FEATURED Thoughts after watching it on DVR for the first time

[fanfromvirginia]

I didn't catch the game today as I was out and about. I did follow the score on Gamecast. I just finished watching the game on DVR. Since I already knew the outcome, I took my time, looking for trends and interesting aspects of the game that might not have been fully appreciated in real time. At one point, I tried to chart the two teams' 'stupid mistakes' but gave up as it's really tough to make judgement calls regarding what's an error of execution and what's a stupid mistake. The long and the short of that is that most of our penalties occurred in the 4th when we blew a lead and Romo missed passes and his receivers made some dumb drops. Ponder missed a few passes badly as well, which of course helped. Here's what else I came up with in the end.

• Big Picture: This confirms my signature. JG really doesn't know how to run an offense and, to the extent that he has a philosophy, it can not too uncharitably be defined as 'abandon the run early and often'. Yes, our offensive numbers are actually pretty good but they really should be great. We continue to look like the opposing defense is dictating to us, despite having multiple great weapons and one of the best OLs we've had in a long while.
• I continue to be mystified by people who complain about Witten. Yes, he had a drop and a penalty but he also had several important catches, including of course the awesome TD early on.
• Scandrick over the past three or four seasons might be pound for pound the most valuable and most underrated player on this team. He was great today. Without Scandrick, we lose, no ifs, ands or buts.
• Carr played pretty well too. He didn't have any great plays, and his man made a bunch of catches but they were usually pretty well contested and he had multiple breakups.
• The defense generally bent without breaking and, once again, forced some turnovers and even scored. It's okay to give up yards if you're creating turnovers, generally forcing the offense to settle for FGs and occasionally scoring yourself.
• Both the kicker and punter had nice tackles that greatly helped the effort in this very close win. Once again, our special teams were better.

 

[Corso]

You're fast!

I saw what you saw, pretty much.

Thank you for the insights.

 

[dallasdave]

I didn't catch the game today as I was out and about. I did follow the score on Gamecast. I just finished watching the game on DVR. Since I already knew the outcome, I took my time, looking for trends and interesting aspects of the game that might not have been fully appreciated in real time. At one point, I tried to chart the two teams' 'stupid mistakes' but gave up as it's really tough to make judgement calls regarding what's an error of execution and what's a stupid mistake. The long and the short of that is that most of our penalties occurred in the 4th when we blew a lead and Romo missed passes and his receivers made some dumb drops. Ponder missed a few passes badly as well, which of course helped. Here's what else I came up with in the end.

• Big Picture: This confirms my signature. JG really doesn't know how to run an offense and, to the extent that he has a philosophy, it can not too uncharitably be defined as 'abandon the run early and often'. Yes, our offensive numbers are actually pretty good but they really should be great. We continue to look like the opposing defense is dictating to us, despite having multiple great weapons and one of the best OLs we've had in a long while.
• I continue to be mystified by people who complain about Witten. Yes, he had a drop and a penalty but he also had several important catches, including of course the awesome TD early on.
• Scandrick over the past three or four seasons might be pound for pound the most valuable and most underrated player on this team. He was great today. Without Scandrick, we lose, no ifs, ands or buts.
• Carr played pretty well too. He didn't have any great plays, and his man made a bunch of catches but they were usually pretty well contested and he had multiple breakups.
• The defense generally bent without breaking and, once again, forced some turnovers and even scored. It's okay to give up yards if you're creating turnovers, generally forcing the offense to settle for FGs and occasionally scoring yourself.
• Both the kicker and punter had nice tackles that greatly helped the effort in this very close win. Once again, our special teams were better.

Hey, my hats off to you, it takes guts to watch that game again.

 

[roughneck266]

Good analysis. Not the best showing of the year to be sure, hopefully they will learn from it and come out better next week.

 

[Idgit]

Hey, my hats off to you, it takes guts to watch that game again.

It was a tough win to watch. I had my eyes covered the whole time, and had to peek through my fingers.

 

[xwalker]

I didn't catch the game today as I was out and about. I did follow the score on Gamecast. I just finished watching the game on DVR. Since I already knew the outcome, I took my time, looking for trends and interesting aspects of the game that might not have been fully appreciated in real time. At one point, I tried to chart the two teams' 'stupid mistakes' but gave up as it's really tough to make judgement calls regarding what's an error of execution and what's a stupid mistake. The long and the short of that is that most of our penalties occurred in the 4th when we blew a lead and Romo missed passes and his receivers made some dumb drops. Ponder missed a few passes badly as well, which of course helped. Here's what else I came up with in the end.

• Big Picture: This confirms my signature. JG really doesn't know how to run an offense and, to the extent that he has a philosophy, it can not too uncharitably be defined as 'abandon the run early and often'. Yes, our offensive numbers are actually pretty good but they really should be great. We continue to look like the opposing defense is dictating to us, despite having multiple great weapons and one of the best OLs we've had in a long while.
• I continue to be mystified by people who complain about Witten. Yes, he had a drop and a penalty but he also had several important catches, including of course the awesome TD early on.
• Scandrick over the past three or four seasons might be pound for pound the most valuable and most underrated player on this team. He was great today. Without Scandrick, we lose, no ifs, ands or buts.
• Carr played pretty well too. He didn't have any great plays, and his man made a bunch of catches but they were usually pretty well contested and he had multiple breakups.
• The defense generally bent without breaking and, once again, forced some turnovers and even scored. It's okay to give up yards if you're creating turnovers, generally forcing the offense to settle for FGs and occasionally scoring yourself.
• Both the kicker and punter had nice tackles that greatly helped the effort in this very close win. Once again, our special teams were better.

Good post.

I think the reason that you see more penalties in the 4th quarter is because the Refs like to make themselves part of the game. Many of the penalties that get called at crucial times could have been called on either team earlier in the game.

 

[Corso]

Good post.

I think the reason that you see more penalties in the 4th quarter is because the Refs like to make themselves part of the game. Many of the penalties that get called at crucial times could have been called on either team earlier in the game.

I hate it seems like that, but...

It sure does seem like that.

Maybe my blue and silver glasses are too tinted, but...

It sure does seem like that.

 

[dallasdave]

It was a tough win to watch. I had my eyes covered the whole time, and had to peek through my fingers.

I just ordered another beer

 

[sbark]

seems as if the refs went on a tear and got more "active" after Dez's helmet penalty.......

 

[Clove]

I think what bogs me down and a lot of fans is how slow this team gets things going. And it's always this way, and has been since Garrett took over. We don't start our offense until the 3rd/4th quarter and that drives me insane. If you wonder why our games almost always come down to the final 4 or 5 minutes is because we waste all this time on offense in the first half. The defense, once again, was over achieving in the first half. When your defense is playing like that, your offense needs to get up and down that field.

Garrett, smh. I don't know what to say about this guy. I can go down the list of things he did to tick me off today but I won't. I will say that he has close to nothing to do now that he isn't calling plays. So what he needs to do is get on the refs when they are holding his receivers way down field. They routinely put both hands on the receivers and pulled them to keep them close, just blatant illegal contact. There was also a play where the spot of the ball was a bad spot. JG did not replay it. Those little things can kill your team. But down the stretch in the final 2 minutes, he was pretty solid as a rock. I don't care how good we were down the stretch, we need to be like this all game long. If you think you can make a living out of playing close games all year, think again.

 

[Vanilla2]

seems as if the refs went on a tear and got more "active" after Dez's helmet penalty.......

Especially that hands to the face on berny.

 

[Word Mofo]

seems as if the refs went on a tear and got more "active" after Dez's helmet penalty.......

Agreed! Didn't that ref sound pissed when he announced Dez's penalty? From then on, I felt like they were a little overzealous in their officiating of the Cowboys

 

[Hoov]

The whole offense looked bad for much of the day. Romo just looked like he couldn't rally the troops. They looked lost out there. If ur going to call out coaching u have to look at Qb too. They looked like a group with no leader today. Now I will give credit that at the end romo was able to get the guys focused. Why it took so long I don't know. But when u have as many drops by so many different guys the Qb needs to get confrontational and get guys focused. Again I give romo credit that he got it done on the end. But where was that the test of the game. Notice though that Harris was in on last drive. And Harris scored winning td. More Harris please

 

[BAT]

The whole offense looked bad for much of the day. Romo just looked like he couldn't rally the troops. They looked lost out there. If ur going to call out coaching u have to look at Qb too. They looked like a group with no leader today. Now I will give credit that at the end romo was able to get the guys focused. Why it took so long I don't know. But when u have as many drops by so many different guys the Qb needs to get confrontational and get guys focused. Again I give romo credit that he got it done on the end. But where was that the test of the game. Notice though that Harris was in on last drive. And Harris scored winning td. More Harris please

And yet it was Romo who orchestrated that winning drive at game's end. He was masterful using multiple receivers.

 

[DFWJC]

And yet it was Romo who orchestrated that winning drive at game's end. He was masterful using multiple receivers.

Win or lose, multiple picks or multiple TD, 48 pts or 17 pts, some will always focus on Romo.
It's baffling.

 

[iceberg]

I didn't catch the game today as I was out and about. I did follow the score on Gamecast. I just finished watching the game on DVR. Since I already knew the outcome, I took my time, looking for trends and interesting aspects of the game that might not have been fully appreciated in real time. At one point, I tried to chart the two teams' 'stupid mistakes' but gave up as it's really tough to make judgement calls regarding what's an error of execution and what's a stupid mistake. The long and the short of that is that most of our penalties occurred in the 4th when we blew a lead and Romo missed passes and his receivers made some dumb drops. Ponder missed a few passes badly as well, which of course helped. Here's what else I came up with in the end.

• Big Picture: This confirms my signature. JG really doesn't know how to run an offense and, to the extent that he has a philosophy, it can not too uncharitably be defined as 'abandon the run early and often'. Yes, our offensive numbers are actually pretty good but they really should be great. We continue to look like the opposing defense is dictating to us, despite having multiple great weapons and one of the best OLs we've had in a long while.
• I continue to be mystified by people who complain about Witten. Yes, he had a drop and a penalty but he also had several important catches, including of course the awesome TD early on.
• Scandrick over the past three or four seasons might be pound for pound the most valuable and most underrated player on this team. He was great today. Without Scandrick, we lose, no ifs, ands or buts.
• Carr played pretty well too. He didn't have any great plays, and his man made a bunch of catches but they were usually pretty well contested and he had multiple breakups.
• The defense generally bent without breaking and, once again, forced some turnovers and even scored. It's okay to give up yards if you're creating turnovers, generally forcing the offense to settle for FGs and occasionally scoring yourself.
• Both the kicker and punter had nice tackles that greatly helped the effort in this very close win. Once again, our special teams were better.

JG isn't running the offense though, is he? isnt't that callihan?

i 100% agree that for some mysterious reason we abandon the run. for an even bigger mystery, we put it all on romo.

all of it.

if he makes a mistake he sucks, not we should never rely on 1 player in a team sport. murray has some issues, i'll grant that. but we simply do not want to have a running game.

that's callihan, not garrett. i don't get why people continue to dog on garrett when he's no longer calling the plays.

 

[Titleist]

Agreed! Didn't that ref sound pissed when he announced Dez's penalty? From then on, I felt like they were a little overzealous in their officiating of the Cowboys

Agreed. Yeah the way he announced it, I was scared (irrationally) that Dez was going to be ejected or something...

 

[iceberg]

And yet it was Romo who orchestrated that winning drive at game's end. He was masterful using multiple receivers.

romo did throw that INT - bad romo. and all the usual romo haters said THAT'S THE ROMO I KNOW!!!!

but what did they say when he did a 90 yard drive to come from behind?

jack ****.

highly annoying.

 

[CowboyStar88]

I think what bogs me down and a lot of fans is how slow this team gets things going. And it's always this way, and has been since Garrett took over. We don't start our offense until the 3rd/4th quarter and that drives me insane. If you wonder why our games almost always come down to the final 4 or 5 minutes is because we waste all this time on offense in the first half. The defense, once again, was over achieving in the first half. When your defense is playing like that, your offense needs to get up and down that field.

Garrett, smh. I don't know what to say about this guy. I can go down the list of things he did to tick me off today but I won't. I will say that he has close to nothing to do now that he isn't calling plays. So what he needs to do is get on the refs when they are holding his receivers way down field. They routinely put both hands on the receivers and pulled them to keep them close, just blatant illegal contact. There was also a play where the spot of the ball was a bad spot. JG did not replay it. Those little things can kill your team. But down the stretch in the final 2 minutes, he was pretty solid as a rock. I don't care how good we were down the stretch, we need to be like this all game long. If you think you can make a living out of playing close games all year, think again.

Honestly I think that comes from the scheme. Obviously Witten is option #1 and this team plays from inside out so once Witten is taken away Romo goes into shock and it takes awhile to get it going. Sorry the scheme should not be setup like this at all. I'm a big believer in the fact that this inside out where the TE is the #1 option by design does not play to the strength of this team. JMO

 

[Zman5]

It seems to me they tried to go with the game plan first. When Romo realise it isn't working, Romo just says screw it and plays back yard football. That's when we get the big plays and things get rolling. This is why you see the offense do better in the second half.