After spending the bye week studying film, Jason Garrett says there’s no magic formula to fix the Cowboys’ woes on third down. Dallas is currently 28th in the league in this department, converting 33 percent of their third down attempts on the year. They were 0-for-9 on third downs in the loss to the New Orleans Saints.
“I don’t know that there were any great revelations,” Garrett said of his bye week film study, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I think the biggest thing that we have to understand is third down is really oftentimes a product of first and second down. The better you are on first and second down, the more manageable those third-down situations are.”
Of course, Garrett wouldn’t mind at all if the Cowboys offense just worked at such a pace that third downs only rarely came up.
“That’s one thing--I think making first downs on first and second down is important,” Garrett said. “And then simply the idea of being a better third down team--making the throws, making the catches, making the protection calls and physically blocking the guys. All of those things go into being an effective third-down team. Making it more manageable, staying out of some of them, and then just simply executing better. Again, when I talk about execution, that’s on us as coaches as well--making sure we’re giving our guys a chance to execute.”
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