We’ve seen more coaches opting to go for it on fourth down than in the past and that trend continued in the first quarter of Sunday’s game in Dallas.
The Cowboys had a fourth-and-one on the Broncos’ 38-yard-line on their first possession and a fourth-and-two on the Denver 20-yard-line on their second, which led to a pair of decisions for head coach Mike McCarthy. He chose to go for it both times, but the Cowboys failed to convert either time and the Broncos scored their first touchdown of the game after the second failure to send them on the way to a 30-16 win.
After the game, Broncos wide receiver Tim Patrick called it “disrespectful” for the Cowboys to dismiss the Broncos’ ability to make something happen offensively and quarterback Teddy Bridgewater said it added some fire to the team’s effort.
“You take the field with a little anger, honestly,” Bridgewater said, via the team’s website. “It’s like, ‘Hey, man, they’re going for it because they’re saying our offense is not going to score or something.’ We talked about it in the huddle, and we used it as motivation. . . . It’s one of those deals where you take the field and OK, you have a little added motivation to it. You can see that today.”
We’ll never know how Sunday’s game would have played out if the Cowboys made other choices early in the game, but the ones they did gave the Broncos a little boost on their way to a big win.