by Ben Muth

The 2015 Cowboys season came to unofficial close last week with a 33-14 beatdown at the hands of the Panthers. It has been a lost season in Dallas ever since the (first) Tony Romo injury, but there was a brief glimpse of hope once Romo won his first start back. Then reality showed up on Thursday and it turns out teams that lose seven in a row at any point in the season aren't as good as teams that win 10 in a row, no matter who the quarterback is.

Let's start with the play that essentially extinguished the Cowboys' playoffs chances once and for all. It was the last play of the third quarter, when Tony Romo got sacked and reinjured his collarbone. It's a play that exposes what has been an issue for the Cowboys all year.

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The issue is that their running backs are not very good pass blockers. Joseph Randle was bad and Darren McFadden is below average. Here the Cowboys are in a man protection scheme. They decide to double fan so that both guards and tackles are kicking out. That leaves Travis Frederick (72) with the Mike (Luke Kuechly, 59) and McFadden (20) with the other linebacker (Thomas Davis, 58).

Left guard La'el Collins' (71) man drops at the snap, so he shifts down to help the back while keeping his eyes outside on Tyron Smith's (77) block. Frederick's man drops too, so the center immediately slides out to provide some body presence for McFadden. So, while this looks like a triple-team gone horrible awry, it's really just McFadden getting beat despite getting extra help from two guys.

This is the second time Romo has had his collarbone broken due to a back who failed in pass protection. When he broke his collarbone a few years ago it was because fullback Chris Gronkowski missed a blitz pickup. Pass protection is something that involves the entire offense (even wide receivers need to know if they are responsible for a hot route on any given play), and all it takes is one slip-up for local sportswriters to debate whether Kellen Moore or Matt Cassel should finish the season for your team.

In addition to the riveting Moore vs. Cassel debate, another sports radio topic in Dallas-Fort Worth is whether the Cowboys' line is any good. It started with a legitimate debate asking if they were playing as well as last year, but has somehow morphed into whether or not the line is even good, period. It's an absurd question to ask if you have watched the team play consistently and have any kind of realistic notion of what offensive line play around the NFL looks like.

The line as a whole is playing very well, and Tyron Smith and Zack Martin are both All-Pro candidates, playing better than last year, and may be the best at their respective positions. Doug Free has taken a step back, and I think Ron Leary played better last year than La'el Collins has played this year (with the exception of some true "wow" plays), but I don't think either is a huge downgrade.

But to me the Cowboys lineman who hasn't hit the heights he did last year is Travis Frederick. Frederick has been pretty good, but "pretty good" is a noticeable downgrade from "possibly the best center in the league." I think the biggest thing is that there are a lot of plays where he is just half a step behind. He's not so bad that he is killing the play, but he seems just late enough that it results in too much unnecessary leakage. Again, he's still having a good year by most centers' standards, but after watching how well he played last year, it's a bit of a step back in his third year.

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This play is a good example. Technically this pressure is La'el Collins' fault (his man gets the pressure), and Frederick actually saves a sack. But Frederick is late helping, and as a result Romo has to move off his spot. It's another man protection, and once Frederick's man (Kuechly) drops, the center needs to get depth and pick up anything that comes inside. It's called a "hole" technique, and it's what man pass blocking teams use a lot of vs. double 3-techniques.

On one hand, Frederick gets enough of the defender where Romo can step up and throw the ball, but this is a tough block for Collins to make (passing off the twist with Tyron Smith) and Frederick should be in really good position to stone the guy coming inside. Instead he just gets a piece of him. It's not a terrible play, but it isn't a good one either.

I do want to point out that Tyron Smith does a really nice job here of recovering his base after getting rocked a bit. It looks like the twist catches him off guard (with how wide the 3-tech is at the snap, it probably shouldn't) and he gets knocked off balance. But he regains his base, drops his hips, and gathers up the defensive tackle nicely. It's a heck of a recovery after it looked like it was going to end ugly. A good example of functional strength and anchor.

Here's another example of Frederick being just bad enough to force a pressure, although again it's more on Collins.

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The Cowboys are running a half-slide protection to the right here where, because of the defense's alignment, everyone but Tyron Smith is sliding to the right (Smith is man-to-man with the defensive end). So the defensive tackle who gets the hit on Romo is technically coming through Collins' gap. It is Collins' mess-up, but where is Frederick going? There's nothing threatening his gap, but he keeps drifting away from Collins, making his block a lot tougher. If Frederick hangs in there a bit, I think they keep the defensive tackle at the line of scrimmage.

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Once again this is a worse play by Collins than Frederick, but it's still mediocre at best from a center who looked like one of the two or three best in the league last year. You expect some growing pains from a rookie, and you hope a third-year blue-chipper like Frederick plays so well that Collins' mistakes are minimized. On plays like this, Frederick seems to be magnifying Collins' errors.

Before moving on I do want to point out Smith again, with a textbook rep of pass protection. He gets a good initial set, but what I love is how he closes down on the inside move. He slides down parallel to the line of scrimmage and keeps a good base (notice how his feet never get too close together). He doesn't a give an inch of penetration once he starts sliding down, either. Stays perfectly square and washes the defensive end all the way past the quarterback to where the right guard had been originally aligned. It may not look like much, but this is so perfect. Exactly how you coach it.

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This is the first obviously bad play of the column by Frederick. It's a tough one cause he has to reach a 2I (a defensive tackle lined up on the inside shade of the guard), but it was the kind of thing he did regularly last year. Here the issue is that he steps underneath himself with that first step. He doesn't gain any ground, so he's behind the play and forces a 2-yard loss.

Frederick's seeming dip in play has been one reason the running game isn't where it was a year ago. Another is that DeMarco Murray was so significantly better in 2014 than anything the Cowboys have had in the backfield this year. The plays that always stick out to me are the 4-yard gains that should have gone for much longer. Take the first play of the game.

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That backside defensive end (95) cannot make a tackle for a 4-yard gain on a play blocked like that. A good running back runs through that arm tackle barely breaking stride (and yes, it's an arm tackle -- the defender's head is behind the ballcarrier on contact, he's only using his arms to bring him down), or he hits the hole with enough quickness that the defensive end can't get there. The play isn't perfectly blocked (again it's Collins that's the biggest issue), but Zack Martin's (70) block is good enough to where there needs to be a bigger gain here.

The fact that Darren McFadden might run for 1,000 yards this season should be the only argument anyone needs when explaining that Cowboys still have a very good offensive line, even if Thursday was a mediocre performance.