Week 14 Analysis: 12-1

My best guess is that Mike Martz is a Cowboys fan. If anybody else in the NFL was calling plays for the Lions, we would have been toast for sure.

Offense:
The player was triple covered the entire day limiting him to 3 catches for 21 yards. Jason Witten picked up the slack and was the primary target of the day. He caught 15 passes for 138 yards. Barber also displayed his skills catching the ball by catching 10 passes for 61 yards. Hurd and Crayton combined for 69 yards as well.

So pretty much, we just went with the "mosquito bite attack". We were consistently popping passes for 5 to 8 yard gains instead of going for the big bomb. I guess you could say we were using the passing game for our running game. This doesn't show as Romo's total yardage (308) is still up, but his average was down a bit. Romo had 2 TDs (Witten and Barber) and no INTs

So what of the run game? Obviously it took a step backwards. MB3 led the team with 43 yards on 7 attempts. JuJo has a frustrating 29 yards on 8 attempts. But as I said...we pretty much used the passing game for our run game and also used the passing game for our pass game. Weird.

Oh, and as I've already mentioned, a special thanks goes out to Martz for using the pass attack late in the 4th with the lead. Had they have gone with the run, and eaten more clock, it would have been a Dallas lost for sure.

He gave Romo and Co. and extra chance to go for the go ahead score. Witten redeemed himself from his costly fumble to score the late TD! Thanks Martz, I didn't know you were a Dallas fan. Although you're a Dallas fan, I don't think we'll employ you any time soon.

Defense.
Embarassing. Pretty much, the leagues worst running attack ran straight through the gut of (arguably) the leagues best run defense. Not to mention, they were highly successful at it. Kevin Jones ran for 92 yards on 23 attempts. T.J. Duckett ran for 60 yards on 9 attempts. It was nothing fancy. They just pounded it straight through our defensive line. Not much to the left or right, just straight down the pipe. At times I wondered if this was truly a Martz offense, but then that thing happened in the 4th. Jones had 2 TDs and Duckett had 1. The Cowboys run defense has been among the elite all year, but after their showing yesterday, I beg to differ.

Our pass defense was about the same as it has been all year. Kitna passed for 248. 8 went to McDonald for 96 yards, 5 went to Calvin Johnson for 51. The rest were spread pretty evenly amongst Furrey, Cason, Jones, and McHugh. Interesting how the Detroit passing game is a bit better without Roy Williams.

I'm disappointed in our run defense. I've said this last week, but if we play like we've played the past couple weeks in the playoffs, we will be facing a crushing, early departure. We've got to step up and play better. We don't deserve this victory. We only got it because Mike Martz was being himself. We got Philly next week. If we don't step it up on defense then this might be a disappointing game.