When the Cowboys lined up on 4th-and-1 on just the fourth play of Sunday’s game versus Denver, it may not have seemed like a controversial decision. The Cowboys came into the contest with one of the league’s top-ranked offenses by most any measure, running back Ezekiel Elliott was averaging 4.8 yards per rushing attempt on the season, and the ball was on the Broncos’ 38-yard-line. The alternative would have been a 56-yard-field goal try from a kicker who’s gone 1-of-3 from beyond 50 this season and just 4-of-12 from that distance as a Cowboy.
Going for it made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, Elliott was stuffed for a one-yard loss.
On Dallas’s next series, they went for it again on fourth down. This time, the ball was on the Denver 20. Rather than attempt a 38-yard field goal and put the first points of the afternoon on the scoreboard, the Cowboys went for it again, needing just two yards. Quarterback Dak Prescott’s throw to open wideout Cedrick Wilson fell incomplete.
Never mind what the analytics might say about going for it in those early and short-yardage situations on the plus-side of the field; Broncos wide receiver Tim Patrick chose to take it personally.
“Disrespectful,” Patrick said, as per the Broncos team website. “That [expletive]’s disrespectful. They trying us. And that’s what happens when you try us.”
The Cowboys went on to fail two more fourth-down conversion tries on the afternoon. 0-for-4 total. It’s not the reason they were blown out by a 30-16 score, but turning the ball over on downs on the first two possessions surely helped set a tone of ineffectiveness that carried over throughout the worst Dallas performance in quite some time.
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy talked about inadvertently giving the Broncos a huge boost with those two plays.
“I mean, momentum,” McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “We talk about momentum swings all the time. I think it’s important to respond to all the momentum swings. Especially if you have it, what do you do with it? And then frankly, when the opponent has it, how do you respond to it? The decisions? I’m fine with the decisions. The execution, particularly on the first one, they had better defense than we had play called; we had penetration in the A-gap and couldn’t get the ball to the edge on the outside zone. They came in aggressive.”
The second one was far more troubling. Aside from being in near-gimme territory for an NFL kicker to make a field goal and eschewing the seemingly easy three points, Prescott’s fluttering pass on the fourth-down to Wilson was ugly. So ugly, in fact, that the TV announcers and observers alike assumed it must have been deflected by a Denver defender.
“Yeah, I don’t think it was tipped,” Prescott confessed to reporters after the game. “I think I got ready to throw it on the crossing route, saw the guy’s hands up, and I think I just tried to change my arm angle at the last second and threw it, what, at his ankles? At that point, I was hoping Ced maybe made a catch, but yeah, I don’t miss those throws. Those are throws that I’ve worked on a long time, whether I’m moving my feet or whether I’m not able to get my back leg through, just finding a way to make that throw. That’s something I work hard on. It pisses me off when I miss a throw like that. That’s a big fourth down early in the game that we can keep going and move forward and get a touchdown. I think it just changed the whole way that this game plays and goes from there if I complete that and we’re able to stay on the field.”
But Prescott didn’t complete it, and the Cowboys weren’t able to stay on the field. And with a second straight fourth-down stop, the Broncos suddenly had some added juice.
“You take the field with a little anger, honestly,” Denver quarterback Teddy Bridgewater said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, man, they’re going for it because they’re saying our offense is not going to score or something.’ We talked about it in the huddle, and we used it as motivation… It’s one of those deals where you take the field and OK, you have a little added motivation to it. You can see that today.”
By the time the Cowboys tried to convert an another fourth down, the game was getting out of hand and it was desperation time. Down 19-0 midway through the third quarter, Dallas once again kept the offense on the field for a 4th-and 1 from their own 40. Despite needing just a few feet, Prescott went for broke. His deep ball missed wideout CeeDee Lamb. Badly.
“I definitely remember the play,” Prescott recalled. “Came back, CeeDee has a little return route. When I got back to him, he had turned and threw his hand up. There was a hole-player who was starting to make his way toward me. I mean, maybe I probably could have run, now looking back at it, but at the time, I was just trying to get it to CeeDee and make a big play and just put too much on it. It’s something that, as I’ve said, I’m missing throws and some throws on some crucial downs. Can’t have that.”
In the fourth quarter, Dallas was on the wrong side of their own 20 when they tried to move the sticks on a 4th-and-7. Prescott’s pass this time was intercepted. Five plays later, Denver extended their lead to 30-0.
Coming into the Week 9 game, the Cowboys had been 5-of-10 on fourth-down conversions. Now they’re 5-of-14.
The list of things that didn’t work for the Cowboys on Sunday is a long one. But questionable decisions and atrocious performances on key fourth-down plays has to be near the top of things the Dallas coaching staff must address heading into the back half of the regular season.
Prescott, for one, feels like his unit needs to keep punching. He suggested that the failed fourth downs didn’t diminish the offense’s confidence, even though he acknowledges that they boosted the opponents’.
“I mean, sure. I’m sure it does. But it doesn’t take confidence away from us,” the quarterback said. “It wasn’t about their confidence as much as it was just about our lack of execution in critical situations.”
“We just never got going,” McCarthy said in summary.
Broncos coach Vic Fangio knows all too well that fourth downs can cut both ways.
“Everybody wants to go for it on fourth down, right?” Fangio said. “Fourth-and-1, fourth-and-2… they cite all the numbers, so on and so forth. But when you don’t get them, it hurts. And we were the beneficiary of the hurt.”
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