I had one of the best burgers of my life last week. It had onion strings, jalapenos, pepperjack cheese… the works.
When I think about burgers I always give a lot of time to the stuff that goes in the middle. Who cares about the buns, right? They’re just holding it all together. There’s no specific taste in them. Well guess what, my friend? The bun is underrated.
As incredible as my burger was the bottom bun was too weak and my burger kept falling apart! I looked like a caveman just shoving food in my mouth, everything trickling between all of my fingers. The bottom bun, or lack thereof, gave no support and the whole thing was not as great as a result.
Tony Romo is the bottom bun of the Dallas Cowboys.
Without him the Cowboys have now lost five consecutive games and have an offense that is more stale than 100-year-old buns.
Passing Game
Matt Cassel did not have a great day. He went 13/25 and only managed to produce 97 yards passing. To be totally fair to Cassel this was the Legion of Boom that he was facing, but 97 yards just isn’t going to cut the mustard in the NFL.
The passing game reached new levels of desperation when the coaching staff called for a pass… from Darren McFadden! If you read my 5 Bold Predictions post every week, hi Mom and Dad, then you know that I actually called for this when the Cowboys traveled to New Orleans. I like the coaching staff getting creative, it’s going to take that gumption to win against an elite team.
The return of Dez Bryant did not yield 298,343 yards as we all hoped. Dez was targeted 6 times and hauled in 2 catches for 12 yards. It felt great to see #88 back in the fold, but he’s clearly not at the level we’re accustomed to seeing him. Consider that this is practically his first action of the 2015 season so don’t fret, Dez will be the Dez we all know and love very soon.
Run Game
Run, run, run DMC! With Joseph Randle deactivated (and ultimately released), McFadden got the bulk of the carries for the Cowboys. He ran the ball 10 times for 64 yards, but he wasn’t the only Cowboy to make some headway on the ground.
Matt Cassel actually ran it 4 times and picked up 43 yards! It was exhilarating watching Cassel get out of the pocket and make an exciting play as we haven’t seen many by the Cowboys offense in the last month. Cassel may not have delivered the quarterbacking performance that got the win, but you have to admit that the guy is at least playing with a level of passion that wasn’t seen in Brandon Weeden.
Points
All in all, the Cowboys offense was unable to come away with any points themselves against the Seahawks. This is obviously very frustrating, but it became inexcusable when the team was given the best field position in some time when Greg Hardy returned a Russell Wilson interception to the Seattle 15-yard line.
15 yards for an NFL team should not be insurmountable. The Cowboys have an inability to move the ball on offense, even 15 yards if necessary, and they need to make some major corrections immediately. They were only able to put up 12 points on the day (thanks to 4 Dan Bailey field goals), but that fell short of the 13 that the defense allowed (a great day at the office for any NFL defense).
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What are your thoughts on the state of the Cowboys offense? Email me at Roel.Ochoa.Jr@Gmail.com or Tweet to me @rjochoa!
