DALLAS — Despite a win away from clinching the NFC East, the Dallas Cowboys are in the bottom-5 in the NFL in red zone conversions with a 46.3 percent rate, the third-lowest in the league.
Cowboys owner, president, and general manager Jerry Jones talked about the team's woes inside the 20-yard line Friday on 105.3 "The Fan" [KRLD-FM] with "G-Bag Nation."
"It's fairly common across the NFL to be challenged when you get into the red zone with the length of the field being 20 to 30 yards down in there," said Jones. "So, we all get that. It's a team."
Scoring in the red zone is a challenging proposition given the length of the field condenses. Whereas offenses have extra room to let plays develop and receivers get open with routes and spread out defenses, the red zone is compacted. Virtually every defense starts to play in the box, making it harder to run big plays.
What is Jones' solution? Score from further out.
Said Jones: "One way to eliminate some of the red zone problems is strike big plays from a little farther out. It seems elementary but that is right."
In terms of "big plays in the red zone," the Cowboys have produced six touchdowns between the 10 and 20-yard line in 2018, tied for the seventh-fewest in the NFL. Joining them at the seventh spot are the New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Steelers; some good company and some company Dallas would like not to associate with. The positive takeaway is that three of those six plays were after the trade for receiver Amari Cooper. The previous three were all generated in the 40-7 beat down of the Jacksonville Jaguars on Oct. 14.
While there is a chance such plays can continue to be produced, Jones would also like to see the offense punch it in regardless of where they end up in the red zone.
"First of all, that defense wants to put you in a little better shape so that you can keep them off the field so that I like to see numbers of plays as we get down in those areas," said Jones. "On the other hand, the other thing you want to do to help keep your defense fresh is drive that thing into the end zone."
Dallas is tied with New Orleans for the 11th-most drives lasting at least 10 plays with 23. However, only eight of those drives have ended in touchdowns, which is the 11th-fewest in the league. So, while the Cowboys are able to sustain longer drives, the trouble of ending the drives in touchdowns is still an issue.
"Bottom line is that's a complete offense participation in how to improve," Jones said. "Everybody needs to improve in the red zone."
The Cowboys will need to improve their red zone fortunes quickly. Dallas faces an Indianapolis Colts defense Sunday that is the 10th-best in the NFL with teams converting just 54.1 percent of their red zone visits against them.
Do you believe that the Cowboys can start to produce once they reach the red zone or will it be more of the same in Indy on Sunday? Share your thoughts with Mark on Twitter @therealmarklane.