Red Zone Woes Doom Dallas Cowboys in 20-16 Loss to New England Patriots
The Dallas Cowboys played arguably the best team in the AFC toe to toe Sunday. Dallas led 16-13 until New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady threw the game-winning touchdown pass to tight end Aaron Hernandez with 22 seconds to play. The Cowboys made four trips to the red zone, but only came away with one touchdown to go along with three Dan Bailey field goals. Once again, the Cowboys boast a powerful offense that can’t finish.
Dallas moved the ball effectively against New England for most of the game with a nice combination of the run and pass. Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo threw only one interception in the contest and it wasn’t during crunch time surprisingly. Still, Romo’s clock and game management were subpar in this contest and it cost the Cowboys a marquee victory.
Romo has a bad habit of letting the play clock run all the way down before he calls for center Phil Costa to snap the ball. This occurs most frequently when t he Cowboys are in the shotgun formation. When the clock had only one second remaining on a drive in the fourth quarter, Romo had to burn a timeout in the red zone on a play where the Cowboys had single coverage on receivers Dez Bryant and Miles Austin.
The Cowboys’ play-calling in the red zone was much better against New England, but the execution was the opposite. Dallas was continuously called for offensive holding and false start penalties at the most inopportune times, specifically in the red zone. Such penalties negate good play-calling and the Cowboys’ were victims of the red zone woes in the worst kind of way.
Dallas cannot be satisfied with moving the ball effectively against the league’s worst statistical defense. It’s easy to say, ‘Well, we moved the ball well, so we can learn to finish in our upcoming games.’ That may have been true if the Cowboys had played a team with a top 5 defense. However, that wasn’t the case. Dallas simply got too excited or something to lose focus when in scoring position. Fortunately, Bailey hit all three of his field goal attempts, but those lesser red zone trips don’t win games, as was evident in Foxborough on Sunday.
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