FROM THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM...Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo is getting a lot of criticism for throwing consecutive passes to fourth receiver Sam Hurd against Denver standout cornerback Champ Bailey on third and fourth down to end the game in Sunday's 17-10 loss.
Is it possible that Romo didn't know it was fourth down?
Following the final incomplete pass to end the Cowboys hopes, a video caught on KDFW Fox-4 shows Romo seemingly telling his linemen to line back up. He then flashes three fingers to one of the game officials.
After hearing the response, Romo screams and walks off field.
If true, Romo apparently forgot about the spike to stop the clock on second down.
When asked about the series of events, Coach Wade Phillips didn't know anything about a discrepancy. He said that on the sideline they knew what down it was and any questions would need to be directed at Romo.
That may not be until Wednesday or Thursday. Romo is not scheduled to talk to the media until then.
APTony Romo talks with offensive coordinator Jason Garrett during Dallas' loss at Denver on Sunday.
Is it me or does it seem like there’s always a conspiracy coming out of Dallas? To me, Tony Romo not knowing what down it was just doesn’t seem plausible (much like Oswald acting alone in the Kennedy assassination doesn’t seem plausible), but what does is the fact the Cowboys as a team failed to act and handle the pressure of the moment. This is all not on Romo; Wade Phillips, Jason Garrett and the whole team share the blame.
Speaking of Wade, how about this line: He said he didn't know anything about a discrepancy. According to the story, he said that “on the sideline they knew what down it was and any questions would need to be directed at Romo.” Wow, that’s throwing the quarterback under the bus.
Third quarter: 2-11-DEN 17 (12:49) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass incomplete short left to R.Williams (D.Williams).
Timeout #1 by DAL at 12:45.
Mistake No. 1: They did not get the play in on time as this meaningless timeout early in the second half was another reason for the failures on the final drive.
Dallas Cowboys at 1:46 now. They have two timeouts and need a touchdown to tie.
1-10-DAL 20 (1:46) T.Romo pass short right to J.Witten to DAL 27 for 7 yards (D.Williams).
2-3-DAL 27 (1:23) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass incomplete short right to M.Austin.
3-3-DAL 27 (1:20) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass incomplete short left to P.Crayton (J.Williams).
4-3-DAL 27 (1:16) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass short middle to S.Hurd to DEN 20 for 53 yards (B.Dawkins). P19
Timeout #2 by DAL at 00:59.
Had to call this timeout. Plays are too important now, and with one in your back pocket, it’s important to be mindful of the clock. But keep in mind that the next timeout must be saved in the event of a sack.
1-10-DEN 20 (:59) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass short right to T.Choice to DEN 13 for 7 yards (W.Woodyard).
2-3-DEN 13 (:35) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass short right to S.Hurd pushed ob at DEN 8 for 5 yards (C.Bailey). P20
Timeout #3 by DAL at 00:27.
APReceiver Sam Hurd was seemingly Romo's favorite target in the fourth quarter.
Really bad. Two plays burn off 32 seconds that are very precious. They’re now trapped and must throw the ball four times in the end zone. This mismanagement of the time is Mistake No. 2.
1-8-DEN 8 (:27) T.Romo pass short right to P.Crayton to DEN 2 for 6 yards (J.Williams).
HUGE, HUGE, HUGE MISTAKE, AND THE FOCUS OF THE GAME SHOULD BE CENTERED RIGHT HERE…Mistake No. 3. Romo has to know better than to throw a pass inbounds that results in just a two-yard gain. This throw can’t be made unless there’s a clear path to the end zone. A tackle in bounds is what the defense wants. A throw away here is much better.
2-2-DEN 2 (:09) T.Romo spiked the ball to stop the clock.
He had to, but again, look how much time is used for two yards? Why did it take so long to set back up? Twenty-two second to gain two yards is high schoolish. They waste time at moments like these too easily…
3-2-DEN 2 (:09) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass incomplete short middle to S.Hurd (C.Bailey).
The play comes from the bench. The Cowboys are in a two-by-two formation in which they have two wideouts to Romo’s left and a tight end and receiver to his right. Denver lines up in an all-out blitz, and Romo calls for the protection to slide to the left, which keeps Jason Witten in to block. This places Romo’s eye control to the right because he slides the line to the overload and doesn’t have enough blockers to handle the ones from right. All quarterbacks are taught to look at the unblocked man and throw before he arrives. So Miles Austin being open is not really significant since Romo was NEVER going to look left because of the protection. Had he slid the line to the right, he would have never gotten the ball off in time. Hurd doesn’t run a very good route, and Romo can’t hold the ball long because of the blitz. Bad route, bad call, bad result.
4-2-DEN 2 (:05) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass incomplete short middle to S.Hurd (C.Bailey).
See above. The Broncos call the same blitz and Dallas does the same thing over again. They do not change the play, the protection, the personnel group, the design. They just let it run. The theory that someone has to make a play…well, someone didn’t.
Winning football is a game of details, and the Cowboys didn’t cover all the details. Romo takes the heat, but there was more than one shooter to blame in Denver for sure.
Follow me on Twitter: michaelombardi
Great points Lombardi. I love your columns.
And tell Bill Simmons you're coming on his podcast this week whether he likes it or not.
Chris Brown at Smartfootball.com HATES the spike play. He's got numbers showing how it wastes a precious resource. Why not throw a fade or back line marker with the chance of a flag?
The protection item is even more interesting. Dallas HAS to kick its protection left every time? Numbers to fit the front, or from a discrepancy in what can be expected of back side protection?
Champ Bailey said somewhere that the design of the defense on the last two plays was to force Romo to throw the inside slant route covered by him (i.e. the exact route Hurd ran, both times). I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Miles Austin was probably wide open on the left PRECISELY because the Denver D knew he would never look that way, based on the protection he would call in that situation. (It wasn't clear to me from Lombardi's description whether the blitz was coming from the left, which is why Romo called for the protection to slide left, but it seems plausible).
It seems possible that Denver designed that defense based upon tendencies they saw in the film room. If so, it provides that much more evidence of how scheme and homework can help a defense improve dramatically. I'm not so sure that the Denver D was as devoid of talent as we all assumed this offseason. There are alot of new faces, to be sure, but its not like we thought they really upgraded the talent base that much. Maybe last year's travesty wasn't a result of bad talent, but of bad scheme, bad filmwork, and bad gameplanning. Just a thought.
Champ baited romo, twice in a row and romo bit both times.
Next four games we'll see if Denver's D is for real as we play NE, SD, BAL & PITT!!
Gosh, by the end of the week, the Broncos should be fully discredited again. They seem to never have anything to do with winning. I think its called kicking a dead horse-- in this case to defend bold and baseless preseason predictions-- and we know what everybody's all-american Bill Parcells says about kicking dead things.
If Romo doesn't make a great play, and Hurd a great fingertip catch, we never get down to trying to figure out how the Cowboys screwed up, but that would require admitting that the Broncos stunned nobody but those that never gave it much thought, or, stated more fairly, all those experts that lined up to pan the planless MacDaniels who doesn't understand football.
Its cool. I'm ready to read the Broncos being discredited about 8 or 9 more times this season.
Its a great year to be a Broncos fan (except for the 3/4th that are profoundly disappointed by this year's turnaround)...not such a great year to be a pundit. Most are looking at scorecards that read Credibility 0 - Josh MacDaniels 4.
Blame to go around agreed but they were also absolutely cheated by the refs:
2-3-DEN 13 (:35) (Shotgun) T.Romo pass short right to S.Hurd pushed ob at DEN 8 for 5 yards (C.Bailey). P20
Timeout #3 by DAL at 00:27.
Why were they put in the position of having to burn their last timeout here? Like the play says, the WR went out of bounds and the clock should have stopped but instead the ref signalled for the clock to run. This was one of the worst ref calls I've ever seen....yes I'm biased as a Cowboys fan but this ref call was ridiculous and ended up costing Dallas being able to run from inside the 5 and having a chance to tie the game!!!
I still feel that Garrett should get most of the blame here. Why does he have Witten staying in to block on the two most important plays of the game? Roy Williams and Barber were out with injuries...and Garret would rather send out Hurd, Austin, and Crayton instead of Witten? Not smart.
Aikman probably would have mentioned this during the telecast if he and Garrett weren't best friends.
The ref ruled forward progress since Hurd was being pushed backwards out of bounds. That first time out killed them. How many times do we see a team waste a time out in the 1st or 3rd quarter rather than take the five yard penalty. Trust me, Dallas would love to have that time out back in the 4th and take on an additional five yards.
I am impressed with "the coach" so far, but before we say too much, let's see where we stand after the next four games.
Just watch the clip. At the very begining Romo looks up and sees that there's 2 seconds left on the clock, his eyes light up, like Damn we've got another chance and then he twice signals to his team to the line of srcimmage. He doesn't get ticked off until he sees his guys walking off the field. The guy has got all the physical talent of a great NFL QB he just doesn't have the brains.
Nice try b roo, but in order to stop the clock the ball carrier must make a move to go forward. Hurd was stopped and was pushed backwards out of bounds. Clock does not stop in this instance. Call on the field for the clock to continue was the correct call.
An honorable mention for game mismanagement goes to Baltimore coach Harbaugh. He changes 3rd and 10 at the 43, to first and 10 within field goal range, by personally saying a swear word to the refs. Dagger in his defense's back. The Patriots then rip off two big plays in a row to paydirt.
Later in the half, the Patriots run the ball on first down deep in their own territory with 1:12 on the clock. Harbaugh has enough timeouts to give Baltimore the ball back if he calls one immediately, and if the Patriots then try a pass and fail, Baltimore gets the ball back with a minute of operating time. Baltimore being 10 points behind, it's well worth a shot. Harbaugh removes a good chance of getting the ball for his team's offense by waiting almost the whole 40 seconds, and then he uses the valuable timeout. Which team paid his salary?
I wonder if the Baltimore locker room's anger isn't a coverup for the coach's bumbles.
As we round up the usual suspects for the blame in the Denver game. I still believe the problem that persists week after week begins before a snap is ever taken. Wade Phillips inspires nothing, his lack of leadership and strength cannot produce a champion. I sat and listened to his press conference today and said to myself how does Jerry believe in this guy. Jerry is a self made man, a man whom if nothing else has the stones to take risk. Wade does not embody those qualities and thus can not lead any group of people into anything. He is a follower, not someone whom demands to be followed. Phillips is the paramount problem right now and unless we get rid of him everything else is secondary to me.
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Oct 06, 2009
06:19 PM
Mike? They gained 6 yards to Crayton, not two. It's a bit more defensible as a throw on Romo's part to get that much yardage--you can't tell if Crayton can squeeze out the extra yards to the end zone.
Also, "Mistake No. 2" in your eyes looks fine to me. They were first-and-goal at the 8 with 27 seconds left. That's plenty of time for 4 shots at a TD. You talk about how they have to throw 4 times at this point, but from the 8---what else would you do? You'd never run it from that far away anyway, even with all 3 TOs and 30 seconds left.
It wasn't great clock management, but it wasn't the worst ever, either. They just didn't make the play. And Romo should really consider looking left at Austin on either play--both were TDs.