what was wrong with our passing game against dallas?

[RandyHolt]

I think he was being very careful to not make an interception. A couple throws that seemed to be awful may have been intentionally thrown away (I think this because I have never seen him throw it that badly). Who was the better QB in that game Romo or RGIII? The answer is RGIII. RGIII was playing for a team win; not to be a superhero. Choose to shut down our passing attack and we will destroy you with our running attack.

Right on. I totally agree, those bad throws, he sees trouble and puts it where it wont be intercepted.

I think it should be noted he had 5INT's all year, Romo had 3 just last night.

I think its a priority for him to not throw INTs and it results in what fans may think are bad throws.

[Darth Tater]

During the game the announcers said Dallas was keeping their safeties deep. They never brought them up trying to take away the deep ball. This told the skins they could run it down their throats since they weren't filling. the box.

Yep, two deep safeties scream run, screens or underneath stuff. Dallas' intent to keep us from getting yards in the middle meant screens and runs. Once we saw success in the run game and no adjustment by Dallas...

---------- Post added December-31st-2012 at 11:08 AM ----------

might have been the cold. Overall it wasn't entirely on RG3. He was 9 of 18. At least 2 of them were drops that were right in the receivers hands. And another one or two were intentional throw aways. that takes it up to 12 or 13. Means he only misfired on about a third of the passes

And I think most of those throw aways were because we had hoped Dallas adjusted to stop the run and figured the deep pass was going be there. Dallas didn't adjust to stop our run game so the deep pass wasn't there.

---------- Post added December-31st-2012 at 11:14 AM ----------

I'm guessing their gameplan will be the same in regards to having their LBs play pass first and stay at home against play/run action.
But, they're gonna bring way more pressure.

I'm actually thinking that if Dallas' offense holds up its part of the bargain, Dallas might have pulled it off despite getting gashed. Two of Romo's interceptions took at least 6 points off the board for Dallas (in fact, if he had not so badly under thrown that second one, it might have been a TD) and the third turned into a TD for us.

[NLC1054]

Basically, Rob Ryan decided that Robert Griffin III was going to beat him, so he sold out on the run to do everything possible to stop the pass. They played tigght, physical, press man coverage with two deep safeties and forced RG3 to try and make hard decisions, and they just completely abandoned the idea of play action.

Of course, that killed them, because everyone just stayed in their pass lanes and refused to bite on the play fake. That left huge gaps in the middle of the field and open run lanes. At that point, Kyle just ran the air out of the ball and used their own game plan against them.

The passing game will be back, this was just a momentary blip.

[storretti]

I don't think RG3 was that accurate last night, I don't know if it was the cold weather or his knee, but he just wasn't that sharp. Hopefully he will play better next week, because we are going to need everything we have to beat the Seahawks.

But, he can get away with his pass being off because his play actions and his fakes are just wicked. No one does it better than him.

[terryb101]

First of all, HTTR! NFCE champs! This is amazing.

That said, our passing game looked not so good today. What gives? Was it RG3 making bad decisions or bad throws because he was not healthy? The receivers not getting open enough? I miss the games where our passing game was on fire (e.g. saints, first game against philly and dallas)


There's no way we'll beat seattle just running the ball like we did today. Seattle's defense is too good AND we need to keep up with their offense which has also been really hot as of late. I hope the skins can fix this during practice this week.

reality i guess, rg3 just isnt a seasoned passer yet. i said before he was a better pick than luck and i stand by that, id much rather have rg3 than luck. but against teams that hide their coverages and such, until he learns how to read them against good pass defense teams he probably will struggle a bit, as he matures as a passer he will get better. if not then we will end up with another michael vick

[rk3025]

Disappointed in dropped passes again;Rg3 can't catch his own passes too.

[RiverboatGambler]

reality i guess, rg3 just isnt a seasoned passer yet. i said before he was a better pick than luck and i stand by that, id much rather have rg3 than luck. but against teams that hide their coverages and such, until he learns how to read them against good pass defense teams he probably will struggle a bit, as he matures as a passer he will get better. if not then we will end up with another michael vick

No. Rg3 is one of the best throwers in the league. The other posters in here have it right, Dallass didn't play the run which made us run the ball so we did. They played press man with their corners and their safeties took away the deep ball .Rg3 takes what the defense gives him. Since we don't run alot of empty sets, all the receivers were well covered *most* of the time. Is he supposed to try to jam it in where it doesn't need to go? I though he played great for what he was asked to do, he made several clutch throws into tight Windows on third downs and and several rushed for 1st downs . Not gaudy numbers but he didn't cost us the game with mistakes. 27 TDs vs 7 TOs is unreal for a rookie. It will be interesting because Seattle will be be applying more direct pressure and their DBs are some of the best in the NFL so he WILL be tested against Seattle's defense.

[No_Pressure]

4th quarter dallas had 8 in the box on 100% of first down plays and maybe 60% of 2nd and 3rd. Play action bombs were set up but we just kept running over 8 man fronts

[WilberMarshall]

During the game the announcers said Dallas was keeping their safeties deep. They never brought them up trying to take away the deep ball. This told the skins they could run it down their throats since they weren't filling. the box.

Yeah, their safeties were very deep. And the arrogance of Rob Ryan to think he can stop the run with his front 7 did them in. Kudos to Kyle for not letting his ego get in the way. They gave us the run and we leaned heavily on it. Some maturity by Kyle right there. He could have tried to prove he can still go deep with the deep lying safeties but he didn't.

---------- Post added December-31st-2012 at 01:32 PM ----------

reality i guess, rg3 just isnt a seasoned passer yet. i said before he was a better pick than luck and i stand by that, id much rather have rg3 than luck. but against teams that hide their coverages and such, until he learns how to read them against good pass defense teams he probably will struggle a bit, as he matures as a passer he will get better. if not then we will end up with another michael vick

What a load of tush. He did NOT need to go deep. They gave the Skins the run all game... daring us to drive the length of the field. This game showed how smart the O-coordinator and the QB are. They are not arrogant enough to do somn that was not necessary.

[MartinC]

4th quarter dallas had 8 in the box on 100% of first down plays and maybe 60% of 2nd and 3rd. Play action bombs were set up but we just kept running over 8 man fronts

Well if they cant stop it why go away from it. RGIII didn't need to put it up because Dallas just could not stop the run - grinding it out and keeping the Dallas offense on the bench was the way to go.

We are going to need more than 100 yards passing against Seattle though and they are a team who play a lot of press man and bring pressure. They give up the least points per game in the NFL at just over 15. RGIII and our receivers will need to bring their A game next week.

[NikoBellic]

For the record, I give props to Kyle Shanahan for continuing to call the run almost every down as soon as he realized the cowboys wouldn't stop it or couldn't stop it. It was DEFINITELY the right thing to do. I was just wondering why on the few passing plays we tried, they didn't go so well. It just make me nervous about next week's game where Seattle will probably do a little better job stopping Almo. Of course, if for some reason they do the same thing Dallas did defensively, I would be mad if we didn't run it down their throats also, and lost the game throwing the ball simply to throw the ball.

[Bacon]

1. Didn't need to.
2. The Cowboys' secondary was playing well.
3. RG3 was a little off.

As for Seattle, if we can run like that again, we'll win. Their secondary is their strong point, and if we can minimize that while limiting turnovers, the sky is the limit.

[nemocystem]

It's really simple. The gem about the read-option is that when teams do what Dallas did & try to stay disciplined & focused on preventing the intermediate passing game through the middle of the field, it opens up the power rushing attack because guys are more focused on maintaining their lanes.

You might not break off huge gains, but you'll chunk out 5/6/7 yards per carry because they are trying so hard not to over-committ to the rush & let RGIII get outside or let the WR's get behind the 2nd level.

As you all witnessed...all you need to do is force their hand...make them pick their poison, & if they choose to stay disciplined against the passing options...that's just fine. We'll ram it down your throats & wear you down until we start breaking off big gains late in the game as we all saw last night.

It really is a peach. Essentially...stop that passing attack, break off 200+ yards rushing. Stop the rushing attack, get big plays deep behimd the 2nd/3rd level of the Defense. Go man-man....hahahaha, good luck with stopping RGIII around the edge.

What we witnessed was not anything being wrong, but everything being right within our gameplan/scheme. This win, & the way it went down gives me HUGE confidence against anybody in the league....period.

[Larry]

For the record, I give props to Kyle Shanahan for continuing to call the run almost every down as soon as he realized the cowboys wouldn't stop it or couldn't stop it. It was DEFINITELY the right thing to do. I was just wondering why on the few passing plays we tried, they didn't go so well.

That's my thing, too.

"They sold out to prevent the pass" explains why we had so few attempts.

And I wholeheartedly approve of that. I said before the game that I cannot think of anything I would have liked better than for Dallas to commit to taking away the pass, and "force" us to shove the ball down their throats. Last night was a dream come true, for me.

My only concern was that, on the few times where we tried to pass, we seemed to have a lot of problems. Balls thrown in the dirt, or over the receiver's head, or hitting him in the chest and he still doesn't catch them.

If we had only attempted 15 passes all night, and we'd completed 10-11 of them, for 8-10 yards each, I'd have been deliriously happy.