All Inclusive Cowboys Thread

[UNT Eagles 2016]

Please quit citing last year as a barometer for the 2016 Cowboys season -- it's going to be night and day, if you can't see that you honestly need your eyes checked. The differences will be many; a tremendously improved running game (could be the best in the league), a healthy Dez, Butler and Dunbar back... it's going to be incredible.

Last year... Last year... we were the worst team in turnovers because our offense didn't give us opportunities to force other teams to speed up their offense and pass the ball. The other team was always even or ahead, and they were winning the field position game, so they were able to wear us down with their running games by the second half and we didn't have anyone effective behind McFadden on the other side of the ball to do that to them.

Last year is a horrid barometer for the Cowboys this year. People forget that it wasn't just Romo out (and we trotted out 3 inaccurate, immobile white stiffs and not Dak) it was the lack of a superstar or depth in the running game, Dez injured and/or out the whole season, Butler and Dunbar out... but most importantly the running game and Dez. Even Romo struggled mightily with a 30% Dez and a crappy running game (Miami, Thanksgiving vs Carolina, etc)

Last year is a TERRIBLE gauge for this season for the Cowboys... 2014 is much more analogous on offense given our RB/WR situation and schedule.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

You beat the Giants by one point with Romo last year. While you did beat the skins early last season, it wasn't the same team you saw at the end of last season. Look I'm not saying you guys can't hold serve the first six, I'm just saying it's more than likely not feasible. Atlanta and N.O are offensive minded teams that have no defenses yet they beat you by one score. It's not off-base to say that isn't likely given the state of your defense.

Last year, we didn't have the guy who normally slows down OBJ tremendously, but that's minor compared to our DT situation we vastly improved, trotting out Randle as our primary back who couldn't break a tackle and wasn't that fast, Dez breaking his foot in the first quarter (IIRC)... a couple bizarre fluke turnovers before the half for us... some weird calls that went against us early... etc.

We win that game by an average of 2 touchdowns if we played it 10 times over.


Atlanta and NO beat a white failure baseball player stiff who can't run, move, read defenses, or improvise, with nobody to throw to. Congrats to them.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

You were dead last in turnovers generated with a total of 11. That's an average of less than .7 per game. Horrendous. While your total defense in regards to yards per game were in the middle of the pack. Perhaps abysmal was an exaggeration, but you were quite bad ulatively. Your front seven was so solid that you allowed 120 yards per game on the ground.

Pretty abysmal when you have a hole instead of a nose tackle and 2 guys on the defense who only cared when they wanted to. Thankfully, all 3 are gone and replaced, Thornton and Terrell McClain are legit.

[DJR210]

Way too pessimistic... lol. NYG will not come in here and win first game of the season. WAS away is questionable but I have us winning there too. The Bungles won't be good and are nowhere in our league offensively... lol. Their QB is inconsistent trash, running game isn't great, OL isn't good, TE isn't that good, and they have one good receiver. I have us beating the Bungles home, but it may be close. I have the Bungles going 8-8 due to regressing to the mean, schedule, and Steelers/Ravens being better.

And you're way too pessimistic about our defense and way underestimating Marinelli and the guys we have. Sure, we won't be Seahawks or Broncos amazing, but I have us in the 10-15 range (yardage) and top 10 (takeaways) given our coaching and who we have. This isn't last year's squad who had to defend the run and pass all game and wore out due to our lack of offensive mobility.

People all called our defense "abysmal" and "collegiate" prior to the start of the 2014 season, and we finished middling, even with no pass rush, no Sean Lee, much worse DT corps, and no Claiborne.

We'll be alright.

W vs Giants
W @ Redskins
W vs Bears
L @ 49ers
W vs Bungles
L @ Packers
-- Bye --
W vs Eagles
L @ Browns (weird loss of the season)
W @ Steelers (redemption for last week... of course the last 2 could very likely go the other way around, but I'm sticking with this)
W vs Ravens
W vs Redskins
W @ Vikings
L @ Giants
W vs Buccaneers
W vs Loins
W @ Eagles

12–4

crazy if you think this might be a top 10 defense.. Maybe 15-20, closer to 20 IMO

[UNT Eagles 2016]

crazy if you think this might be a top 10 defense.. Maybe 15-20, closer to 20 IMO

Go with 10-15, but closer to 15. Yardage wise.


Turnover wise we may be top 5 on defense considering our offense, like in 2014 we had very little established talent outside of Scandrick and Crawford on the defense, but we finished a very strong #2 in takeaways (one behind Houston's #1, IIRC) because our offense generated a ton of points which forced opponents to panic and throw the ball a lot more than they should.

[DJR210]

Go with 10-15, but closer to 15. Yardage wise.


Turnover wise we may be top 5 on defense considering our offense, like in 2014 we had very little established talent outside of Scandrick and Crawford on the defense, but we finished a very strong #2 in takeaways (one behind Houston's #1, IIRC) because our offense generated a ton of points which forced opponents to panic and throw the ball a lot more than they should.

Our D-Line in it's current condition is gonna need a lot of LB help, and I think teams are gonna eat us up over the middle.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

Our D-Line in it's current condition is gonna need a lot of LB help, and I think teams are gonna eat us up over the middle.

No. Our DT corps is too awesome. DEs are the only worrisome thing, at least for the first 4 games.

As long as we are smart and start Durant at MLB instead of Hitchens (worked well early in the Seattle game) we will be fine. Hitchens is a good SLB and backup, but Nzeocha and Wilber are better blitzers anyway.


Don't forget that in our most successful season in the era (12–4) we had a running game that was dominant but not as good as this year's, but that was the key to our success and forcing turnovers on the other end. It wasn't our pass rush; we never had one. We didn't have Lee or Claiborne, either. We did have Scandrick.


Tell me. Would you rather take:

- Selvie/Guy off the street - Hayden/Brent - Crawford/Brent - Mincey/Guy off the street -

-OR-

- Irving/JCrawford - McClain/Thornton - Crawford/Collins - Mayowa/Tapper ????? With our starting DEs coming back in week 5.


We started Mincey and Selvie in 2014 until washed-up Spencer and rookie Lawrence came back 2/3 of the way through the season. That's considerably worse than we have it right now at DE.

We'll be fine, especially in the middle. The 3rd quarter of the Seattle game, throw that in the garbage, that was Coe and our 4th string 3-tech DT getting eaten alive by the Seattle 1st string O-line. Those bottom feeders won't make the team.

[Trill Clinton]

pretty good breakdown of dak presgoat:

[DPG21920]

pretty good breakdown of dak presgoat:

Bruh, Sean Lee hurt again?? What is going on man..Cowboys have a great shot this year and injuries already killing them.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

Bruh, Sean Lee hurt again?? What is going on man..Cowboys have a great shot this year and injuries already killing them.

Not serious, won't cost him any playing time, just a stinger.

[SpursforSix]

Going to be hard to find a back up to Dak now.

[DJR210]

Not serious, won't cost him any playing time, just a stinger.

He just got an MRI on his knee.. He'll be out by week 3

[DJR210]

Bruh, Sean Lee hurt again?? What is going on man..Cowboys have a great shot this year and injuries already killing them.

It's the Cowboy way.. Go all in on injured or injury prone players

[ace3g]

Dallas Cowboys Verified account ‏@dallascowboys

Cowboys to hold workout with free agent QB Austin Davis. : http://bit.ly/2bHbTXm

[Chris]

Not serious, won't cost him any playing time, just a stinger.

Not to be a Debbie Downer but Dat Nguyen had to retire because of a stinger. Coincidentally he played MLB as well.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

He just got an MRI on his knee.. He'll be out by week 3

The MRI was negative for any tears or breaks. He's fine. Just a stinger.

Has nothing to do with week 3, 5, 9, 17 or otherwise. He'll be fine, he just better watch himself.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

Not to be a Debbie Downer but Dat Nguyen had to retire because of a stinger. Coincidentally he played MLB as well.

Lee plays WLB (used to play MLB before his injuries), Nguyen was always a soft chinaman anyways. MLB along with halfback are the 2 single most dangerous positions to play in football.

[Chris]

Nguyen was always a soft chinaman anyways.

[Spur-Addict]

I don't think they will be great, but they should be improved by a decent margin. At least we're not starting Nick Hayden at DT this year. He isn't bad to spell people for a few plays, but Collins and Thornton should be a pretty good upgrade up front against the run. DE is way more of a question mark until DeLawrence gets back, but they have more bodies this year to rotate in and out.

What do you think they will do at backup behind Dak?

[Trill Clinton]

Bruh, Sean Lee hurt again?? What is going on man..Cowboys have a great shot this year and injuries already killing them.

he's injury prone but also one of the best LB's in the game when healthy

[SpursforSix]

What do you think they will do at backup behind Dak?

I heard on the radio, they are bringing in Austin Davis for at least the backup spot in the Thursday game. Supposedly, Dak won't play at all.

[leemajors]

What do you think they will do at backup behind Dak?

hope and pray showers doesn't suck it up tomorrow

[spurraider21]

[Chris]

[Trill Clinton]

Become a smarter Cowboys fan: How to identify their defenses




By Bob Sturm, Special contributor Contact Bob Sturmon Twitter:@SportsSturm
Over the summer, I took on the project to study the Cowboys defensive coverages by going through all of the 2015 games and charting it to the best of my ability. Now, this is an ambitious project since there are about 1,000 defensive snaps and it requires a fair amount of detective work to try to figure out exactly what they are doing.
Now, ask any player or coach, and they will confirm to you that there are dozens of different coverages. In fact, anyone who has played Madden knows that there are a dozen ways to play each coverage. If you line up in "Cover 1", you can actually offer many variations to try to keep an offense off balance.
I will not pretend to be able to offer a great understanding on this to the level of a normal football coach, because that would be impossible given that I am just a radio guy and part-time blogger. But, I wished to be able to increase my understanding to at least a basic level over the summer and now I wish to pass that along to you. We will keep it simple, so as not to lose our audience here. But, I would like to - for one morning - try to familiarize those who are interested in what the basic coverages that the Cowboys run would be. And how often they run them.

Please understand that this is my scorecard and while it may not be 100% accurate (if a QB can't always identify the coverages he sees, you shouldn't expect that I can), it is my best effort. I believe these numbers to be very close to the truth.
Here are the results of identifying the coverages (on pass plays only) from 2015.


As you can see above, despite Rod Marinelli being called a Cover-2 or Tampa-2 coach, I would attempt to verify that the Cowboys ran Cover 2 just 146 times (25%) out of a total of 576 passes. The Tampa-2 variation (which is a Cover 2 subcategory) was run less than 25 times all year. So, next time someone in the National Media identifies Marinelli as a Tampa-2 guy, feel free to change the channel. They aren't watching the Cowboys play enough to consider their opinions.
I wanted to show you a still photo to replicate what the players see on the sideline. They don't get moving video. They get 2 photos (from 2 angles (sideline and end zone), so technically 4 photos) from each play. One is taken at the snap and one is taken about 1-2 seconds into the play. This is how they see coverages. So, I showed you the still from the sideline view to show each coverage.
COVER 1
They ran Cover 1 (and its many variations) about 47% of the time. That was easily the coverage they ran the most as the season went along. I found this interesting because I know they wanted to do more of that, but once Orlando Scandrick was lost in training camp, I expected to see it far less.
Below is a look at Cover 1.
You can identify it from seeing a single-high safety combined with man-to-man coverage underneath.


Now, Cover 1 is man coverage, but there is an extra man available to use as well. This man, in the picture above, is Sean Lee. He stands on the 15-yard line and is playing at a shallow depth to either spy or act as a robber on an underneath coverage. As you can see, everyone else is locked in man and then your single-high safety patrols deep to make sure nothing causes trouble down the field.
I would call this the default Cowboys coverage.



Of course, the issues it runs into will be when you don't have guys who cover well in 1-on-1 situations, mismatches, and the dreaded rub-routes or pick plays. Veteran teams with veteran QBs love seeing you in Cover 1, but it does make sure that targets don't get much space.
COVER 3

The next most frequent coverage is Cover 3. This is the Seattle coverage that has taken over the NFL as Cover 2 has gone down in its use. In fact, I have talked to many Cowboys operatives that have often said that this is the defense they were attempting to pattern themselves after from an Xs and Os standpoint. The Seattle Cover 3 is run all over the league now, and it is a zone coverage with the corners forcing their threats into the single-high safety by generally playing outside leverage.
The other thing you are looking for is to see the shallow defenders playing a 4-across zone underneath all with their eyes on the QB. This is usually the 3 linebackers and the other safety. By the way, the Cowboys often run Cover-3 from a Cover-2 s , which means that they look like Cover 2 at the snap, only to have one safety move to center field high while the other races down to join the linebackers.
This defense deploys eight men to stop the run but also can adjust to drop seven into coverage and can allow all sorts of options for a coordinator to play aggressive defense without a whole lot of weaknesses exposed.



QBs do like to work the sidelines behind the first line of defenders to attack this, but otherwise, they often check down and now the defense flies to the balls in front of them in packs.



The biggest issue with this coverage is if you don't have Richard Sherman (a corner who can play man concepts while playing zone) and Earl Thomas (the industry leader at FS). It requires a real solid centerfield safety and the Cowboys are hoping Byron Jones is now that guy. Because, if you have a safety that plays poor angles and always gets there late, big plays happen.

COVER 2
That leaves Cover 2 for most of the remainder (25%). They are pretty much just in these three coverages and this is more of the "let's be careful" coverage. You will see it on most 3rd and long situations and in most 2-min drill situations. When the Cowboys are just trying to survive a situation, chances are they are in a Cover 2 or even a deep Cover 2 that almost becomes a Cover 4. Both of those are zone coverages that intend to flood the deep areas with so many defenders that you will see no choice but to accept the check down targets and therefore limit your gains and eat more of the clock.


Again, see what will become a 3-underneath, 4-deep type coverage as the corners carry their guys deep and try not to allow any window (the Cover 2 beaters) to the deep sideline - beyond the corner but in front of the safety. Cover 3 is 4-underneath and 3-deep. This is the opposite.
Of course, you can beat a Cover 2 in front of the safeties.



They ran this a lot, but not a lot on 1st or 2nd downs. Although, they did show a Cover 2 s a lot. I suggest that the opponents saw that this was largely a bluff, though.

2-MAN
This Coverage was run in the first 4 weeks some and then pretty much disappeared. It is 2 safeties high and man coverage underneath. We saw it quite a bit in Week 3.


And then, for reasons I don't totally know, they stopped running it. I don't remember them being bad at it, they just went in another direction.



As you can see, it is very much the same as Cover 1, except both safeties are deep. The Cowboys run Cover 1 with a safety deep and a middle linebacker shallow to take away underneath things, spy the QB, and even blitz.
Here is the coverage breakdown by downs:



Beyond those four coverages, they ran a handful of other looks here and there, but this is the majority of what they do.
I hope this helps. Leave any follow up questions below.