LANDOVER, Md. – The Dallas Cowboys had the second best rushing attack in the league heading into the road game against divisional rival Washington Redskins, but the Redskins’ defensive front sealed up the holes at the line of scrimmage and gave RB Ezekiel Elliott nowhere to run with the football. Dallas had a total of 73 rushing yards throughout the game. Elliott finished with 15 carries for 33 yards and a 2.2 average per carry.
“ They did a great job defending our run, “ Jason Garrett stated following the loss. “A lot of guys at the line of scrimmage and we tried to attack them a lot of different ways and they defended it well. Wanted to be persistent running the football throughout, ultimately we had to move the ball by throwing it and I thought we responded well as the game wore on especially on those last couple drives. “
Washington executed their agenda to stop Dallas’ bread and butter: the ground game. The Redskins had eight to ten defensive players in the box, forcing Dak Prescott to throw the football. Their goal was to minimize the running game and see if Prescott could win with his arm, and yesterday the Redskins accomplished it. Center Joe Looney and guard, Connor Williams, had a tough time containing nose tackle Daron Payne. Payne disrupted the interior of the Cowboys’ offensive line, creating opportunities for his teammates to make plays off the edges. He clogged up the holes and made it extremely difficult for Dallas to run the football.
Dak connected with Michael Gallup on a perfectly executed 49-yard TD pass late in the second quarter. Gallup ran a hitch route, leaving CB Josh Norman behind him as he ran to the end zone. Prescott had several deep passes to Cole Beasley as well throughout the game, but not enough to get the passing game going in a rhythm or to win the game. Their offense put up a heck of a fight in the fourth quarter, but they made too many mistakes early on in the football game to come away with the win. The missed field goal and snap infraction penalty in the final three seconds is not what lost the football game for the Dallas Cowboys: it was how they played early on. The aggressiveness on offense has to begin before the fourth quarter. They got behind the chains in third and long situations and penalties ate them alive on critical plays, pushing them even further back.
Zack Martin remarked in the locker-room “We were an offense that beat ourselves too many times tonight with penalties and minus plays. “
The Cowboys are coming off their fourth straight loss on the road heading into their bye week and those issues have to be addressed and fixed. They are now a 3-4 team and their defense cannot continue to battle and make impactful plays on the field to put the offense back on the gridiron, only for them to have to settle for a field goal or have to punt. One to two trips to the end zone will not win the football game. The Cowboys have the right pieces to the puzzle, they have to find a way to put them in the correct placement and capitalize on the road.
