Garrett: It Came Down To Turnovers

Without looking at the statistics after Sunday night’s loss to the San Diego Chargers, Cowboys’ head coach Jason Garrett told his players that he guessed that they had gained more yards and had more first downs than did San Diego--that the 20-7 loss was mostly the result of the team’s three turnovers.

Garrett was right. The Cowboys gained 313 yards to San Diego’s 239, and had 23 first downs to San Diego’s 18. But Tony Romo threw an interception, and Lonyae Miller and Stephen McGee coughed up a fumble each, while the Chargers didn’t surrender a turnover. This turnover differential, as it so often does, told the story on Sunday night.

"Ultimately it comes down to we turned it over three times and they didn’t turn it over at all," Garrett said. "And they know those statistics from last year in the NFL, and really the last 30 years in the NFL, the correlation between turnovers and winning and losing in the NFL.

“We need to do a better job of taking care of the football, and we need to do a better job of getting the ball away from them. That’s really statistic No. 1 in the NFL, and we lost it [Sunday] and it had a big impact in the ball game."

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