Thursday, August 20, 1998

Cowboys ran out of excuses in 1997

By NICK GHOLSON

Scripps Howard News Service

WICHITA FALLS, Texas - There were two main reasons the Dallas Cowboys were losers last year. Some might say they were Barry and Switzer, yet although both of those might have played a major factor in the explanation, the 6-10 season really boiled down to two things: The Cowboys couldn't run, and their opponents could.

The Dallas rushing offense was No. 20 in the NFL. Its rushing defense ranked No. 24 in the league. So although the talk of training camp has been all about the Shotgun, the screens, the shuttle passes, the reverses and the thickness of head coach Chan Gailey's playbook, the key to winning and losing this year doesn't really rest on any of the above.

Football is a simple game. Teams that can run can win. Teams that can't run can't win. Check out the stats on any Monday morning of the NFL season, and you'll see that the teams with the most rushing yards win almost every time.

Fans love those long touchdown bombs, but football coaches would much rather watch those grind-'em-out, 15-play, 75-yard drives. The Cowboys' final five games of 1997 - all losses - were a perfect example. In those games, opponents outrushed Dallas 843 to 414. In those games, opponents also had the ball about 37 minutes longer. And you wonder why the Cowboys didn't make the playoffs.

Denver, with Terrell Davis, almost doubled Green Bay's rushing total (179-95) in the Super Bowl. Guess which team is wearing the big ring. The Cowboys' pathetic performance inside the red zone (19 touchdowns in 54 opportunities) was due to the fact that they couldn't run. It is mandatory for teams to run the ball inside the 20 because it's much tougher to complete passes in the shortened field. Running problems also help increase sacks because the quarterback is continually facing third-and-long.

So what have we seen this past month that might indicate the Cowboys will run better this season? Well, Emmitt Smith's 84 yards in six carries in Tuesday night's scrimmage against the Saints was encouraging. Gailey seems to think the injuries that kept fullback Daryl Johnston out the final 10 games of the year and caused a lot of shuffling in the offensive line hurt the running game more than anything last year.

"I never went back and evaluated schemes. All I did was evaluate personnel," he said. "And most of the time when you have problems with a team that has been good, there are some fairly obvious ones that I picked up just by watching film.

"You move offensive linemen around to different spots. You fill in with one guy one week, and he's in and back out and in and back out. That's tough."

No matter how thick Gailey's playbook might be, this is a coach who is going to center his offense around the running back. This is a guy who won a Division II national championship at Troy State with the Wishbone. And last year, as offensive coordinator for the Steelers and Jerome Bettis, he called 572 running plays to 466 passing plays.

The Cowboys would love to have the run offense-run defense ratio that Pittsburgh had a year ago. The Steelers offense averaged 4.3 per carry on the ground, while the defense gave up just 3.3. They controlled the clock 32:05 to 27:55.

Meanwhile back in Dallas, the Cowboys watched seven different running backs have 100-plus rushing days against them.

Don't get too excited about the Cowboys having the best pass defense in 1997. That is based on total yards. When you can run on someone, you don't need to pass. So before you get all that worried about the lack of a pass rush this season, first focus your attention on whether this team can stop the run. If that happens, opponents will be put in a lot of third-and-longs, and you can create pressure.

Quarterbacks who face third-and-longs are like those dogs that chase cars.

The return of Leon Lett at defensive tackle will be a major improvement in stopping the run. Tony Casillas, at 6-3 and 278, was undersized and, as a result, overmatched every week. The 6-6, 300-pound Lett won't be.

Chad Hennings is a competent defensive tackle, and the linebackers are OK, but this team has one glaring weakness at defensive end. Greg Ellis is a rookie, and Kavika Pittman is young and unproven. While everyone has been questioning the ability of Ellis and Pittman to put pressure on the quarterback, there is also concern here if they can be run-stoppers. Nobody expects Ellis and Pittman to resemble Harvey Martin and Too Tall Jones or even Tony Tolbert and Charles Hailey. But can they at least be as good at stopping the run, as say Shante Carver?

Gailey said one of the reasons the pass rush has suffered in the preseason is because the team has placed an emphasis on run-stopping.

"We've really worked on playing the run and stopping the run and believe that is one of the most important things you can do in the game of football, stop the run," Gailey said.

It's a simple formula. Your offense runs. Your defense stops the run. You win.

It worked well enough to win the Cowboys three Super Bowls this decade. When it doesn't work, well, we saw that last year, didn't we?

(Nick Gholson writes for the Wichita Falls Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.)