Thursday, November 18, 2010

Penalties - Game 9 - New York

Does the new focus on details and discipline affect the number of penalties? You know we will be tracking this very closely as the season goes on. The Cowboys were called for 5 penalties for 60 yards on Sunday, with 2 more declined. It was one of the rare times this season where their opponents were flagged more. The Giants had 8 penalties totaling 69 yards and 2 more declined, too.

You may recall that this season, the Cowboys' opponents have had the fewest penalties in the league as Dallas was putting up large numbers of their own.

Interesting detail on the offensive line: Mark Colombo is the only starting OL without a holding call this year. But, his pre-snap calls seem to make up for it. Doug Free has 5 pre-snap calls to Colombo's 4, and both have 6 penalties this year.

Game 9 at New York:

WkQPlayerPenaltyYardsUnitFD
92KitnaFalse Start5Off
93BallIll Contact5DefFD
93KosierHolding10Off
93McCannPass Interference35DefFD
93ColomboIll ShiftDeclinedOff
94WareOffsideDeclinedDef
94FreeFalse Start5Off


Totals for : 7 penalties, 5 accepted for 60 yards. The defense had 4 flags, the offense 3, and special teams had 0.

Worst Offenders: DeMarcus Ware grabbed yet another offsides flag giving him 4 of the 8 Cowboys offside calls. Mark Colombo tied Miles Austin with his 6th flag for the lead and Bryan McCann's 35-yard Pass Interference was the most costly with 35 yards against:

Here are your season totals - Keep in mind, my totals include declined and offsetting penalties. For football reasons, they matter way more than just accepted penalties.

This is through Week 9:

OFFENSE

PlayerTotalHoldPresnapIll BlockOther
Austin60222
Colombo60402
Free61500
Gurode53101
Witten40301
Barron33000
Romo30102
Davis21100
Bryant20002
Kosier22000
Bennett10010
Holland10100
Jones10100
Kitna10100
Costa11000
Totals441120310


The offense still averages roughly 5 penalties every week with a very balanced sheet for blame. I think the pre-snap penalties have been the biggest issue here, but 11 holds again show an Offensive Line that isn't where it needs to be.

DEFENSE

PlayerTotalOffsideRoughPass InfOther
Jenkins60051
Ware54001
Brooking30120
Olshansky21100
Ratliff20110
Spencer22000
Brent21001
Scandrick20011
Sensabaugh10001
Bowen10001
Newman10001
Ball10001
McCann10010
Totals2983108


I think it is notable to see Terence Newman playing as he does for this long and still has just 1 penalty. He does a nice job at corner for this defense most weeks.

SPECIAL TEAMS

PlayerTotalOffsideRoughIll BlockOther
Church10010
Buehler10001
Scandrick11000
Hamlin10010
L Williams10100
McBriar10001
Ball10001
Ladocuer10001
McCray10001
Newman10001
Totals101126


Week 1 for Jason Garrett is over and the penalties were at a manageable level in a very physical game. Let's continue to follow this trend and see where it takes us.

Bob Sturm is host of BaD Radio on The Ticket 1310 AM Mondays through Fridays at 12-3 p.m. He also hosts The Ticket's Cowboys pregame show. Follow Bob on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bobanddan Bob offers his exclusive analysis after games on SportsDayDFW.com

Read all of Bob's posts at this link:
http://cowboysblog.dallasnews.com/archives/bob-sturm

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