David Moore

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IRVING – Count to three. Now stop.

Follow these instructions, and you too can call rushing plays for the Cowboys in the second half.

Jason Garrett knows the drill. Score only seven points in a loss, and questions arise about the competency of the offensive coordinator.

Why run a season-low 14 times against a Green Bay defense you carved up for 217 yards on the ground last season? How can Marion Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice each have only one carry in the second half?

"I think we need to be more balanced, certainly," head coach Wade Phillips said.

These Cowboys are all about balance. But the Packers loss underscores what has been an erosion of the running game.

A team that led the NFL in rushing three weeks deep into the season has dropped to eighth. The Cowboys have averaged nearly 100 yards less on the ground these last six weeks than they did the first three. Their rushing total has dropped in each of the last four games to its nadir of 61 yards against the Packers.

"Early in the year it was kind of establishing the brand, something we talked about being a team that imposes their will with three good backs and a strong line," tight end Jason Witten said. "We haven't done a good job with that, and we've kept ourselves in bad situations where you can't run it.

"We've just got to get back to doing those little things and be in positive situations down and distance wise."

The rush to judgment – please pardon the play on words – is that Garrett abandons the run too quickly. This is a familiar theme.

The Cowboys have never run more than 44.1 percent of the time with Garrett as their offensive coordinator. The team is at 43.1 percent this season. He leans toward the pass.

Wouldn't you if you had Tony Romo at quarterback?

Sure, the Cowboys ran the ball better to open the season than they do now. But what was a recurring theme during the Cowboys' 2-2 start? It was how Romo didn't look quite right, how he struggled to find a balance between managing the game and making big plays.

Romo hit his stride, Miles Austin emerged and the Cowboys won four straight as the rushing numbers began to decline. Was that a fair trade-off?

If you remember, the primary complaint during that period was the inability of Romo and Roy Williams to connect on a consistent basis. No one complained that Romo didn't hand the ball off enough or that the lead draw had gone missing.

Something else happened after the Cowboys got off to a running start. Barber got hurt. Then Jones. Garrett didn't abandon the run as much as his runners abandoned him.

Only now does Barber resemble the back who was so explosive to open the season. Jones still doesn't look comfortable. The fact he doesn't practice with a knee brace yet wears one in games is an indication his confidence isn't back.

The deterioration of the running game is understandable when put into this context. But now is the time to force a correction.

Barber needs his 12 to 15 carries. Phillips acknowledges the Cowboys "need to feature" Jones more. He can't go through another game and only touch the ball three times as he did against Green Bay. Choice should be mixed in when possible.

Twenty-three teams have rushed the ball more than the Cowboys. That's too many. The irony is this issue comes to a head before a game against Washington, a team the Cowboys ran against only 11 times in their first meeting of 2008.

"I think we've got to run it more," Choice said. "Sometimes, it's just the situation, but that's our biggest strength on our football team offensively is running the football.

"We've got to get back to it like at the beginning of the season, which we will."

Sunday is the time to start. Count to three. And keep going.

The Cowboys' rushing numbers have dropped dramatically since the first three games: