Cowboys have lessons to learn, areas to clean up after loss
The Dallas Cowboys were encouraged by many things from Sunday’s game.
The Cowboys won time of possession (36:43 to 23:17). They won the turnover battle (one takeaway, no turnovers). They ran 75 plays and gained 328 yards. They converted 10 of 17 third downs.
Unfortunately for the Cowboys, it still resulted in a loss.
“I think there were a lot of good things that you can take out of this game. There’s no question about that,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Monday. “We had some young players playing. I thought they handled the situation well.
“Again, third-down success, ability to possess the ball, keeping their offense off the field, a lot of those things are a good formula for winning. We did a good job taking care of the football and winning the turnover battle, 1-0, in the game.
“But they made some big plays early. They did a better job cashing in in the red zone than we did, and at the end of the ballgame, we didn’t execute as well as we needed to in situational football — in terms of getting the ball back more quickly and then cashing in on that two-minute drive late and giving Dan Bailey a chance.
“I think that’s the way you look at the game, and you can get better at all those different areas.”
Terrance Williams continued to receive the most heat from fans on social media for failing to get out of bounds at the end of the 20-19 loss to the Giants. Williams turned and ran inside instead of running out of bounds after catching a Dak Prescott pass. He was tackled by safety Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie at the New York 40, and time ran out before the Cowboys could line up and spike the ball.
“Terrance should have caught the ball and done everything in his power to make getting out of bounds his only priority,” Garrett said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t do that. His instincts took over, and he went back inside and got trapped inside and couldn’t get back out. Then when you get a chance to clock the ball, we didn’t have enough time to do that.
“It was a great opportunity for all of us to learn from that situation. It’s a well-practiced situation. We work on those kind of things almost on a daily basis. We just have to make sure we’re able to carry the learning over into the game at critical moments.”
Still, Dan Bailey would have had to hit a career-long field goal to give the Cowboys a victory. He tied his career long earlier Sunday with a 56-yarder.
If Williams had gone out of bounds, Bailey would have had somewhere in the 60-63-yard range.
“You want to give him a chance,” Garrett said. “He’s certainly capable of making a kick like that in that kind of situation.”
But Williams’ brain cramp wasn’t the only reason the Cowboys lost.
They scored only one touchdown in three red-zone chances; they had six penalties for 50 yards, including two drive-crushing holding penalties on La’el Collins in the fourth quarter and a false start by Zack Martin on the final drive; on 30 rushes, the Cowboys averaged only 3.4 yards per carry; Dez Bryant was targeted only five times and caught one pass for 8 yards; the defense allowed the Giants to burn 2:52 running the ball, leaving only 1:05 and no timeouts for the Cowboys’ final drive.
The close loss continued a trend from last season: Six of the Cowboys’ 12 losses a year ago were by seven points or fewer, including two overtime losses.
“Learn from the experience and get back to work,” Garrett said. “Objectively analyze the game, identify what we did well and try to build on that, clean up the stuff that we’ve got to get better at and move forward. The Washington Redskins are going to be waiting for us at their place at 1 o’clock Eastern time on Sunday. So learn from this experience and move forward as quickly as you can. Start our preparation and get our eyes on the Redskins.”
Charean Williams: 817-390-7760, @NFLCharean
This story was originally published September 12, 2016 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Cowboys have lessons to learn, areas to clean up after loss."