After two days of silence, Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett spoke to some local media types today--faced the music, if you will--concerning the seeming abandonment of the running game in the second half of Sunday's 17-7 loss to the Packers in Green Bay. Kind of.
Per ESPNDallas, Garrett said that the team made balance a priority, that the offense wanted to avoid becoming "one-dimensional."
"You don’t want to be one-dimensional in anything you do,” said Garrett. "You don’t want to just be an inside running team. You don’t just want to be an outside running team. You don’t just want to be a dropback team. You want to be able to move the quarterback, you want to be able to run the ball, play-action, drop back."
This is true. Of course, on Sunday, Dallas's offense was decisively one-dimensional, as Dom Capers (and Tony Romo, to be sure) could tell you.
"The more you can do, the harder it is on the defense," Garrett continued. "At the same time, you need to have an identity. Identity is important, too. You don’t want to be all things to all people, but you want to be good at a lot of different things."
This, again, is true. And the Cowboys, one would argue, are good at a lot of things. But the relationship between the run and the pass is marked by reciprocity; take away the run completely, and the pass will almost always lose its venom--completely. Concerning the unit's identity, Garrett spoke of a lovely, balanced attack, a far cry from what was seen Sunday.
"Hopefully, we’re a team that plays with great tempo and urgency and we’re physical," Garrett said. "We can make little plays and big plays and there’s an aggressiveness and attacking style to our team, both in the run game and the pass game."
