Redskins passive and ineffective early, get closed out late by Cowboys' amazing rookie duo

Did the tryptophan kick in right before kickoff for Jay Gruden? Did it wear off at some point after halftime?

The Washington Redskins head coach had a tough game on Thanksgiving as the Dallas Cowboys did to his team what they’ve done to most teams this year: dominate the line of scrimmage en route to victory. But that’s the macro view; the micro is that Gruden never really gave his talented team a chance to win this game early on.

The Cowboys’ rookie duo of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott once again played like poised, seasoned veterans in the Cowboys’ 31-26 victory over the Redskins. They accounted for all four touchdowns — two by Elliott on the ground, one by Prescott running a pretty bootleg and one Prescott hitting Terrence Williams for one of the best toe-tapping TDs you’ll see this season.

Dallas is a machine. But the Redskins lost this game early, even after they dug themselves out of a two-touchdown hole and gave themselves a puncher’s chance late. It’s a shame they didn’t play more aggressively early in the game.

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By playing for field goals and mismanaging the clock, Gruden played right into the Cowboys’ hands. He was two or three steps behind all afternoon, or perhaps it was the bright glare of the sun through a small crack in AT&T Stadium that was blinding him.

Let’s start there and work anachronistically. The Cowboys won the toss and took the ball first. That meant the Redskins got to choose which end of the field they wanted to defend. They chose the one in which they were staring straight into a supernova.

Or its equivalent in foot-candles, anyway.

How bad was it? Even a league PR official was tweeting about it.

So fast-forward to the middle of the second half. Kirk Cousins — who finished with 449 passing yards and three TDs — wasn’t affected by the light; he had been balling out, just as he has of late on his like-me-now, prove-you-wrong tour. But the Redskins bogged down and asked kicker Dustin Hopkins to go make a 55-yard field goal while staring straight into a solar eclipse.

What? Kicks of that length are — at best — 50-50 propositions. Adding in a bit of, um, glare has to knock that down considerably. Hopkins had already missed a much shorter kick, from 43 yards, when Gruden iced his own kicker with a timeout prior to it. And that was after the Redskins made a very conservative call on third-and-long.

That brings us to the Redskins’ fourth field-goal attempt of the half. Yes, they reached the Dallas 25, 6, 38 and 2-yard lines and came away with six points in the first 30 minutes. The Redskins had been playing conservatively all half, as a team with four field-goal tries in a half would suggest. But to mismanage the clock as poorly as Gruden did, it prevented the Redskins from trying to score a touchdown.

After Cousins found Pierre Garcon for a completion to the Dallas 2, Gruden took forever to decide what he wanted to do with his final timeout before the third-and-goal play.

Gruden has two options there: Either run a play or call the timeout immediately. Waiting is the one thing you can’t do. So with 11 seconds left, the Redskins could only throw it or risk letting the clock run out. They threw, it was incomplete, and it was yet another field-goal try. At least this one went through.

Teams can’t win that way against the Cowboys. Not only is Dallas dangerous, it’s also maddeningly efficient, regardless of the opponent. The Cowboys convert third downs (third-best in the NFL coming into the week), don’t turn the ball over (tied for fewest turnovers coming into the week) and clamp down defensively in the red zone. Opponents have to be aggressive against a team that seldom shoots itself in the foot.

The Redskins finally let loose in the second half, and they almost won. Cousins hit a banged up Jordan Reed for a beautiful fade to set the Redskins up inside the 5-yard line, and they hooked up again for a touchdown on a beautiful pivot route. But after the two-point conversion failed — more missed points — the Cowboys came down and countered with a score of their own.

Once more, the Redskins got aggressive. Cousins found DeSean Jackson wide open deep soon after for a 67-yard touchdown with just over nine minutes left. And then Gruden actually made a bold and beautiful call: an onsides kick, down 24-19. I loved it. The fact that Dallas recovered is almost immaterial. Where was this in the first half after one of those snoozers of a field goal? These are the kinds of plays you need to attempt against the Cowboys.

By that point, it was too late. Elliott finished things off with his second score of the game, and the Redskins were left to wonder what might have happened if they played to win from the opening snap instead of waiting until it was too late.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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