Cowboys use old-fashioned teamwork to take down the Lions
Superstars Tony Romo, DeMarco Murray and Dez Bryant didn’t have big days, but the Cowboys won anyway thanks to some contributions from their supporting cast.
The Dallas Cowboys were not supposed to win that game.
From the shitty offensive game plan at the outset, the stupid errors like running into the punter after the defense pinned the Lions deep in their own territory, the reappearance of "Bad" Tony Romo (you know, the guy who just refuses to throw the ball away and then gets the Cowboys sacked right out of field goal range), the "most accurate kicker in NFL history" Dan Bailey missing a 41-yard field goal after the defense forced a turnover* to begin the third quarter and appearing to totally kill any potential momentum swing ... nothing about how that game was going said the Cowboys would be able to pull it out.
Not even at home.
Look, I ran the numbers before the game, and I told y'all that if DeMarco Murray didn't run the ball at least 20 times for at least 90 yards the Cowboys were supposed to be fried. In the first half, he only had seven carries for 40 yards, and most of that was on one 18-yard carry. "Bad" Jason Garrett also showed up against the Lions and he basically refused to run the ball on first and second down most drives, which is how the Cowboys had found success all year on offense. I'm not saying play-caller Scott Linehan wasn't blameless, but as the head coach who normally handles the offense, Garrett should have stepped in and told Linehan to run the ball more if for no other reason than the fact that Romo was getting killed by all the blitzes the Lions were throwing at him.
But that didn't happen, and when the final horn went off, Murray only had 19 carries for 75 yards and one touchdown. Not a bad game, but not nearly what I thought it would take to beat the Lions and their high-powered offense. Dez Bryant only having three catches for 48 yards and no touchdowns at the end of the game would definitely have seemed to be the nail in the coffin. It just seemed like a recipe for disaster as I was watching the game.
Then you look up and see that the Cowboys won 24-20, and it’s like how in the hell did that happen?
Cowboys Must Reads
Cowboys Must Reads
What I (and probably most people) hadn’t anticipated is just how strong a team the Cowboys really are.
You see, this was a victory built on the shoulders of many of the “no-name” guys on the team, not just superstars like Romo or Murray or Bryant, all three of whom had relatively pedestrian games.
Guys like slot receiver Cole Beasley, who managed to have a monster game by his standards. His four catches for 63 yards were second on the team in both categories, and he just seemed to find ways to move the chains when the Cowboys needed it most. Then there was the big hit he took at the beginning of the fourth quarter while hanging on to the ball that insured that not only would the Cowboys get the yardage for the catch, but also an additional 15 yards thanks to Lions linebacker Tahir Whitehead's helmet-to-helmet hit. That play set the Cowboys up with a first-and-10 at the Lions' 18-yard line. The Cowboys eventually turned that field position into three points with a field goal after Romo took two stupid-ass sacks in a row. The holding penalty Beasley drew on safety Don Carey with 4:32 left in the game also helped out on the winning touchdown drive. It's safe to say that even without scoring a touchdown, the diminutive Beasley had an outsized impact on the Cowboys winning that game.
Second-year wide receiver Terrance Williams, who has been quiet of late, also made a big contribution. I wrote before the Cowboys played the Eagles in Week 15 that they would need a big day from Williams to keep Philly's defense honest. He didn't come through that day, but on Sunday against the Lions his 76-yard touchdown in the second quarter was right on time. The Lions were leading 14-0 and on the verge of getting the Cowboys off the sticks with a 21-point rule as they were facing a third-and-12 from their own 24-yard line. Williams caught it on a dig route, shook off Cassius Vaughn's tackle attempt and hauled ass to outrun the rest of the Lions' secondary. That injected life into the team just as that "here we go again" feeling was about to permeate the sideline.
Photo credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Not content just to get his team within striking distance, Williams later made the game-winning touchdown catch on third-and-goal from the 8-yard line with 2:39 left in the game. After initially running a shallow crosser on Carey, Williams saw that Romo was buying time and changed directions to shake free of coverage. That marked just the third time all season that Williams scored two touchdowns in a game.
There were other guys like journeyman defensive end Jeremy Mincey, one year removed from helping the Broncos get to the Super Bowl, who found a way to get his hand on Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford's pass on the first play of the second half with the Cowboys down by 10 points. That tipped pass ended up falling right into the hands of third-year "no-name" linebacker Kyle Wilber for a momentum-swinging interception that should have led to a field goal.* That's after Mincey already had a sack on first-and-10 early in the second quarter that helped lead to a Lions punt.
And yes, it was also guys like rookie defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, who went from hero to goat and back to hero again in just a few plays at the end of the game. Lawrence didn't even play in the first eight weeks of the season as he recovered from a foot injury that threatened to derail his rookie year before it ever got started. One minute he's picking up a fumble created when Anthony Spencer beat Lions right tackle Cornelius Lucas with a speed-rip move to get by him and knock the ball out of Stafford's hand; the next minute he was getting blown up by Lions center Garrett Reynolds and coughing up the ball his damn self. Lions left tackle Riley Reiff recovered it, which gave the Lions a whole new set of downs. Talk about a disaster.
Did I mention there was less than two minutes left in the game and the Cowboys were nursing a four-point lead at the time?
Cowboys Must reads
Cowboys Must reads
Lawrence refused to let that be his defining play on Sunday. With the Lions facing fourth-and-3 with a minute left in the game, he lined up at right defensive end, bull rushed Reiff and then made an arm-over move to sack Stafford and get the ball out. Not content to just cause the fumble after his earlier blooper, Lawrence then got up off of Stafford and pounced on the ball to ensure the Cowboys would retain possession this time. DeMarcus hit the always rare “sack, forced fumble, fumble recovery” trifecta, all three of which were his first of the season, to end the game. I bet even some Cowboys didn’t know his name until now.
That's not to say that the Cowboys' stars weren't involved at all in the comeback. There wasn't a bigger play in the game than Romo's completion to perennial Pro Bowl tight end Jason Witten for 21 yards to convert on fourth-and-6 late in the fourth quarter on the drive in which they eventually scored the go-ahead touchdown. Witten was having a decent, if not great, game to that point, but that play was the game and he found a way to get it done.
And let me say this while I'm on the subject. I totally get why people are pissed about the flag being picked up on Anthony Hitchens, another "no-name" guy, who was covering Lions tight end Brandon Pettigrew, even if I can also see how it wasn't pass interference. Let's be real here though, folks: that play happened with over eight minutes left in the game and the Lions up three points. There was plenty of time to recover from that and make a play to win.
One more thing: punting was absolutely the right thing to do in that situation. I see people second-guessing first-year Lions head coach Jim Caldwell’s decision, which is of course always easy to do but plenty damn stupid this time around. The Lions’ defense had been kicking the shit out of the Cowboys’ offense all damn game. You want the man to go for it on fourth-and-1 from just across the 50-yard line only up three on the road with that much time left? I need some of the shit you’re smoking. Caldwell had no way of knowing his punter would shit the bed and they would only end up with a 10-yard punt. The expectation of punting from that distance is, at worst, your opponent gets the ball on the 20 after a touchback, but there is plenty of potential to pin them inside their own 10-yard line.
Raise your hand if you seriously think the Cowboys were going to drive 90 yards for a touchdown without getting Romo’d, considering the way the Lions had been playing on defense most of the day.
*Scans crowd. Sees no hands in the air*
Good, you guys are an honest bunch.
Look, I’m the biggest Cowboys homer on earth, and I own that. But I honestly thought the game was over before the shanked punt. If you are basing your criticism on the fact that the punt was shanked, then you’re full of shit anyway and need to go sit in the corner. The only other time all game that the Lions punted near mid-field, they did so from their own 43-yard line and pinned the Cowboys at their own 14-yard line. There was no reason to believe the same wouldn’t happen again.
Oh, and on that drive when the Cowboys started at their own 14, they ended up punting.
Even with the shank, the Lions had the Cowboys with a fourth-and-6, a third-and-7 and a third-and-goal on the game-winning touchdown drive. Those should have been some pretty favorable circumstances for the Lions’ defense to get a stop and at least limit the Cowboys to a game-tying field goal. That vaunted Lions defense, which ended up No. 2 in the league at the end of the regular season, just didn’t get the job done, period, point blank.
If you want to know a Lions coaching decision that I do question, somebody ask Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, who called one hell of a game for the most part, why he went man-to-man, one of the few times he called man coverage that day, and didn't send any extra rushers on the fourth-and-6 play when Witten beat safety James Ihedigbo. That's the coaching call that looks suspect as hell to me.
But, I digress.
The reason the Cowboys beat the Lions, plain and simple, is because some of the guys from whom we don't expect much stepped up and did more than their share. It goes to show that even in the age of $100 million superstars, the power of the team can still sometimes overcome just about anything else. I'm not sure if it will be enough to get the Cowboys a win this week on the road against the Packers, but after what I saw, I sure wouldn't put it past them.
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