When exactly was Dallas supposed to run the clock out?

NoLuv4Jerry

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Just by simply running 3 times on that last drive to end the third quarter, even if we ran three straight times and then punted, we would have wiped two minutes off the clock. Chances are we would have picked up a first anyway considering how well Murray was running, but let's say we run 3 times and punt.

If everything else plays out the same, we get the ball up 36-31 with like 2:20 left rather than 4 minutes. Let's say we run 3 more times (instead of 4 throws, 1 run) and have to punt, they use two timeouts and the 2 minute warning. So they get the ball with like 1:50 left and probably worse field position than they started with on the INT. After Romo's INT, it took them 1:31 to score from the 50-yard line. Chris Jones averaged 50 yards per punt yesterday. So let's say we punt from the 25 and they start at their own 25.

Maybe they still score go 75 yards in 1:50 and score anyway, but even under that MOST CONSERVATIVE estimate, which is the assumption that we get stuffed on ALL OF OUR RUNNING PLAYS (which the course of yesterday's game tells us likely would not have happened), we still would have made things much more difficult on Green Bay than we did by basically gift-wrapping them yesterday's game.
MAYBE? MAYBE? Go over EVERY close loss this year. DId the opposition MAYBE score on us...or DID they score on us?
 

ScipioCowboy

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Haha... so we shouldn't have passed at all in the 2nd half (even though Romo was shredding GB in the 1st half) because an incompletion stops the clock?

Nothing like a good strawman when you're floundering.
 

NoLuv4Jerry

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Madden has mislead so many fans.
No being stuck in the 90s has misled fans. Go back to the Detroit game. When Tanner bounced the ball outside and Smith got called for holding. Garrett ADMITTED the run was NOT designed to gain yards. It was designed to force the opposition to call timeouts or burn clock. And no matter how little time or timeouts teams have had on us...we have given up scores. I wonder if we have given up the most 65+ yard drives in under a minute in the NFL this year. I have seen this team FOR to many times lose leads asking this defense to hold. I have also seen this team win a couple of times this year when Romo led us on a game winning drive. Yesterday he did not. So we are all upset. But if we punt to GB with a minute or 2 left we would STILL be upset today...because we would have LOST!
 

Nav22

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You have no problem with 4 throws/1 run on that drive when we were up 36-31 with four minutes left?

Stop the stupid comparisons to the New England game. We couldn't run at all in the game. We were gashing GB on the ground yesterday.

Your problem is that you're assuming we would be able to keep grinding out 1st downs on the ground even though Green Bay was selling out to stop the run. I don't have any data in front of me (AdamJT13?) but my guess is that NFL teams are generally pretty good at stopping the run in those sort of late-game situations where the offense is trying to end the game and the D is looking for a stop. They're stacking the box and selling out hard.

I'd honestly have been fine with either strategy because there's inherent pros and cons that come with each. Again, the PLAYERS need to execute the plays.

If we ran the ball and moved the chains, everyone's happy. If we ran the ball and DIDN'T move the chains, we give Green Bay the ball back and lose. Then everyone's blasting Garrett/Callahan for "going into a shell" or "not letting Romo win the game".
You have those numbers on how often they had 10 in the box? Are you talking about the next to last drive only?

It makes you wonder how any team who ever has a big lead ever runs the ball. I mean, the other team knows they want to run it, right?

It's just like joeboy said, and the same thing we went through after that Detroit debacle (the one from a couple years ago -- since we have to distinguish which Detroit debacle)... If you just keep the clock moving and get a few first downs, they don't have time to beat you barring a rash of turnovers or special teams scores.

Yes, I was talking about the next-to-last drive only. The INT to Miles that everyone's 2nd guessing with the benefit of hindsight.

I agree that we should have been more balanced overall. This thread was only supposed to be about "running out the clock" in the late 3rd-4th, or at least that's what I've been referring to.

It's easy to 2nd guess a play-call AFTER we see that it didn't work. But it would have worked if the players (Romo in this case) executed better.

The objective is ALWAYS to "get 1st downs and keep the clock moving" when you have a lead, so I find it comical that people are saying that's what we should have done.

As for the Detroit game in 2011...

The first pick-6 in the 3rd quarter came on the 1st play of the drive. There was still over 10 minutes left in the 3rd. Unless you're of the belief that you MUST ALWAYS run on 1st down when you have a big lead, even with PLENTY of time left on the clock, I don't see how you could really 2nd guess the call there. Sometimes you mix it up and throw it on 1st to keep the D honest.

The next pick-6 came on our next drive, on the 7th play of the drive. For the first 6 plays of that drive, we ran it 5 times and passed ONCE (6-yard completion), but people STILL complained (and still complain to this day) that we "got pass-happy" and "should have been running out the clock".

It's silly. We were only up 17 at that point and there was still something like 23 minutes of football left. Far too early to go into "run on every single down" mode. But those complains speak to my point that fans just love 2nd-guessing anything that doesn't work and blaming the coaches for bad strategy.
 

Fritsch_the_cat

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We all know what Tony does in these situations, so it is the acme of ignorance to put him in the position to do it again.
 

DOUBLE WING

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MAYBE? MAYBE? Go over EVERY close loss this year. DId the opposition MAYBE score on us...or DID they score on us?

Why are you ignoring the fact that to even get to that point where Green Bay has to drive 75 yards with 1:50 left, DeMarco Murray would have to get stuffed on every single one of his run attempts for GB to even get the ball with 1:50 left? What during the course of yesterdays game tells you that would have been likely to happen?
 

Nav22

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Nothing like a good strawman when you're floundering.

We had 4 incompletions in the 2nd half, and someone complained that if those didn't happen we'd have killed another 2 minutes off the clock. Which implies that we shouldn't have passed AT ALL in the 2nd half since, after all, completions keep the clock moving just like runs would have. And if that's NOT what he was implying, then what was his point?
 

Nav22

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We all know what Tony does in these situations, so it is the acme of ignorance to put him in the position to do it again.

Ah, so you were okay with the late-game strategy in New England 2 seasons ago?
 

DOUBLE WING

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Your problem is that you're assuming we would be able to keep grinding out 1st downs on the ground even though Green Bay was selling out to stop the run. I don't have any data in front of me (AdamJT13?) but my guess is that NFL teams are generally pretty good at stopping the run in those sort of late-game situations where the offense is trying to end the game and the D is looking for a stop. They're stacking the box and selling out hard.

I'd honestly have been fine with either strategy because there's inherent pros and cons that come with each. Again, the PLAYERS need to execute the plays.

If we ran the ball and moved the chains, everyone's happy. If we ran the ball and DIDN'T move the chains, we give Green Bay the ball back and lose. Then everyone's blasting Garrett/Callahan for "going into a shell" or "not letting Romo win the game".

I don't feel any pity for them. Garrett is paid millions to get it right. We aren't. He continues to get it wrong. His problem, not ours. He'll pay for it with his job.

Yes, I am assuming we would have been able to keep grinding it out. Why not? We were doing it all game. I would rather keep going with what works until they prove they can stop it. Maybe Murray doesn't gash them for another 15-yard gain, but maybe he picks up a pair of 4-yard runs and sets us up with a 3rd and 2? There's literally no negatives I can see to running the ball there.

Don't let the defense dictate what you're going to do, YOU dictate what you're going to do. But that's not Garrett's MO. He never, ever takes control of the tempo of a game. He lets the opposition dictate what his offense is going to do.
 

NoLuv4Jerry

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Why are you ignoring the fact that to even get to that point where Green Bay has to drive 75 yards with 1:50 left, DeMarco Murray would have to get stuffed on every single one of his run attempts for GB to even get the ball with 1:50 left? What during the course of yesterdays game tells you that would have been likely to happen?
Oh..I thought we were talking about why Romo checked to a pass play instead of running it with 10 in the box on his first pick. To be honest..and it is not being talked about much. But it was obvious to ME that they were pacing Murray yesterday. No other RB saw the field yesterday. And I don't know why the media has not forced the Cowboys to address this. You could tell from the beginning that they did not run Murray more in the 1st half because they intended to play him the entire game. And I cannot understand for the life of me why you RBs on the team that you do not trust to take 6 - 10 snaps. RB is the easiset position on a football team to fill...and in week 14 you do not trust anyone else? Murray was GREAT yesterday...but he has never been Emmit Smith. So it's not like he has ever been a 30 carry for 16 games RB. So where is his compliment?
 

DOUBLE WING

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Ah, so you were okay with the late-game strategy in New England 2 seasons ago?

Dude, you have to stop bringing this up. It's so asinine and not helping you at all. We averaged 3 yards a carry against New England. We averaged 7.6 yesterday.
 

DOUBLE WING

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Oh..I thought we were talking about why Romo checked to a pass play instead of running it with 10 in the box on his first pick. To be honest..and it is not being talked about much. But it was obvious to ME that they were pacing Murray yesterday. No other RB saw the field yesterday. And I don't know why the media has not forced the Cowboys to address this. You could tell from the beginning that they did not run Murray more in the 1st half because they intended to play him the entire game. And I cannot understand for the life of me why you RBs on the team that you do not trust to take 6 - 10 snaps. RB is the easiset position on a football team to fill...and in week 14 you do not trust anyone else? Murray was GREAT yesterday...but he has never been Emmit Smith. So it's not like he has ever been a 30 carry for 16 games RB. So where is his compliment?

That's a valid point, but doesn't address why he didn't get the ball more in the second half yesterday. That's yet another Jason Garrett coaching failure.
 

ScipioCowboy

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We had 4 incompletions in the 2nd half, and someone complained that if those didn't happen we'd have killed another 2 minutes off the clock. Which implies that we shouldn't have passed AT ALL in the 2nd half since, after all, completions keep the clock moving just like runs would have. And if that's NOT what he was implying, then what was his point?

His point was probably that a 48-17 pass-run distribution isn't going to win you many games, and there was no reason for such a disparity when you're leading by 23 at halftime.
 

Mr Cowboy

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Where does this 10 in the box come from? Why would GB have 10 in the box if the cowboys were in empty sets on more than half of the plays in the second half?

Regardless, the game was lost in the first half. You can't dominate an opponent like the Cowboys did, and settle for FGs. Also for some mysterious reason, on the last possession of the first half, the Cowboys quit running the ball. Aikman was saying in the first half that he expected Dez to have 200 yards because GB was playing the WRs one on one because GB was selling out on the run, and still couldn't stop it.

So please stop with the 10 in the box, the packers played the run in the first half and couldn't stop it. They also couldn't stop the crossing patterns to the WRs and the seam passes to the TEs. The abandoned all 3 in the second half.
 

DOUBLE WING

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His point was probably that a 48-17 pass-run distribution isn't going to win you many games, and there was no reason for such a disparity when you're leading by 23 at halftime.

And the example that perfectly illustrates this is yesterday's game.

Why is this so hard for some to understand?
 

Nav22

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Dude, you have to stop bringing this up. It's so asinine and not helping you at all. We averaged 3 yards a carry against New England. We averaged 7.6 yesterday.

Haha and those numbers would have SURELY held up even with Green Bay completely stacking the box to stop the run, right?

Again, I'd have been fine with either strategy. As long as it works, it's a "great call". When it doesn't, Captain Hindsight fans like yourself complain about the inherent cons that came with the failed strategy.

So today, we're getting a lot of "why wouldn't you RUN the ball to kill clock and move the chains?"

And if we had run the ball and THAT backfired, we'd be getting a lot of "why wouldn't you keep your foot on the gas and let Romo ice the game"?
 

Fritsch_the_cat

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Ah, so you were okay with the late-game strategy in New England 2 seasons ago?

You are right, it didn't work two seasons ago at Foxborough against year in and year out one of the best defenses in the league , so no way it would have worked yesterday. Brilliant deduction. You should be our OC.

We've seen the "Romo does it again" movie enough times already. Besides, it's not about waiting until late to run, the entire second half should have been dedicated to running the ball.
 

NoLuv4Jerry

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That's a valid point, but doesn't address why he didn't get the ball more in the second half yesterday. That's yet another Jason Garrett coaching failure.
Again...I don't have the stats in front of me....but from what I can remember of Murray...the more he carries, the less effective he is and the more susceptible he is to injury. You have to remember even when he is not running the ball..he is picking up the blitz and.or running pass routes. He was not exacctly fresh. The WRs rotate more than he did yesterday. Again...without the benefit of tape....I am pretty sure no other RB played yesterday. Not excusing this team for not running him a little more in the 2nd half. But he played a TON of snaps yesterday. And honestly...all it would have done is delayed the inevitable...if this team did NOT continue to score...GB was going to catch us. This defense is THAT bad. We get no pressure. We leave guys wide open. We cannot tackle. We take poor angles. Even when we are in position the WR just jumps over us. Or the QB throws it up for 50 yard pass interference penalties. Think about all the underthown deep balls to Dez yestareday...he did not draw ONE....ONE pass interference pentalty. But Matt Flynn throws it up and we are grabbing/holding and getting caught. Heck the TD Dez did catch...unreal that no PI was called!
 

Nav22

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His point was probably that a 48-17 pass-run distribution isn't going to win you many games, and there was no reason for such a disparity when you're leading by 23 at halftime.

And if you'd been following this thread, you'd know that I've said several times now that I agree that we needed more balance.
 

DOUBLE WING

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Haha and those numbers would have SURELY held up even with Green Bay completely stacking the box to stop the run, right?

Again, I'd have been fine with either strategy. As long as it works, it's a "great call". When it doesn't, Captain Hindsight fans like yourself complain about the inherent cons that came with the failed strategy.

So today, we're getting a lot of "why wouldn't you RUN the ball to kill clock and move the chains?"

And if we had run the ball and THAT backfired, we'd be getting a lot of "why wouldn't you keep your foot on the gas and let Romo ice the game"?

On which play was Green Bay "completely stacking the box to stop the run" ? Can you point it out to me? I'm re-watching the game and I can't find the play.

And even if they were, why should that scare Garrett away from going to what had been a dominant rushing attack? He's been the coach for 3 years now. Isn't it about time he grows a pair and dictates what he's going to do to the opposition, rather than the other way around?
 
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