Not enough running game, Wade says

The Cowboys had one of their lowest running outputs in team history in the 26-24 loss to the Redskins. And Wade Phillips admitted they didn't run the ball enough, especially at home. Wade always says they have to establish their will at home by running the ball. The Cowboys didn't even try Sunday with just 11 carries, one shy of the franchise-low of 10 in 1989.

Wade said part of the reason for so few carries were situations which Tony Romo audibled to too many pass plays. It created a glaring imbalance of 47 passes to 11 runs. Marion Barber had just 8 carries for 26 yards and only three carries in the second half.

- Rick Herrin

Comments

[Todd Worrell]

For the life of me I can't understand why they didn't use Felix Jones in this game. He is a threat to go all the way everytime he touches the ball and he's not in there when we're behind. I'm just not understanding the coaching with that one. Use the best weapons you have. That in my opinion has not been the case so far this year.

[robert]

so really, no suprise, tony romo is going to single-handedly kill the cowboys with his ad-libbing. he is stupid, basically, with physical talents. plus his girlfriend is a hoodoo. time to put the choke-collar on him.

[CoachMessup]

Now coach fix it blamed it on offense. The defense should have stopped the skins on its last drive at their own 39yd line.

[Nieuwiefan]

This is a case of things going wrong in both offense and defense. The Cowboys never established the run, you can hardly win in the NFC East being one dimensional. Romo is a young QB with some maturing to do, but his interception wasn't the reason for the loss. I will take his stat line on any given Sunday. Newman got burned for big plays all day, it wasn't just Santana Moss. The defensive line was bullied around and was worn down leading to costly mental mistakes. How you have 12 men on the field coming out of a timeout is beyond me. I think the Redskins played a pretty controlling game with minimal amounts of mistakes. The Cowboys were out-coached by a rookie coach in Jim Zorn. As many mistakes as the Cowboys made, they still could have won the game. Hopefully this is a loss that grounds the Cowboys and makes them mentally stronger. At the end of the day, hang your hat on that this team is deep with more talent than any other team in the league. I look for the coaching staff to get this team ready for an expected string of victories.

[Bigduffer13]

This point of the game is to WIN. This has to be a total Cowboy Team effort, not the T.O. show. The offense took the majority of their play makers and put them on a shelf. How can you get the "W" with no running game or good distribution of the ball in the passing game?
If Romo was using too many audibles, the coach should have taken care of it in short order. There was no coaching in that game and that's where you must be the strongest to hold the offense, defense, and special teams together.
T.O. needs to shut up and play the game for the team, not his stats.
T.O. also needs to stop looking for a flag everytime he misses a pass.