You think the Cowboys were running a ZBS? I've always thought of them as more of a power-running team. Murray had zero running room in the first half; in the second half he had one big run after breaking a thousand tackles (poor tackling), and then one other one as the Giants wore down.
It looked that way to me. It looked like the stretch running plays we've been seeing for 2 years here.
Now I'm not familiar with the cowboys offsensive scheme, and I'm certainly not an NFL scout/expert. It's what we thought we saw after having a few beers from the couch....
What I saw was a D line that was exhausted and unable to get into the back field starting 1/2 through the 3rd quarter, which allowed the cowboys to run the ball at will and pick up at least 3 yards a carry, breaking a few here and there, and dominating time of possession.
Dallas dominated TOP - 35 minutes to 25 :
http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/boxscore?gameId=320905019
Dallas averaged 5.5 yards per rush.
If you look at the drive charts, starting the 3rd quarter Dallas was able to hold on to the ball twice as long per drive:
http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/drivechart?gameId=320905019
The second to last one ate up a ridiculous 7+ minutes.
So what I saw was a D Line that is supposed to be one of the best in the league get pushed around by a mediocre at best O line for almost the entire second half. Now, a lot of that may have had to do with the score, but that is what I saw. They looked tired and got absolutely no penetration going against those stretch plays. Once Dallas got them to commit to going sideways they man handled them.
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