Garrett Wishes Cowboys Had Run More Against Lions

In what seems a fairly obvious conclusion to draw following the Cowboys’ record setting collapse against Detroit on Sunday, Dallas head coach Jason Garrett told reporters on Monday that, yes, the team probably should have relied more on the running game after jumping out to such a convincing lead.

Felix Jones, Tashard Choice and DeMarco Murray combined for 113 rushing yards on 26 carries, but the run-pass ratio at the end of the game was 47 pass attempts to 27 rushing attempts (receiver Dez Bryant accounted for one of the latter). Garrett, who always stresses the importance of situational play-calling, most likely wishes in retrospect that this figure was a bit more balanced.

“Should we have run it more? Yeah, in hindsight some of the plays that went the other way, you say, ‘Boy I wish I had run it there,’” Garrett said, per ESPN Dallas. “But you always have to call the game. We got out to an early lead in the game. We came out in the second half and scored another touchdown and with 25 minutes to go in the game you don’t want to say, ‘Let’s just run it three times and punt it.’ You still want to play football.

“You still want to make sure you give the quarterback a lot of good answers to be smart with the football in everything that you do call and allow him to make the decisions. And unfortunately, a few of those decisions went the wrong way and they made the plays and we didn’t.”