Run game out of sync
Randle’s second-half disappearance, Dunbar’s injury raise concerns.
— Joseph Randle appears to be the rare running back who loses the faith of his coaches the more he scores.
What this means for his role in the Dallas Cowboys’ committee approach is under review.
Pinning the team’s second consecutive loss on Randle is patently unfair. His performance isn’t the sole reason the Cowboys did something no other team has done since October of last season, which is lose to New Orleans at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Mounting injuries and defensive shortcomings ignited this downward spiral.
But the ground game, headed by Randle to this point, has done nothing to brake the slide. His dysfunctional blend of productivity and unreliability symbolizes what the Cowboys must fix in this rotation.
Lance Dunbar’s season-ending injury — a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee — accelerates the need to address the committee’s structure immediately.
“I think we’re always evaluating,” coach Jason Garrett said. “It will happen naturally with Lance being out. We’ll look at it in practice and games, and we’ll look at what we’re asking guys to do.”
What the Cowboys have asked their backs to do the past two games without quarterback Tony Romo and Dez Bryant hasn’t always worked.
The dichotomy: Dallas has 200 more yards rushing in the first half of the past two games than in the second. Randle has gained 117 yards on the ground in that span in the first half and lost 4 yards in the second.
That’s not a misprint. Randle’s eight second-half carries have lost yardage during this losing streak.
If you take the entire season into account, Randle has 23 carries for 43 yards after halftime. He has touched the ball only twice in the fourth quarter this season, an indication that the coaches don’t trust him with the outcome in doubt.
This was reinforced in the overtime loss to the Saints. Eight days after Garrett told Randle not to leave his feet in an attempt to score at the goal line, the running back did it again in the first half of Sunday night’s game.
He fumbled, and the officials ruled that New Orleans recovered the ball. The call was reversed, and the Cowboys were awarded the touchdown, but that didn’t keep Garrett, running backs coach Gary Brown and offensive line coach Frank Pollack from forcefully telling Randle he was being too reckless with the ball.
Garrett talked Monday about how players sometimes revert to bad habits. He believes Randle will listen and rectify this flaw.
But the head coach conceded that Randle’s diminished workload the remainder of the evening — he didn’t step on the field in the fourth quarter — was a punitive measure, along with what the game dictated.
“A little bit of a combination,” Garrett said.
The second-half problems withthe ground game aren’t just a Randle thing. Brice Butler’s 67-yard third-quarter reception gave Dallas a first-and-goal at the 9-yard line against the Saints.
Last season, the Cowboys would have hammered at New Orleans on the ground for a play or two. This version didn’t even think about running. Offensive coordinator Scott Linehan called two unsuccessful fade routes to Terrance Williams in the end zone before quarterback Brandon Weeden was sacked for an 11-yard loss onthird down, forcing Dallas to settle for a field goal.
Down 20-13 and facing a third-and-1 midway through the fourth quarter, Christine Michael took the field for the first time in a Dallas uniform. He lost a yard, and the Cowboys were forced to punt.
The second-half script was similar in the loss to Atlanta.
“I think it’s an approach by a defense in (Sunday’s) game to really stay committed to taking the run away and committing a lot of people to the line of scrimmage,” Garrett said.
The Cowboys aren’t beating man coverage consistently enough in the passing game to warrant a reduction in the number of players the defense devotes to stopping the run. That doesn’t mean the coaching staff accepts the status quo.
Should Darren McFadden receive more carries at the expense of Randle? Now that Dunbar has gone down, how does Michael, the Texas A&M product, work into the rotation? Will Randle or McFadden assume Dunbar’s role as the primary receiver out of the backfield? Do the Cowboys need to look outside the organization?
“Lance was a weapon for us, and we tried to use him as a weapon in a lot of different ways to impact our offense and impact the game,” Garrett said. “To say we have someone in house who is going to do those same kinds of things, I don’t know that we have somebody like that. But we have guys in house who can do different things.”