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- Apr 7, 2013
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By Bob Sturm Dec 16, 2019
I didn’t see this coming by any stretch of the imagination.
To suggest I did would be highly disingenuous. It would also hinge on the hope that you didn’t read the Friday piece where I carefully laid out as much evidence as I could collect, which all seemed to point to a relatively easy dismantling of the home side by a team that had ended their last journey in January. There are many football principles I believe in, and chief amongst them is this: A team that has to win to keep their season alive can often use that motivation to beat a team that has almost nothing to play for.
By the way, another thing I believe in is seldom actually putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to this league. Every Sunday we re-learn that only a foolish man believes he can truly see the future. This is the most popular sport our nation can offer by a mile, and its addictive qualities are certainly founded in the truths that outcomes are impossible to predict. I have learned that the harder you study this class material, the more you learn you should never believe you know what will happen next.
Jump-cut to yesterday at 3:25 pm: I was sure the Cowboys knew what was at stake. Only morale. Only good feelings about what they could eventually become. The true test would be in Philadelphia next Sunday and it would sure be nice to get this one under your belt beforehand. But once toe meets leather in Pennsylvania, only those three hours would truly define the outcome of this season.
We carefully looked at the evidence of the Rams playing better football recently, the Rams needing this game to prolong their late-season surge to try to catch the final wild-card playoff spot, the Cowboys appearing to quit on the field in Chicago and the onslaught in Los Angeles the last time these two teams met. This was an easy pick. The Rams were not supposed to struggle in Dallas.
And then, like it has week after week and year after year, NFL football happened. This time, it happened in favor of the now 7-7 Dallas Cowboys as they administered an early-round stoppage of the fast-tracking Rams in a 44-21 thumping at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
It certainly started with those same ominous clouds that almost seem to just follow the Cowboys everywhere these days. They appeared to botch the coin toss in the most laughable fashion possible. By not “deferring” the kickoff but rather electing to kick, it appeared Dak Prescott and Jason Garrett had committed a Pop Warner foul of epic proportions. However, minutes later, Fox Television saved the reputations of both by producing video that suggested maybe head referee Walt Anderson was just making another mistake to add to his resume — he had misheard Prescott. Somehow, the league got involved during halftime to sort this problem out — whether they actually had the appropriate jurisdiction or not — and made sure the Cowboys received the second-half kickoff.
Then, the kickoff they evidently elected to kick to start the game comically sailed out of bounds off the foot of new kicker Kai Forbath. The Rams would start the game at their own 40-yard line, and the Cowboys’ televised bloopers show had started with the coin-flip and the opening kickoff — a much earlier opening salvo than normal.
But to the 2019 Dallas Cowboys’ credit, it must be said: That opening kickoff was one of the few highlights of the Rams’ day. Because for that team, coming off an emotional crushing of their rivals in Seattle the week before, things went quickly downhill from there. Last year’s NFC Super Bowl team was able to accomplish next to nothing on either side of the ball the entire day aside from some nice cosmetic yardage versus Prevent defenses in the fourth quarter. The Rams put together one drive that bridged the late first and early second quarters and answered the Cowboys’ initial touchdown, but the next stretch in the second quarter featured such an avalanche of huge moments for the home side that the Rams saw very little reason to care about the second-half kickoff.
It simply would not matter what happened after halftime. Fox tried to build some false drama in the third and fourth quarters to hold viewers, but this game was over in the second, when Dallas apparently took out all the frustrations of their last month on a very talented football team and the outcome was never in question. Despite the legions of supposedly wise followers of football all thinking they knew what they were going to witness on Sunday, what actually occurred was exactly the opposite. Dallas punched back so hard at all of the adversity and doubts that have been lobbed at them in recent weeks that the Rams went quickly to sleep before the back of their head even hit the canvas.
Back in January, the Cowboys were mauled by these Rams in historic fashion. No team had ever run over the Cowboys like that in a playoff game, and it had seldom happened in a regular-season contest either. The Rams out-gained the Cowboys on the ground by an absurd 223 yards as they ran for 273 and only conceded 50. It was the utmost humiliation, as both Cowboys lines, despite heavy investment, were bullied badly. Dallas couldn’t and they couldn’t remotely stop the run.
Dallas utterly turned that around yesterday, and I am still stunned at the degree of domination. They ran the ball for 263 yards and conceded just 22 for a differential of 241 yards. That’s not the biggest spread in Cowboys history, but it is the biggest spread of domination on the ground since December 28, 1980, when Dallas grounded another Rams team into a fine powder at Texas Stadium to the tune of a 246-yard differential as Tony Dorsett, Ron Springs, and Robert Newhouse did the damage.
I suggest very few participants in yesterday’s game were aware of the lofty heights of smash-mouth football and what the history books would reveal. I don’t think they would muster much enthusiasm for what a football nerd can find in the archives, but you get the idea. The Cowboys were destroyed in January by this team and many of the same characters. Turning the tables in a Week 15 game is definitely not the same, as no trip to the NFC Championship Game was on the line. But doggone; if this week was simply about building morale, consider it built on both sides of the ball.
The real key to this avalanche of frustration being taken out on the Rams would go back to the 11:49 point of the second quarter, when the Cowboys faced a 2nd-and-9 at their own 41. The play goes in the box score as a 59-yard touchdown pass to former Ram Tavon Austin in what might become one of the biggest plays of the season, but the true beauty of the play appears to be how Dak Prescott was able to avoid Dante Fowler, who had come free as the backside defender on a zone read. As you surely know by now, so much of what the Cowboys are trying to do is to pair their run plays with pass concepts to allow the QB to make choices as he sees things develop. He pulls the ball from Ezekiel Elliott on the play-action fake and Fowler is the unblocked defender from the other side that they hope will be diving down the line to get to Elliott. Instead, Fowler sees that Prescott still has the ball and therefore is trying to get a sack where he is simply unblocked. At this moment, Prescott has no angle except to bail backward. Fowler has him.
But evidently, he doesn’t have him, because Prescott pushes past Fowler with his free arm and now is rolling to his right deep in the backfield. Meanwhile, off the play-action, Tavon Austin and Blake Jarwin are both running routes in opposite directions, attempting to cause traffic and confusion amongst their defenders, who end up running into each other. Taylor Rapp (Jarwin’s man) took out Darious Williams (Austin’s man) which left Tavon wide open with nobody within a short drive of him. Prescott throws the ball all the way across the field to the speedster who never has to shift up to a higher gear as he can jog in for the touchdown. It took a lot of things going right at the same time to help the game shift, and it started with a QB making a remarkable escape.
A wonderful stop by the defense kept the momentum rolling, as they forced a three-and-out and had Jared Goff looking absolutely lost for much of the day. But the ensuing punt did push the Cowboys all the way down to their own 3-yard line. This would require a march, and what was interesting about this drive that would follow — the fourth drive of the day — was how it was such a clinic in using the many weapons that the Cowboys have at their disposal. They scored 44 points on a day where Amari Cooper had 19 yards, Michael Gallup had 6 and Randall Cobb ended up with -3. How?
First, Ezekiel Elliott looked like himself again, which is what we have been seeing lately. It’s not great that the Cowboys had to wait until after Thanksgiving or so to get the elusive and powerful back that they paid so much to keep. For the first 10-12 weeks, Elliott had not been up to his normal standards. But Peak Zeke makes them much better, and if he is coming on now, that is a great sign.
Yesterday was a day of the defense digging in and quieting the barking from those who found 19 broken tackles in Chicago a sign of widespread indifference. The Cowboys were certainly not indifferent yesterday. They were traveling in packs and finding the ball. If the fourth drive was not the knockout punch, then certainly the magnificent Sean Lee interception was. When this team needed to turn the season around (or attempt to), it is not lost on me that Jason Witten (with his ridiculous touchdown catch on third and long) and Sean Lee helped dig it out of the ditch. You can tell me there are faster and healthier young players and I will agree. But, I will also tell you that those are two great players who just made more great plays at key moments to cap off their great careers. Lee’s interception set up the fourth touchdown in short succession in four drives and it was game over at 28-7.
There was a second half and fantasy points were scored, but the Cowboys and the Rams wrote unexpected chapters in their season again and it only took the second quarter to tell the tale. The Cowboys were fired up and dominated. The Rams will watch the playoffs on their couches.
Whether Dallas joins them or not will still come down to next Sunday against the Eagles.
The bottom line is simple: Don’t bet on football if you want to keep your money. There is simply no explanation for how that team against Buffalo and Chicago could be this team against Los Angeles. It makes no sense. They dominated a good team and dictated terms the entire afternoon.
Dallas won its sixth game of the year with 400 yards of offense, over 30 points and a double-digit margin. No team in Cowboys history has checked all those boxes that many times. Think about that. This is somehow a team with a 7-7 record, a team that might not even make the playoffs.
The NFL makes no sense sometimes. And that is what makes it great.
The Cowboys make no sense sometimes. And that is what makes them frustrating.
This was quite an interesting chapter to the story, but what does it all mean? We are left to wonder, and I am sure at this very moment the coaches are doing the same thing as they try to channel that effort again in seven days when everything is on the line.
That is the real trick, isn’t it?
I didn’t see this coming by any stretch of the imagination.
To suggest I did would be highly disingenuous. It would also hinge on the hope that you didn’t read the Friday piece where I carefully laid out as much evidence as I could collect, which all seemed to point to a relatively easy dismantling of the home side by a team that had ended their last journey in January. There are many football principles I believe in, and chief amongst them is this: A team that has to win to keep their season alive can often use that motivation to beat a team that has almost nothing to play for.
By the way, another thing I believe in is seldom actually putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to this league. Every Sunday we re-learn that only a foolish man believes he can truly see the future. This is the most popular sport our nation can offer by a mile, and its addictive qualities are certainly founded in the truths that outcomes are impossible to predict. I have learned that the harder you study this class material, the more you learn you should never believe you know what will happen next.
Jump-cut to yesterday at 3:25 pm: I was sure the Cowboys knew what was at stake. Only morale. Only good feelings about what they could eventually become. The true test would be in Philadelphia next Sunday and it would sure be nice to get this one under your belt beforehand. But once toe meets leather in Pennsylvania, only those three hours would truly define the outcome of this season.
We carefully looked at the evidence of the Rams playing better football recently, the Rams needing this game to prolong their late-season surge to try to catch the final wild-card playoff spot, the Cowboys appearing to quit on the field in Chicago and the onslaught in Los Angeles the last time these two teams met. This was an easy pick. The Rams were not supposed to struggle in Dallas.
And then, like it has week after week and year after year, NFL football happened. This time, it happened in favor of the now 7-7 Dallas Cowboys as they administered an early-round stoppage of the fast-tracking Rams in a 44-21 thumping at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
It certainly started with those same ominous clouds that almost seem to just follow the Cowboys everywhere these days. They appeared to botch the coin toss in the most laughable fashion possible. By not “deferring” the kickoff but rather electing to kick, it appeared Dak Prescott and Jason Garrett had committed a Pop Warner foul of epic proportions. However, minutes later, Fox Television saved the reputations of both by producing video that suggested maybe head referee Walt Anderson was just making another mistake to add to his resume — he had misheard Prescott. Somehow, the league got involved during halftime to sort this problem out — whether they actually had the appropriate jurisdiction or not — and made sure the Cowboys received the second-half kickoff.
Then, the kickoff they evidently elected to kick to start the game comically sailed out of bounds off the foot of new kicker Kai Forbath. The Rams would start the game at their own 40-yard line, and the Cowboys’ televised bloopers show had started with the coin-flip and the opening kickoff — a much earlier opening salvo than normal.
But to the 2019 Dallas Cowboys’ credit, it must be said: That opening kickoff was one of the few highlights of the Rams’ day. Because for that team, coming off an emotional crushing of their rivals in Seattle the week before, things went quickly downhill from there. Last year’s NFC Super Bowl team was able to accomplish next to nothing on either side of the ball the entire day aside from some nice cosmetic yardage versus Prevent defenses in the fourth quarter. The Rams put together one drive that bridged the late first and early second quarters and answered the Cowboys’ initial touchdown, but the next stretch in the second quarter featured such an avalanche of huge moments for the home side that the Rams saw very little reason to care about the second-half kickoff.
It simply would not matter what happened after halftime. Fox tried to build some false drama in the third and fourth quarters to hold viewers, but this game was over in the second, when Dallas apparently took out all the frustrations of their last month on a very talented football team and the outcome was never in question. Despite the legions of supposedly wise followers of football all thinking they knew what they were going to witness on Sunday, what actually occurred was exactly the opposite. Dallas punched back so hard at all of the adversity and doubts that have been lobbed at them in recent weeks that the Rams went quickly to sleep before the back of their head even hit the canvas.
Back in January, the Cowboys were mauled by these Rams in historic fashion. No team had ever run over the Cowboys like that in a playoff game, and it had seldom happened in a regular-season contest either. The Rams out-gained the Cowboys on the ground by an absurd 223 yards as they ran for 273 and only conceded 50. It was the utmost humiliation, as both Cowboys lines, despite heavy investment, were bullied badly. Dallas couldn’t and they couldn’t remotely stop the run.
Dallas utterly turned that around yesterday, and I am still stunned at the degree of domination. They ran the ball for 263 yards and conceded just 22 for a differential of 241 yards. That’s not the biggest spread in Cowboys history, but it is the biggest spread of domination on the ground since December 28, 1980, when Dallas grounded another Rams team into a fine powder at Texas Stadium to the tune of a 246-yard differential as Tony Dorsett, Ron Springs, and Robert Newhouse did the damage.
I suggest very few participants in yesterday’s game were aware of the lofty heights of smash-mouth football and what the history books would reveal. I don’t think they would muster much enthusiasm for what a football nerd can find in the archives, but you get the idea. The Cowboys were destroyed in January by this team and many of the same characters. Turning the tables in a Week 15 game is definitely not the same, as no trip to the NFC Championship Game was on the line. But doggone; if this week was simply about building morale, consider it built on both sides of the ball.
The real key to this avalanche of frustration being taken out on the Rams would go back to the 11:49 point of the second quarter, when the Cowboys faced a 2nd-and-9 at their own 41. The play goes in the box score as a 59-yard touchdown pass to former Ram Tavon Austin in what might become one of the biggest plays of the season, but the true beauty of the play appears to be how Dak Prescott was able to avoid Dante Fowler, who had come free as the backside defender on a zone read. As you surely know by now, so much of what the Cowboys are trying to do is to pair their run plays with pass concepts to allow the QB to make choices as he sees things develop. He pulls the ball from Ezekiel Elliott on the play-action fake and Fowler is the unblocked defender from the other side that they hope will be diving down the line to get to Elliott. Instead, Fowler sees that Prescott still has the ball and therefore is trying to get a sack where he is simply unblocked. At this moment, Prescott has no angle except to bail backward. Fowler has him.
But evidently, he doesn’t have him, because Prescott pushes past Fowler with his free arm and now is rolling to his right deep in the backfield. Meanwhile, off the play-action, Tavon Austin and Blake Jarwin are both running routes in opposite directions, attempting to cause traffic and confusion amongst their defenders, who end up running into each other. Taylor Rapp (Jarwin’s man) took out Darious Williams (Austin’s man) which left Tavon wide open with nobody within a short drive of him. Prescott throws the ball all the way across the field to the speedster who never has to shift up to a higher gear as he can jog in for the touchdown. It took a lot of things going right at the same time to help the game shift, and it started with a QB making a remarkable escape.
A wonderful stop by the defense kept the momentum rolling, as they forced a three-and-out and had Jared Goff looking absolutely lost for much of the day. But the ensuing punt did push the Cowboys all the way down to their own 3-yard line. This would require a march, and what was interesting about this drive that would follow — the fourth drive of the day — was how it was such a clinic in using the many weapons that the Cowboys have at their disposal. They scored 44 points on a day where Amari Cooper had 19 yards, Michael Gallup had 6 and Randall Cobb ended up with -3. How?
First, Ezekiel Elliott looked like himself again, which is what we have been seeing lately. It’s not great that the Cowboys had to wait until after Thanksgiving or so to get the elusive and powerful back that they paid so much to keep. For the first 10-12 weeks, Elliott had not been up to his normal standards. But Peak Zeke makes them much better, and if he is coming on now, that is a great sign.
Yesterday was a day of the defense digging in and quieting the barking from those who found 19 broken tackles in Chicago a sign of widespread indifference. The Cowboys were certainly not indifferent yesterday. They were traveling in packs and finding the ball. If the fourth drive was not the knockout punch, then certainly the magnificent Sean Lee interception was. When this team needed to turn the season around (or attempt to), it is not lost on me that Jason Witten (with his ridiculous touchdown catch on third and long) and Sean Lee helped dig it out of the ditch. You can tell me there are faster and healthier young players and I will agree. But, I will also tell you that those are two great players who just made more great plays at key moments to cap off their great careers. Lee’s interception set up the fourth touchdown in short succession in four drives and it was game over at 28-7.
There was a second half and fantasy points were scored, but the Cowboys and the Rams wrote unexpected chapters in their season again and it only took the second quarter to tell the tale. The Cowboys were fired up and dominated. The Rams will watch the playoffs on their couches.
Whether Dallas joins them or not will still come down to next Sunday against the Eagles.
The bottom line is simple: Don’t bet on football if you want to keep your money. There is simply no explanation for how that team against Buffalo and Chicago could be this team against Los Angeles. It makes no sense. They dominated a good team and dictated terms the entire afternoon.
Dallas won its sixth game of the year with 400 yards of offense, over 30 points and a double-digit margin. No team in Cowboys history has checked all those boxes that many times. Think about that. This is somehow a team with a 7-7 record, a team that might not even make the playoffs.
The NFL makes no sense sometimes. And that is what makes it great.
The Cowboys make no sense sometimes. And that is what makes them frustrating.
This was quite an interesting chapter to the story, but what does it all mean? We are left to wonder, and I am sure at this very moment the coaches are doing the same thing as they try to channel that effort again in seven days when everything is on the line.
That is the real trick, isn’t it?