The Cowboys drop to 1-4 by doing what they do best. They beat themselves. After coming into the game ranked 31st in penalties(trailing only Oakland), they played as if they really wanted to lead the league in that category by weeks end. They committed 11 penalties, for 91 yards. Several of those were extremely iffy calls. As always, the referee's hand is seemingly in his pocket on every play. Calls didn't go both ways and anybody who thinks different obviously didn't watch the game or is either blind with hatred or homerism.
The first was an Offensive Pass Interference call on Miles Austin which wiped away a 68 yard touchdown catch. Another was on a Punt Return, they called a hold on Alan Ball, who was blocking the gunner and it wasn't much of a hold. It's something that happens on every call. That wiped away a 37 yard return by Dez Bryant and instead of the Cowboys starting in Vikings territory, they starting backed up on their 14 yard line. And lastly, Mike Jenkins got called for a Pass Interference that extended the drive, which prevent the offense from getting the ball until 13 seconds left. The game was pretty much over at that point. I doubt the Cowboys could've scored had Jenkins not been flagged, but there's a chance. A chance they realistically never got.
Both run games were mostly ineffective. Felix Jones lead the Cowboys in rushing with 32 yards on 14 carries. Marion Barber had 10 carries for 3 yards. Tony Romo had the longest run for the Cowboys with a 14 yard run in 2nd quarter. Adrian Peterson was limited to 73 yards on 24 carries, his longest was 15 yards.
Both passing game have certainly seen better games. The Cowboys seemed afraid of getting the ball down the field in the passing game and settled with check downs often even when the pass rush was no where to be seen. Romo wasn't sacked, Farve got dropped 3 times and hit many more, especially in the first half. Moss, who seemingly everyone had as a lock for burning the Cowboys as he's done in the past, showed up for one quarter and finished with 50 yards receiving.
Defensively, the Cowboys played well. The Vikings had a couple of short fields and the not-so-Special Teams allowed a kickoff return for a touchdown to open the 2nd half which swung the momentum heavily in the Vikings favor. The Cowboys came into today with the 31st ranked coverage unit on kicks. I'm sure they are the worst after today.
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