight pass plays on the last drive of the game are inexcusable. Someone needs to be held accountable for that.