dboyz
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I guess I'm still not over the loss. What bothers me most about it is we didn't go down swinging. The Seattle secondary was vulnerable, to say the least and we didn't go after them. And in general we weren't aggressive at important points in the game.
Before the game my thought was that I can deal with the Cowboys losing, but they should be aggressive, attack the Seahawks and give themselves a chance to win. If Romo throws 4 interceptions, fine, but you don't want to finish the game and feel like you left some ammo off the field.
A couple of examples that are illustrative of our approach in the game.
On our field goal drive in the 4th quarter, Jones had a six yard run to the Seattle 13, making it 2nd and 4. The score at this time was 17-13. A touchdown puts us up two scores and we very likely win the game, so that has to be given strong consideration. I believe in playing to win, not trying to hang around. 2nd and four is a good time for play-action, but we run Julius and gain three making it 3rd down and if I remember correctly about a foot.
Again, to me, a touchdown is huge here, a field goal is ok, but if you score a touchdown here you probably have a 90% chance to win, because it will take 2 scores to beat you. To me, there are two valid play calls here:
1. quarterback sneak - Romo can practically fall forward and get the first down. It's a conservative call, but a good call, because it's a very high percentage play for a first down when you have a short distance to go and even if you don't get it, you are probably even closer if you want to go on fourth, because you rarely lose yardage on QB sneaks.
2. Play action. It would be a big surprise and you'd have a chance at a touchdown.
Of course we hand off and get nowhere. Now anyone can play the 20/20 hindsight game and say it didn't work, therefore it was a bad play call. My point is that just by looking at the situation beforehand and not knowing what will happen, the handoff was the worst possible play call. If you want to just get the first down, a QB sneak does that and it's very unlikely you'll lose yardage. Any gain of yardage would pretty much get you the first down. If you want to be a little daring, then play action is the way to go. Running to a tail back is conservative and it also allows the defense time to penetrate and blow up the play. Bad call. The worst thing is we ended up kicking a field goal without ever attacking the endzone, when a touchdown pretty much ices the game.
Ok, next situation on our infamous drive, it's 1-10 on the Seattle 11 with Seattle leading 21-20. Again a field goal is good, but I would still be worried because a field goal by Seattle still gives them the game. I would want a touchdown. On first or second down I would have done some play action or a pass of some sort to at least attack the endzone. I know we wanted to run Seattle out of timeouts, but as it turned out they still would have had enough time for a drive. Had the 3rd down pass to Witten happened on second down, we would have had another chance to pick up the first or get a touchdown. Of course we run twice only get to the 8 and come up just short on 3rd down and the rest as they say is history.
Anyway, had to get that off my chest. I don't mind losing, but at least attack the other side and give yourself a chance to put the other team away. I've been a Parcells supporter, but the decisions in this game are making question my faith in him.
Before the game my thought was that I can deal with the Cowboys losing, but they should be aggressive, attack the Seahawks and give themselves a chance to win. If Romo throws 4 interceptions, fine, but you don't want to finish the game and feel like you left some ammo off the field.
A couple of examples that are illustrative of our approach in the game.
On our field goal drive in the 4th quarter, Jones had a six yard run to the Seattle 13, making it 2nd and 4. The score at this time was 17-13. A touchdown puts us up two scores and we very likely win the game, so that has to be given strong consideration. I believe in playing to win, not trying to hang around. 2nd and four is a good time for play-action, but we run Julius and gain three making it 3rd down and if I remember correctly about a foot.
Again, to me, a touchdown is huge here, a field goal is ok, but if you score a touchdown here you probably have a 90% chance to win, because it will take 2 scores to beat you. To me, there are two valid play calls here:
1. quarterback sneak - Romo can practically fall forward and get the first down. It's a conservative call, but a good call, because it's a very high percentage play for a first down when you have a short distance to go and even if you don't get it, you are probably even closer if you want to go on fourth, because you rarely lose yardage on QB sneaks.
2. Play action. It would be a big surprise and you'd have a chance at a touchdown.
Of course we hand off and get nowhere. Now anyone can play the 20/20 hindsight game and say it didn't work, therefore it was a bad play call. My point is that just by looking at the situation beforehand and not knowing what will happen, the handoff was the worst possible play call. If you want to just get the first down, a QB sneak does that and it's very unlikely you'll lose yardage. Any gain of yardage would pretty much get you the first down. If you want to be a little daring, then play action is the way to go. Running to a tail back is conservative and it also allows the defense time to penetrate and blow up the play. Bad call. The worst thing is we ended up kicking a field goal without ever attacking the endzone, when a touchdown pretty much ices the game.
Ok, next situation on our infamous drive, it's 1-10 on the Seattle 11 with Seattle leading 21-20. Again a field goal is good, but I would still be worried because a field goal by Seattle still gives them the game. I would want a touchdown. On first or second down I would have done some play action or a pass of some sort to at least attack the endzone. I know we wanted to run Seattle out of timeouts, but as it turned out they still would have had enough time for a drive. Had the 3rd down pass to Witten happened on second down, we would have had another chance to pick up the first or get a touchdown. Of course we run twice only get to the 8 and come up just short on 3rd down and the rest as they say is history.
Anyway, had to get that off my chest. I don't mind losing, but at least attack the other side and give yourself a chance to put the other team away. I've been a Parcells supporter, but the decisions in this game are making question my faith in him.
