Cowboys miscommunication starts at top, Garrett says. ‘We didn’t do a good enough job.’
Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett says he is continually striving to get better as a game manager, a process that still appears to be a work in progress following the 28-24 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
They weren’t necessarily game-deciding plays but two instances of miscommunication proved to be indicative of the inconsistency and lack of accountability that have plagued the Cowboys through a 5-4 start.
The Vikings took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter thanks largely to a 30-yard gain, their longest of the day, against a Cowboys defense with just 10 men on the field.
Running back Dalvin Cook went 30 yards on a screen and then the Vikings got an extra 15 yards because of a roughing the passer penalty on defensive end Robert Quinn. The Cowboys were missing a defensive tackle on the play.
Linebackers Leighton Vander Esch and Jaylon Smith noticed they were short-handed but no one called a timeout.
“Yeah, didn’t do a good enough job getting our communication right, to have 11 out there,” Garrett said. “Obviously you want to have 11 and we didn’t handle the situation well enough.
“We just weren’t on top of it fast enough to see that and process the whole thing and get it called.”
Smith said he didn’t call a timeout because those usually come from sideline and he didn’t want to waste one in case the Cowboys needed it later in the half.
He said he would do the same if put in a similar spot.
Even more critical and confounding was receiver Tavon Austin’s fair catch of a punt with 17 seconds left in the game.
The nearest Vikings defender was almost 20 yards away and there appeared to a be a lane up the left sideline.
The Vikings had no flyers in punt coverage on the play. They kept all 10 coverage players inside the box to protect against a blocked punt attempt.
The punt return team was told to block for a return to the left by special teams coach Keith O’Quinn. Austin was told to fair-catch the ball by assistant special teams coaches Carlos Polk and Phillip Tanner, Garrett said.
“We should have done a better job communicating with him. In that situation, you want to err on the side of fair catch,” Garrett said. “You don’t want to spend a lot of time pulling time off the clock by having a return that gets you five or six yards. You want to go in the with the mindset of ‘Let’s fair-catch this thing around midfield and give ourselves a chance.’ The discussion should have been more complete in saying ‘If you get to a situation where you do have a low kick and you can get north and south quickly and gain yardage, do that.’ We didn’t communicate well enough with the player.”
“That’s on all of us. It’s on me, it’s on Keith, it’s on every coach, it’s on every player involved in that situation. We didn’t do a good enough job.”
Garrett said he told O’Quinn what he wanted and O’Quinn communicated it to the return team. But no one communicated that to Austin, Garrett learned after doing a thorough investigation of the situation.
“Absolutely. Yeah, he understood you should fair-catch in that situation,” Garrett said.
Garrett said he talked directly to Austin and didn’t mean to appear to throw him under the bus. He said he indicated it was a miscommunication.
What’s also true is that it was scenario that the Cowboys hadn’t practiced before, Garrett said.
