The defensive numbers for the Cowboys tell an ugly story, but the same could also be said for the offense. For all the problems the defense had in controlling the Lions, the unit did create four turnovers, which should have been enough to win this football game.
Sure, you can point the finger at the defense for giving up more than 600 yards of offense, but you should also point that same finger at the Cowboys offense. If the offensive line could have protected better, there were plays to be made on Detroit's defense. As a matter of fact, those high numbers that the Lions had could have been just the same for the Cowboys.
Normally when the offensive line struggles, Romo is usually there to bale them out, but he wasn't in this game. When he did have to make a throw or two on the move, he was all over the place. His plan of attack was to go early with rookie Terrance Williams and not look in the direction of Dez Bryant, Cole Beasley or even Jason Witten, which I thought was a mistake. Williams is developing as a player, but to target him seven times before you handed the ball to Bryant on a reverse made no sense.
It wasn't until the second half that we saw Bryant really get into the flow of the game. By going away from Bryant early, I thought the offense wasted some opportunities. Romo was never able to make the Lions secondary pay for their coverage.
I understand that there were times where the pressure on Romo was great and he couldn't set his feet to make solid throws, but how many times have we seen him move in the pocket to buy a second chance and still get the completion? Romo did not have the touch nor the accuracy that he needed today and a large part of that was due to the pressure that he faced.
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The best chance that the Lions had to win this game was with their offense, which did its part the entire game despite those four turnovers. But give the Detroit defense a great deal of credit for hanging in there and making the plays when they had to. The Lions got the stops when they needed to and their defensive pressure was there all day. And say what you want about how well their offense played, but it was their defense won this game.
