KatyAg88 said:

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The big fail wasn't running Zeke on 2nd and 2. It was not just having the line push forward the guys right in front of them back for 2 yards. Those blocking schemes they used sucked. When you have at least 3 tries to get 2 yards, just sack up and push forward. This should have been a W for the Boys. The poor coaching was magnified 10x here.

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Not one first down last night came from a run. Not one. 3rd time in franchise history.

91AggieLawyer said:

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ApachePilot said:

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Macarthur said:

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That's a wall of 5 cowboy blockers to what maybe 3 Vikings that could make a play? Austin would be gone there. No idea why you fair catch that.

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What do you mean "no idea why?" There were 17 seconds left at the end of the play. The Cowboys obviously felt that the chances of positive yardage on a play from scrimmage outweighed those from a punt return. In MOST cases, that's a good decision as a punt return burns a lot of time. In this case it was a really BAD decision as the pic shows. But the punt returner has to focus on the ball the entire time and not look at the coverage, so the decision had to be made before the play. And you have to base the right or wrong on what you knew before, not after.

If he runs for 10 seconds and gets nowhere, everyone on here is going to be like, "why didn't he fair catch it?" Unfortunately, it didn't work out, and while it may have been smarter to say, "stand at the 50 and if you have to back up, take it and run..." (or whatever), here it just didn't work out. But don't pretend it wasn't rational.

The 2 runs on 2nd and 3rd down were bone headed plays. The fair catch wasn't per se.

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Is it really that hard to instruct the guy who returns punts for a living to run out of bounds and/or give himself up if the coverage downfield is sound?

You'd be sacrificing 3-4 seconds for at least 10 yards.

What did Dallas do with those extra seconds?

13 seconds on an incomplete short pass.
4 seconds on a completed pass for 3 yards.
4 seconds on a completed pass for 6 yards.

9 yards in 21 seconds.


Hell, you can make a strong case that the chances of a hail mary TD over 40 yards is roughly the same as returning a punt for a TD.

It's like everything else under this regime. The little things don't get planned for (or practiced enough) and we always end up in some scenario where win probability is decreased because someone simply wasn't prepared. It's not the dominating reason why the games are lost, but it shows just how unprepared this team consistently is.

Do guys like Belechick and Saban have great talent? Of course. But a part of their success is that they don't overlook the details. The little things that buy you an extra 10 yards or give you 1 or 2 extra plays at the end of a game. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don't... But over a large sample in a league with as much parity as the NFL they absolutely impact the W-L totals.

Don't they stop the clock after a punt return anyway? That left side was WIDE OPEN.

DSAg44 said:

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Don't they stop the clock after a punt return anyway? That left side was WIDE OPEN.

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Stop it after, yes. Stop it during, no

The concept is by not returning the ball you gain 1-2 more plays. Potentially a lot more on one good passing play than your average punt return. You don't evaluate this specific decision with the plays that came afterwards, its what you potentially gain by not returning it.

That being said, people are right that he should have been entrusted to return it if he felt he had a chance to gain more than 10 yards. The screenshots posted are after he has already called for fair catch, so they aren't an accurate representation. But the screenshot showing the line of scrimmage, as the punter is punting the ball, are valid. THere is no opposing player off the los at that point.