Two 4th-down play calls showed 2023 Cowboys at best, worst vs Chargers

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys’ attempt at the tush push failed badly. The hardest part was knowing that their previous 4th-down call is who they really are.

In the end, Dak Prescott was able to laugh about it.

But for a unit that wants to be able to impose its will on an opposing defense and seize everything, the Cowboys offense through six games has proven unable to consistently get it when they need it most. That’s been glaringly and maddeningly obvious on fourth down conversion attempts, something they tried twice on Monday night in Inglewood.

And yes, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Dallas has gone for it on fourth down seven times thus far in 2023 but moved the sticks just twice. That ties them for the third-worst fourth-down conversion rate in the league. Las Vegas currently leads the NFL with an 85.7% conversion rate; Philadelphia’s 60% has them tied for fifth-best.

That’s perhaps surprising, given the seemingly automatic nature of their short-yardage scrums featuring quarterback Jalen Hurts and the polarizing tactic now known universally as the “tush push.”

It’s been such a successful play for the Eagles that the Cowboys tried it themselves in the second quarter of Monday night’s game.

Already in the red zone and facing 4th-and-1 with two and a half minutes to play and the score tied, the Cowboys bunched up around the ball on the line of scrimmage for an imminent quarterback sneak. But with Hunter Luepke and Rico Dowdle stationed directly behind Prescott, it was obvious to everyone on earth what they were about to try.

If you listened closely, you could hear Cowboys Nation groaning oh no in unison.

It went poorly.

“They didn’t push my tush enough,” Prescott joked with reporters afterward.

The line got a laugh only because Dallas went on to win the game by a 20-17 count. But at the time, simply handing the ball back to the Chargers with nothing to show for a 10-play, 65-yard drive was a huge momentum-killer.

And it’s not like the Cowboys hadn’t shown they knew how to deliver a fourth-down dagger just a few minutes prior.

Prescott’s first-quarter touchdown run had also come on a 4th-and-1 call. But on that occasion, Mike McCarthy, instead of telegraphing exactly what was coming, dialed up a nifty play that had the Chargers guessing.

CeeDee Lamb’s pre-snap motion was enough to draw two L.A. players away from the main play-action. Now with just seven defenders in the box, Prescott met Tony Pollard at the mesh point to see who would bite.

When linebacker Tuli Tuipulotu did, committing to Pollard, Prescott yanked the ball back, nearly fumbled it, and took off untouched for 18 yards and six points.

A nerve-racking rollerocaster of a play, yes. But one that concluded with an end-zone spike and a kiss to the heavens.

Same down and distance, same spot on the field. Two wildly different attack strategies… with completely opposite results.

That McCarthy should find himself fascinated by the Eagles’ tush push shouldn’t come as a shock, considering his penchant for running the ball right into a tangled pile of very large people over and over and over.

But by relying on his best players’ best attributes and using misdirection to let them operate in space- rather than expecting them to conform to his ideas of what hard-nosed, old-school football is apparently supposed to look like- McCarthy came away from Week 6 with a 50% fourth-down conversion rate on the night.

It was Prescott that did that, using his legs in a way he hadn’t in a long time, using his football instincts that often seem to get muddied when he tries maybe too hard to sit in the pocket and be a pocket-passing surgeon.

Remember, those same instincts later helped him scramble away from danger and ad-lib a short toss to Pollard for what certainly would have moved the chains but ultimately turned into a 60-yard pickup.

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The Cowboys’ tush push was a clear tactical error, a bad play call executed badly by players being asked to be something they’re not. When it didn’t turn into a score for the Chargers, McCarthy ended up kicking a controversial field goal, perhaps sheepishly tacking on the points he felt he cost the team with his botched brotherly shove.

In a moment when the Cowboys could have seized everything, McCarthy chose to drain the clock and take a gimme field goal.

But Cowboys fans didn’t want that approach either, in yet another gotta-have-it moment. Not the conservative “play it safe” chip-shot kick. And not the everybody-else-is-trying-it-so-why-shouldn’t-we rugby scrum.

What Cowboys fans wanted- what Cowboys fans saw work– was creative and imaginative Xs and Os that let the playmakers make plays.

“Let’s get a new name for that,” Prescott laughed about the tush push at the end of his postgame press conference.

Better yet, let’s leave it to Philly and stick with what Prescott and these Cowboys players actually do best.

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