The debut of rookie quarterback Dak Prescott (replacing an injured Romo) and rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott was marred by a head-scratching blunder from wide receiver Terrance Williams. “I’m thinking go win the game”.
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This isn’t anything new.
The Cowboys were 1-11 in 12 games without Romo during last year’s 4-12 campaign. Oh, and a defence that never seemed to get a big stop during a 4-12 season previous year failed again in the fourth quarter.
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver Dez Bryant’s preseason chemistry didn’t translate well in the regular season opener against the New York Giants.
Playing in his first regular-season game in almost two years, Cruz caught the go-ahead touchdown from Eli Manning (19 of 28, 207 yards, three touchdowns and one pathetic interception) with 6:13 left in the game. Maybe it’s too much to ask to have the Prescott-led offense to convert 64.91 percent of their red-zone chances, as they did under Romo in 2014 (and 68.63 percent in 2013), but 33 percent is still shockingly low. But the National Football League is hard.
The Cowboys had hoped things would be different in 2016 with Prescott starting the first six games for an injured Romo instead of the crew of Brandon Weeden, Matt Cassell and Kelen Moore that played in Romo’s absence last season. On Sunday they didn’t show any of those areas were moving forward. His last run was an 11-yarder to the Cowboys 37 and it came up a yard short of allowing NY to run out the clock.
As Garrett said, it will not be easy, but it needs to be better. He had one carry against a nine-man box for 2 yards. We were physical, held the line of scrimmage and were heavy-handed.
“We also got an opportunity to get some consistency in the game”, he said. There are always holding calls at the worst times.
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The Cowboys rarely run designed plays specifically for Bryant, and operate under the mindset that balls will eventually work their way toward “the stars”. Two newcomers, Damon Harrison and Olivier Vernon, combined for the team’s two tackles for loss. Prescott would finish with a 25-of-45 line for 227 yards, and Elliott would rush for 51 yards on 20 carries. The Giants were forced to punt on their next three possessions, as the Cowboys’ defense limited them to just 14 plays. “But that can’t deter you”. We were able to go run the ball. Things could get ugly if he doesn’t start getting the amount of passes thrown his way that he’s used to, but Prescott doesn’t believe that will be a problem.
