Why does Dallas lose at the end?

[honyock]

2nd to last possession was just awful and Dallas gave Detroit another possession by not forcing them to use their timeouts.

The team passed on first down and drew a penalty. Following 1st and 2nd down they lost yardage on runs, basically giving up on trying to get the 1st down to seal the game.

On 3rd down instead of running and forcing Detroit to use their 2nd timeout they pass and it's a lousy throw away at that. Not even an attempt at getting yardage. Had Detroit been forced to use a timeout at that point in the game, Detroit doesn't have the timeouts to stop the clock on the possession that Tyron was flagged. They have one and can stop it after a kneel down but that's it. Game is over. No penalty, just 3 kneel downs and the game is over.

The 3rd down call was horrid after back to back runs that lost yardage. If you're going to try for the first down don't call back to back runs when you can't run the ball. They ran the ball which is what you would do to kill the clock. Then for some random reason they gave Detroit a free timeout by calling a pass play.

I have no problem if you decide to try and ice the game but if you do that, you don't do it half-heartedly and run. Maybe once to keep the clock moving but at 2nd and 11, you have to pass if your intent is to get a 1st down. Once you're at 3rd and 12 or whatever it was, you've already committed to killing the clock. The odds of converting a long 3rd down aren't great to begin with and Dallas wasn't really converting 3rd downs at all.

The offensive coaching staff and players did a horrid job on the last two possessions of the game. Not only did they give Detroit a free possession all together by not forcing a timeout on the previous possession, they gave Detroit a world of time to work with.

They had no plan and no idea of what they wanted to do. Somehow, getting a first down on the 2nd to last possession was the goal on the first 1st down, but not on the second 1st down or following 2nd down. Then they went back to trying to get the first down on 3rd and long


Broaddus has an article about it and I'm glad he wrote it. It was painfully obvious how botched the situation was and someone needed to bring it up.

I disagree with almost all of this in regard to the next-to-last possession. That possession failed because our guys didn't block their guys, either running or passing. You're basically arguing that we should have run and passed in some kind of different order, when we didn't block well for either one on that series.

Start with the first down run after the PI call. Detroit had only six men in the box. We had run pretty well on first down for most of the game...not great, but consistently getting positive yardage. Run there, against a defense inviting you to run, gain 4-5 yards and you're in good shape for second down. I have no problem with a run in that situation against that alignment. It wasn't a give up, or a run out the clock play. The problem was, we didn't block their guys. One came in untouched and we lost three yards.

Second and 13. You can argue a run here was too conservative. But what do you do on 2nd and 13 to pick up a first down? Try to pick up some of it on second and leave yourself with a manageable third down? With a run, that hasn't been working on second down, or a quick pass, which hasn't been working too well either? Or pass twice, going for the whole thing each time, against a rush that has given you fits all day? There's not really a good answer there. Anything you do, if the play doesn't work, leaves you open to second guessing. So we tried to pick up some of it on the ground, and our guys didn't block their guys, and we gained a yard.

When your guys don't block their guys, there aren't many Magic Plays that work. I think a lot of the second guessing on that series is the Magic Play Theory. There had toe a play that would have worked there, our stupid coaches just didn't call it. Magic Plays don't work much when you don't block the other team.

Third and 12. You go for it. If the line can protect and you hit Dez for 15 yards, the whole game changes. If you can convert that one play, everything swings in your favor. You take that risk. Your argument is that we should have known somehow that the Lions would get TWO series in the last two minutes. It's a hindsight argument. You could very well argue the exact opposite, that we needed the clock stopped because we were kicking it to them, Claiborne was out, Church was out, we had two backup safeties in, we had no answer for Megatron, no real answer for Bush,they had all the time in the world with two timeouts, or a timeout and the two minute warning, and we'd need that extra time on the clock to catch up. You can't anticipate all the possibilities for how it unfolds. With that much time on the clock, I'd go for the first down there every time.

The problem was, our guys didn't block their guys on third down either. Three men broke free on Romo, and if he hadn't thrown that ball away, he was facing a near certain sack at about the five yard line. A loss of 15-20 yards, punting from our end zone, they get the ball in great field position. I wouldn't call it a poor throwaway, that's a good throwaway. If he had taken the sack instead to keep the clock running, he'd be getting roasted here.

When your guys don't block their guys, there'd aren't many Magic Plays or Magic Approaches that work. I don't have a problem with the playcalling on that series. Maybe the second down run, but 2nd and 13 isn't exactly easy to playcall for. It was the execution, and specifically the blocking, that killed us there.

 

[Eddie]

Jerry Jones enables the team.