Breaking Down

Here are some more efforts to get a grasp of what the Cowboys offense was doing when the first team was on the field. These observations come from someone who hasn’t been part of organized football since the eighth grade, so they’re more of a series of guesses rather than actual facts.

DRIVE ONE:

Barber rush, 2 yards:
The Cowboys line up in the I with two receivers left and Witten right. Before the snap, Owens motions in to the backfield as if to receive an end-around. That’s just window dressing; this is a normal running play. The line blocks to the right. Elvis Dumervil is lined up against Flozell, and he’s pass rush all the way, which is kind of the book on him. Flo lets him run himself out of the play opening up a hole to the left where Kosier is doing a serviceable job of sealing off the other side of said opening. I don’t think that’s the design of the play, though, because Ronnie Cruz isn’t really looking to lead that way, and Barber is pretty intent on going up the middle. Marc Colombo is blocking John Engelberger. ’Berger pulls a bit of an ‘Ole!’ move, using Colombo’s momentum against him, slipping past Colombo’s outside shoulder. When Barber insists on going up the middle, the ’Berger is there to meet him. So far as I can tell, the fault is equal parts Colombo and Barber. Had Marion been looking to go to the left, he probably could have outrun Engelberger, who was coming from the right side. Then again, if Colombo had blocked Engelberger, that all wouldn’tve mattered.

Romo to Owens, 6 yards:
The offense has two tight ends and after a motion from right to left by Curtis, both of them are on the left side. Owens and Crayton line up to the right. Throughout the drive, the Broncos seem intent on playing safety Marquand Manuel right at the line of scrimmage, usually covering Witten. That leaves one safety over the top as the only insurance if a receiver gets behind his man. Given that, playing bump-and-run, especially on TO, becomes a bad idea. In fact, they give TO a 10-yard cushion on this play and many others. TO takes off from the line, making the corner retreat even further, then he just turns and catches the pass. With all the space between him and Dominique Foxworth, it’s easy yards. Had he so chosen Tony could have done the same with Crayton, who was actually matched up on a linebacker. The other corner, Dre Bly, was protecting against a pass to the tight ends on the other side of the field.

Romo to Hurd, 3 yards:
There’s no way that Foxworth would surrender the same play two times in a row, right? Wrong. This time, it’s Hurd lined up to the right with Foxworth covering him. Romo is in the shotgun with Witten and Hurd to the right, Crayton and TO to the left. Foxworth is playing Hurd much closer, as he does not respect the deep threat the way he does with TO. Hurd uses that to his advantage. He explodes at the snap, going aggressively to Foxworth’s outside. That forces Foxworth to turn and run with him. The second Foxworth moves his hips, Hurd pulls up for the same hitch route that TO just ran. The play got more yards the other way, with Foxworth playing so far off, but the Cowboys only needed three yards for the first down, and this was as easy a way to get them as there is. To make sure everything goes smoothly, Witten runs a pattern going away from Hurd, pulling his man with him. Barber also comes that way in a shallow pattern, forcing another defender to focus on him.
After the play, Colombo shoves a Bronco linebacker, tripping him on another Bronco. That drew an entirely unnecessary penalty. There was nothing to gain from Colombo’s shove, and he must have known that. Very Stupid move.

Barber rush, 1 yard:
The Cowboys line up with two tight ends, one wide receiver, and a fullback. The Broncos counter with the one safety over the top, a corner on the receiver and nine men in the box. That leaves eight offensive players to block nine defensive players. The unblocked player, linebacker DJ Williams, was the farthest from the play of the men in the box. No matter. When Barber ran to the right, Williams knifed between Kosier and Flozell and took Barber down. So despite the result, no one really missed a block. Actually, there was some pretty good blocking, mainly by Tony Curtis. He was matched up on Manuel and just mauled him. It was as if the two just held hands and skipped out of the play, that’s how little resistance Curtis seemed to be encountering. In the end, the play design placed a bet that Williams wouldn’t fight through the traffic to make a play on the other side of the field, and Williams called that bet.

Romo to Owens, 10 yards:
The offense lines up with four receivers split out and Tony in the gun. Witten was one of the four receiver split out. I don’t know if they have done that before. If they have, I haven’t seen it. Then again, I didn’t have TiVo last season, so there were a lot of smaller things I didn’t catch.
As to the play, you’ll never guess how it goes. Karl Paymah is lined up on Owens to the far left. He’s playing close. The camera angle makes it impossible to see how exactly he does it, but Owens comes open on a hitch. That’s right, the same hitch that’s already been thrown for a completion two other times on this drive. Paymah blankets Owens pretty well, but he’s behind Owens’ inside shoulder, and Romo puts the pass in just the right spot to the outside where Owens can reach out to catch it but Paymah can’t break it up. Also, Crayton runs a deeper pattern to make sure that his man doesn’t get in between Romo and Owens.

Romo to Owens, 4 yards:
Witten goes back to his normal spot along the line, but other than that, this formation is just a mirror of the previous one, with Owens and Crayton on the left side this time. I hope this isn’t the shocker to anyone, but the play is a mirror, too. The nuance this time is that TO doesn’t run a hitch exactly. This time it’s more of an In, where instead of turning and facing Tony, he cuts to the inside of the field. Still, he receives the pass right after he makes his cut just like the hitches, and the principle is the same. So long as the corners are playing man coverage and keeping the receivers in front of them, the Cowboys will keep dinking and dunking Denver to death.
One key to these passes is that Romo doesn’t look to his target until he’s throwing to them. On this pass especially, the camera angle makes it clear that Foxworth is looking in the backfield, and he breaks to TO the second Romo looks his way.

Romo to Barber, 6 yards:
With a fullback, a tight end, and tow receivers, Romo goes to play action. Off the play action, though, whatever options Romo was looking for aren’t there. The camera angle makes it unclear why Romo thought better of throwing to Crayton or TO. Witten is bracketed by Manuel over the top and linebacker Jamie Winborn underneath, and he slips as he’s going past Winborn. Romo is protected well, so he waits for something to open up. That something ends up being Barber, working in the space in front of Witten. When Barber comes in to that area, Winborn has the chance to do one of two things: stay in front of Witten, keeping him covered, or come up to cover Barber. Instead, he bites on a pump-fake and takes himself entirely away from both players. That leaves Barber open for an easy six yards.

Barber rush, 11 yards:
The Cowboys line up with two tight ends initially, but Witten motions in to the fullback spot, offset to the left. The run is to the left. The line blocks right. Kosier pulls to the left and establishes the corner. Witten comes along behind him and just cements that corner, pushing Manuel, the outside man, up the field for five yards. Given the success Curtis and Witten had at taking Manuel out of running plays, I’d say he has trouble fighting off blockers. That’s not exactly uncommon among safeties, but he can’t be proud of the way he was shoved around. Anyhoo, Crayton does an adequate job of blocking his man. He doesn’t push him back much, and he might have held him a little, but he neutralized him long enough to let Barber by.

Romo to Owens, Incomplete:
The Cowboys line up with three wide receivers and a tight end. Romo fakes to Barber. TO is in the slot to the right and runs a crossing pattern. At first, he is bracketed by Manuel underneath and Dre Bly over the top. He outruns Manuel and is open near the right sideline. Romo throws it to him but leads him too much. The inaccuracy probably had something to do with the pressure Romo was under. Witten is pass blocking on this play. He and Marc Colombo double-team Engelberger. Winborn hangs just behind them, and after a bit, he runs by Colombo’s inside shoulder and towards Romo. Either he was by design part of a delayed blitz or he was assigned to cover Witten, and upon seeing he didn’t have to, decided to rush the passer. Either way, Colombo was not in a position to block him; he was too committed to Engelberger. In going around Colombo, Winborn had looped in front of Tony’s face and prevented Romo from stepping up when he threw to Owens.

Barber rush, 6 yards:
The offense lines up with a tight end, a fullback, and a receiver on either side. Hurd, the receiver on the right, motions to the left side. That clears Foxworth out of that side, opening it to a run to the outside. At the snap, the left side of the line cut blocks. On the right side, Witten blocks Engelberger. Colombo loops around them and cuts Manuel. Deon Anderson chips in on Witten’s block just long enough to take Engelberger out of the play. From there, he leads the way, mauling Winborn upfield a few yards. When Barber receives the toss from Romo, he has a clear path to six yards. At the end of the run, he sees that there are too many defenders to go outside Anderson’s block, so he goes inside just so he can pop Winborn. He’s a badass that way.

Romo to Owens, Incomplete:
Clearly it’s been too long since we had a hitch pattern. Romo lines up in shotgun with two wide receivers left and one right. Dre Bly is covering Owens on the far left and giving him quite a cushion. Owens takes a few running steps off the line, then turns for the pass. As mentioned before, these routes require that Romo wait until the last second before turning to look at his target. So it’s possible that he could have been expecting that when he turned to look, Owens would be breaking the other way. Either that, or Romo missed really, really bad. Also, the Broncos actually employed two deep safeties on this play, leaving Witten on a linebacker. Needless to say, Witten was quite open. In this case, however, they were using a timing route, so it wasn't as if Tony was going through reads. He knew before the snap that he was going to TO.

The offense then lined up to go for the 4th down conversion before a fluky false start set them back. One of the Broncos defenders moved, causing the Cowboys lineman to jump. The refs said the defender did not enter the neutral zone, so the Cowboys were charged with a false start. It’s things like that which ought to cause people to pause before speaking ill of the offensive performance in this game. Without that fluke, the Cowboys could have kept on rolling. Had they scored a touchdown there, wouldn’t we think of this game as more of a success?

DRIVE TWO:

Romo to Curtis, 4 yards:

The offense had two tight ends and a fullback in, leaving one wide receiver. Romo faked to Barber and followed that with a roll-out. Unlike the previous fakes where Romo simply extended the ball to Barber, this play also included run blocking by the line to further sell the fake. Tony Curtis chipped Engelberger before heading in to the flat. Engelberger closed on Romo fairly quickly, forcing him to throw to Curtis rather than Witten or Owens, both of whom looked to be coming open. Manuel was covering Curtis. When Curtis chipped, it wasn't enough to lose Manuel, but it was enough to create some separation. When Manuel went to tackle Curtis, he threw Marquand to the ground. It was quite impressive, but it slowed him enough for another Bronco to come finish the tackle.

Barber rush, 2 yards:

With two tight ends, Curtis motions to the fullback spot. The line blocks right, and Leonard Davis pulls left. Curtis also looks to head left. While they don’t allow penetration, the line doesn’t create much of a hole either. Barber sees the mass of lineman and bounces to the outside. Marquand Manuel is waiting, and he stops him for a gain of two.

Romo to Hurd, Incomplete:

With four yards to the first down, Romo sets up in the shotgun with three wideouts and a tight end. Dumervil beats Colombo, but Tony steps up and to the right. At that point, he had more than enough green in front of him to pick up the first. But things were developing downfield that kept his eyes on his receivers.
On the left side, Sam Hurd had started as if he was going to another dreaded hitch route. Karl Paymah had broken in to blanket him. Hurd used that commitment by Paymah to get behind him. With Witten, Crayton, and Hurd all on that side, there was no safety in the area. When Hurd got behind Paymah, he was behind the defense. Romo saw that, and instead of going for the first down, he went for the touch down. Alas, he overthrew Hurd. In his interview at halftime, he mentioned that the thinner air had something to do with it.



I was excited because I think I can grasp their game plan here. Romo mentioned in his halftime interview that they knew the Broncos would play a lot of man coverage. He also said that there would have been some big opportunities if they had stayed on the field. By running so many hitches, the Cowboys were begging the corners to creep up to play the hitch. Once they did, the Cowboys would use a double move to get behind them. That was what happened on the final play. With the Broncos bringing a safety in the box to stop Witten, they were sacrificing some of their ability to have that last line of defense. Were TO to beat one of their corners with a double move, it’s game over. And if the Broncos never do come up to stop the hitch, then the Cowboys can just hitch them to death. If you can pick up 4-10 yards every play, you can put up some points.
He also was asked in the halftime interview if he was intentionally targeting TO because Owens had been held catchless in San Diego. Romo poo-pooed such an idea. I can’t say what motivated it, but give the number of timing patterns designed to go to Owens, Romo can’t poo-poo the notion that Owens was a big part of this game after not being targeted once last game. But  hey, saying the offense wants to get its number one receiver involved isn’t exactly Nostradamus-level prophecy.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this post. I want to also break down the Miles Austin Drive, but I’m not sure when I’ll get the time. Hopefully today or tomorrow.