Newgame plan for inept offense: Less is more
BALTIMORE— Given his knack for sarcasm, Bill Parcells might have dubbed his quarterback “Tony TooMuch” Romo had he continued as coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
The team’s current coach has better manners, so he usedamuchmore polite way to tell Romo to tone it down after his career- high- tying five- interception performance in the 34- 18 loss to Chicago inWeek 4.
“He has to go back and be one- eleventh of the offense like he’s been throughout most of his career and do his job and trust everybody else to do their job,” said Jason Garrett, whose 2- 2 Cowboys visit the AFC Northleading Ravens ( 4- 1) on Sunday.
Running nowhere
Romo is 11- 8 against AFC teams, including 0- 1 against Baltimore after losing to the Ravens 33- 24 in 2008 in the final game at Texas Stadium.
Considering the sorry state of the Cowboys’ offense, it’s no surprise Romo has been trying to do toomuch. With the line struggling to open holes for DeMarcoMurray, Dallas ranks 29th in the league in run offense ( 67.8 yards per game). A big reason for that skimpy output: The Cowboys’ 2.3 rushing average per attempt on first- and- 10 is second- worst in the league behind Arizona’s 2.16.
“When you don’t run the football, when you’re behind the chains a little bit and you’re the guy who has the ball in his hands on every play,” Garrett said, “there’s a natural instinct if you’re a great competitor like Tony is to say, ‘ Hey, I can do something. I can fix this.’
“And, ultimately, when you do that at any position, particularly at quarterback, you set yourself up for some difficult situations.”
Romo was asked by reporters earlier in the week whether ball security sometimes takes a back seat to his competitiveness.
“We’re not here to talk about negative stuff,” Romo said. “At the end of the day, it’s about winning football games, and we’ve just got to do the things that give us a chance to do that. We’re doing some things to correct that.”
‘ Lightening his load’
Askedwhat those things are, Romo said, “Well, I’mnot going to go into detail. Thatwould only be silly to give you the things I think are going to help us in this football game and going forward.”
Offensive coordinator Bill Callahan wasmore forthcoming.
“We talked about just lightening his load and trying to do things that are simple and giving him more peace of mind so he can just come up and call a play and run it,” Callahan said.
In other words, Romo likely will have fewer plays to choose from at the line of scrimmage against the Ravens after he makes his pre- snap reads.
“Less is better in our minds,” Callahan said.
Thursday’s result Today’s games Oakland at Atlanta Cincinnati at Cleveland Detroit at Philadelphia St. Louis atMiami Dallas at Baltimore Kansas City at Tampa Bay Indianapolis at N. Y. Jets Buffalo at Arizona New England at Seattle N. Y. Giants at San Francisco Minnesota atWashington Green Bay at Houston Monday’s game Denver at San Diego Time noon noon noon noon noon noon noon 3: 05 3: 05 3: 25 3: 25 7: 20
Tennessee 26 Open Curr. line line Atl. 8 ½ Atl. 9 Cin. 3 Cin. 2 ½ Phi. 6 Phi. 3 ½ Mia. 3 ½ Mia. 4 Balt. 4 Balt. 3 ½ T. B. 3 ½ T. B. 4 N. Y. 3 N. Y. 3 ½ Ariz. 4 ½ Ariz. 4 N. E. 4 N. E. 3 ½ S. F. 6 S. F. 6 ½ Was. 2 ½ Was. 2 Hou. 4 Hou. 31/2 471/2 Open line S. D. 3 Curr. line S. D. 1
Pittsburgh 23 O/ U 48 ½ 43 47 ½ 38 44 40 ½ 43 ½ 43 ½ 44 ½ 45 ½ NL
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