If you focus on who wasn’t on the field, you miss reason why Cowboys lost to Eagles

There has been a lot of noise about the Cowboys and playing rotations, about not having Ezekiel Elliott and Amari Cooper on the field for critical plays Sunday when they were losing at Philadelphia and blowing a chance to clinch the NFC East title.

They have a third-and-1 and Elliott is not on the field? They have a fourth down on their last series and Cooper is on the sideline?

It was not a good look.

But that wasn’t the worst thing about that loss for the Cowboys. It was the whole week leading up to it that put them in that position, and that’s on coach Jason Garrett and the offense.

Dak Prescott went in with a bad shoulder and they knew that. He was limited during the week in practice. So why didn’t Elliott get the ball more? He had 13 carries for 47 yards. All Philadelphia was doing was lining up with an extra guy in the box and the Cowboys would just throw the football. It was that easy. The Eagles were going to do that all night, because Prescott was not throwing it with any consistency.

Before the game, during the game, after the game, Prescott is not going to say, “Yeah, we have to run the football, I don’t feel good.” He’s a competitor. There’s no way he’s going to say that.

But I’ve had that injury. In Houston back in 2003 Tony Banks started a game against the Falcons because I couldn’t go with my shoulder, and Banks broke his hand on a Hail Mary right before the end of the first half.

I went in for the second half and the first pass play that was called, I bounced it. I threw five passes the entire second half, and we still ended up winning the game. But with a bad shoulder you just don’t have that feel. You know where you want to throw the ball. Your body mechanics are telling you where to throw the ball, but you don’t have that sensation as the ball leaves your fingers to make that throw accurately.

The Eagles put Prescott to the test early. They went up and challenged the receivers to force Prescott to make some tight-window throws and when he couldn’t do that effectively they loaded up the box and said, “You’re not going to run the football,” and the Cowboys just went away from it.

Prescott threw the ball 44 times.

That’s a little inexperience with offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and then even more so with Garrett allowing Moore to put together a plan where if Philadelphia is going to line up with an extra guy in the box they’re just going to throw it every time. If Prescott is not 100%, that’s not a win for them.

They still have to find ways to design runs there. They have three Pro Bowl offensive linemen, a Pro Bowl running back in Elliott. All year they’ve been decent at mixing it up. But when Prescott is not right, they have to have an answer when teams decide they’re going to load up the box.

CAN BEAST MODE SAVE THE SEAHAWKS?

Beast Mode is back, or at least Marshwn Lynch is back. We’ll have to see how effective he can be for the Seahawks, but it’s not impossible.

Just look at last year with C.J. Anderson and the Rams. He showed up off the street in Week 15 – Denver had cut him. They plugged him in and he started going off. He was getting more carries than Todd Gurley. He was the guy. I think you can do that with running backs, especially veteran guys, assuming that they’re in game shape and that’s the one wild card.

You don’t know what kind of shape Lynch is in. I love watching him play, but you just don’t know.

If Lynch or Robert Turbin can’t give the Seahawks what they need in the running game, that’s a problem not only Sunday against the 49ers with the NFC West on the line, but also in the playoffs.

Watching them the other day against Arizona and throughout the year, they haven’t been great on third downs and they haven’t really been efficient unless they’re effectively running the ball.

When their backs started to go down, they kind of lost their identity and have had to rely so much on Russell Wilson making plays outside the Xs and Os. He has been able to save them in a lot of ways by making some heroic plays, but it’s hard to count on that consistently.

They didn’t have a third-down conversion against the Cardinals until the fourth quarter and ended up just 1 of 12 in that game.

If a defense can change the looks and stop them from running the football, that’s a real issue.

If Lynch has been working out, or they can get someone in there who can get them back on track running the football, then they have a chance, just because Wilson is there. But I don’t know if their defense is strong enough and I don’t know that plugging in a running back who hasn’t played in a long time is the best bet for what’s coming next.