Poor second halves plague Cowboys

Nov 21, 2017 - 2:39 AM FRISCO, Texas - Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones isn't pointing fingers at the coaching staff, but he alluded to the fact that the team hasn't made the necessary adjustments in the second half this season.

"The common thing that comes to my mind real quick is that -- for whatever reason, we're getting beat pretty good in the second half," Jones said.

That would seem to suggest head coach Jason Garrett and his staff haven't made the proper adjustments. Sunday's 37-9 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles marked the third time this season that the Cowboys have blown a halftime lead.

The Cowboys had a 9-7 lead before having the most lopsided loss in AT&T Stadium history. They also blew halftime home leads to the Los Angeles Rams and Green Bay Packers last month.

Garrett said the Eagles didn't do much different in the second half than they were expecting.

"Not really. They continued to do what they'd done earlier in the game and what they'd done for most of the year," Garrett said. "That's a good football team. They've won a lot of games this year. We know that. You have to be on the screws in all phases of your team for 60 minutes. For the first 30 minutes, we did some good things to give us a chance to be in the ballgame and lead the ballgame. But obviously we didn't play well enough in the last half of the game."

The Cowboys blew only one halftime lead in their 13-3 campaign a year ago -- at New York when the Giants overcame a 7-0 deficit for a 10-7 victory.

Garrett has seen 18 halftime leads fade into losses throughout his career.

The three blown halftime leads by the Cowboys this season are their most since they did so five times in 2015. In Garrett's two playoff seasons (2014 and 2016), the Cowboys blew halftime leads just once in the regular season.

The Cowboys blew four halftime leads under Garrett in each of the 2013 and 2011 seasons. They didn't blow any halftime leads in the 2012 season (winning all three times they led at half) when they went 8-8.

Garrett and his staffs have made the right adjustments at times, of course. In the 2014 wild-card round, they were trailing 17-7 to the Detroit Lions and ended up winning 24-20.

The next week, though, the Cowboys blew a 14-10 halftime lead at Green Bay in a 26-21 loss.

That's part of the nature in the NFL. Jones understands that and made it clear that he has no inkling to make wholesale changes despite the frustrating 5-5 record for the Cowboys.

"We're not going to get in here and in any way feel sorry for yourself, and I'm certainly not going to resign over this," Jones said, with a laugh. "I'm not going to be changing any coaches out or anything like that."