Always the horses, seldom the jockey...
Daily Commentary on the Dallas Sports Scene - By Bob Sturm - Sportsradio 1310, The Ticket - The Athletic Dallas - The Athletic - Bob Sturm
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz (11) celebrates a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017, in Arlington, Texas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News)
The Marinelli Report
The Cowboys had a real problem Sunday night. The problem appeared to be Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz. Lost in all the arguments about who has the best young quarterback from the 2016 draft is a seemingly likely scenario -- that Jared Goff, Dak Prescott and Wentz all have a real chance to be tremendous quarterbacks moving forward. This won't happen every year in the draft, but where we sit (with all due respect to Paxton Lynch), this looks like the trio to remember.
Regardless, Wentz had an odd Sunday night that isn't necessarily the most statistically beautiful night you've ever seen. At halftime, his QB rating was 53 and he was in no flow. He actually presented the Cowboys with an opportunity to go up 16-7 at the half, but what appeared to be a sure-fire pick-six ended up on the turf moments before the intermission:
Now, we don't know what would have happened there. Would Anthony Brown have made it all the way to the end zone, or would the Cowboys have simply taken a field goal? But we do know they were leading at the half, 9-7, anyway. Making a big play when it is presented to you would have certainly helped.
It reminded us of a similar spot in the fourth quarter of the game against the Rams, when the same player -- sorry to bring this up, Brown -- let a similar ball fall to the ground in a game where the Cowboys trailed by 2 points and needed the defense to make one play:
Those two games needed one play from the defense to swing it in the Cowboys' direction, and both games ended up being home losses -- something that has now happened three times in 2017.
The story of Sunday night could likely be the complete lack of plays made on both sides of the ball, but since this is The Marinelli Report (Scott Linehan got his treatment yesterday), we can focus on the fact that the Cowboys pulled off the rarity against the Eagles that is most dubious -- zero sacks and zero takeaways in the same game.
Below you will find the entire list of games in the past 20 seasons (as always, a big thanks to pro-football-reference.com) in which the Cowboys could not manage to secure a sack and a takeaway. As you can see, when you don't sack your opponent or get a simple turnover in a game, you generally lose. Somehow, the Cowboys beat the Redskins last Thanksgiving with this distinction -- despite the Redskins rolling up 500 yards of offense, too. But, more often than not, when you are shut out on both counts of defensive play-making, you get stomped -- like Sunday night.
The story of the game for me was Wentz in the second half, but we should not overlook a number of other elements you can see below:
WEEKLY DATA BOX
Red-zone defense is a real issue there. Against Denver, the Cowboys allowed four out of four drives to end in scores. Against Green Bay, they allowed four of five. And against the Eagles, they allowed 4 out of 5. It is one thing to have defensive issues between the 20-yard lines, but if every time they get in your red zone they leave with seven (or eight) points, you will have a very hard time winning games.
Dallas has now fallen to 26th in the NFL in red-zone scoring defense, giving up touchdowns on 61.8 percent of their red-zone entries (21 of 34) in a league where the average is 53 percent and the league leaders concede just 40 percent (Chargers and Vikings). This is something to keep an eye on. You must force field goals occasionally, and that wasn't happening at all Sunday.
EXPLOSIVES ALLOWED
The Cowboys rank 12th in fewest explosives allowed for the season, but Sunday night they allowed five, which is pretty poor by their standards. The big runs certainly hurt badly, and we will look at those in a moment.
CARSON WENTZ THROW CHART
Again, as you can see above, it isn't like Wentz killed you all night. He just made "that" throw at "that" moment. And he will work the ball all over the yard and isn't scared of the deep middle at all. His ability should not be undersold. If you are still deluding yourself under the premise that he isn't that great, you may wish to give it up.
SEAN LEE
This is where we direct you to the idea that the Cowboys miss Sean Lee. Have you heard? Have you heard how they cannot function very well without him? We have shown you the with-or-without-you stats each week. Here they are, again:
Well, here is another way they seem to miss Lee. We know they don't stop the run without him patrolling the middle with his excellence. But what about blitzing? Do they trust anyone else to bring pressure? Or, if they do, do they trust anyone else to provide cover for that blitz? I think you will see here that in games he plays, they will occasionally blitz up to double-digits. When he doesn't, they play safe and, dare I say, predictable coverages. In other words, without Lee, they "K.I.S.S." and just try not to mess up. With him, the complexity goes up -- making the job of the opposing quarterback more difficult, in theory.
COWBOYS BLITZ RATE BY WEEK
SPLASH PLAYS
Football is a simple game of making plays. On any given week, we track the number of plays the Cowboys make on defense that are basic stops. If you get stops, you win. If the opposition has you on the run all day and are the ones moving the chains, you lose. Not complicated. On Sunday, there was no doubt who was making the plays. The Cowboys had their lowest total of splash plays in a long time.
In fact, here is the list of the times the Cowboys produced less than 10 splashes since 2012:
2017 Splash Play Totals
And finally, here are the snap counts. Plenty of Richard Ash and Lewis Neal to play 1-technique, 25 snaps for Taco Charlton (three games in 12 days - keep them fresh?), and Justin Durant takes a large number of Sean Lee snaps and splits the time with Jaylon Smith before Anthony Hitchens hurt himself.
None of it is good and the video won't make you feel much better, either.
Like I said, in the first half, the Cowboys were doing pretty well on defense. In fact, they pitched a third-down shutout at the half. The Eagles were 0-6 on third downs before halftime. But, that means they went 5-6 in the second half when the game was still being played (two of the stops were give-up runs at the end) and converted a fourth down for a touchdown, too. Half-time adjustments? Or just second-half execution? Either way, they marched three drives for 250 yards to start the second half for a Touchdown, Touchdown, and Touchdown. They started these drives at their own 25, 10, and 15-yard lines. They marched right down the field and by the time they were done, it was a 29-9 game, and it was done and dusted.
Let's look at those third and fourth downs where Carson Wentz did his business.
3Q - 13:37 - 3rd and 1. Look at this beautiful rollout with the under-crossing tight end against the grain for Brent Celek. Obviously, the Cowboys are expecting a power run to the strong side and are selling out to stop it. This play doesn't work very often - once a defense gets burned they keep an eye on it - but, it will work in this exact situation (or on the goal line) just about every time. You can hear the Cowboys collectively cuss, but it also takes a really good throw to make sure you make Dallas pay. 28 yards later...
Really well done. It helps to have a bunch of third and shorts to sell the play-action or run tendencies.
Three plays later, here is third and 9. Not quite as easily done, but when he sees the Cowboys are in their normal Cover 2 shell rolling into Cover 1. Not difficult for Wentz to find Alshon Jeffrey with Anthony Brown on his hip on the dig. Nice throw as he is getting hit and move the chains.
3rd and 6 - 5:50 in the 3Q right after the big run from Ajayi. Wentz looks for Anthony Brown again and Torrey Smith on the goal line. Hitchens pops Wentz on the throw, but it doesn't matter. Brown is flagged for holding, Smith gets the touchdown. That is some QB play, there.
3rd and 2 - first play of the four quarter. Play action - zone run left - bootleg right. Damien Wilson has Wentz dead, but the QB shakes him off and then fires a strike to Jeffrey while in a tight space before Lawrence clobbers him. Again, the Cowboys had him. He made a play.
He is feeling it now. This is really impressive work and Wilson has to make this play or you are in trouble.
Same drive, the Cowboys did get a stop on third and 3. This looks like a touchdown, but Agholor's knee touched when Durant went too high on him. Anthony Brown's tackle effort was, um, there, but it ended up as a tackle for loss for Durant. So, third-down stop!
Bad news? Well, they went for it on fourth down and 5 on the next snap.
The Cowboys show blitz - but we know they almost never do, especially without Lee - so, Wentz stands back, finds his guy, and fires an absolute dart between three defenders to Alshon Jeffrey. I mean, he was phenomenal in these third- and fourth-down situations.
But, to tell you what happened here, this is a great job by the Eagles knowing the Cowboys are sitting on the outside zone left and burned them inside with the counter, which is the pulling tackle inside that gets the linebacker that the center didn't get. Once Byron Jones takes a horrible gamble to the outside, the play is doomed. He has to get the running back in the hole and Jones is overaggressive to the edge. Xavier Woods takes a bad angle as the deep safety - so Ajayi is gone. Although, Jones is fast enough to catch him 71 yards later.
This view shows you the safeties getting caught. I know everyone is thinking this is the linebackers, but they honestly were blocked well. Jones ate the cheese here.
Then, this one is after Hitchens is gone, and it is Durant and Smith along with Jones and Woods. Very similar concept where a pulling big from the left side crushes a hole in the middle of a tired Cowboys defense and Blount is off to the races. We got a pretty good idea of why the Eagles offensive line is thought of so highly - even without their fine left tackle.
Time to move past this and on to the Chargers, but the Eagles really put on a clinic in that second half that won't soon be forgotten.
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) releases a first quarter pass after rolling out against the Kansas City Chiefs at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, November 5, 2017. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News)
Last season, nobody knew what to expect in a post-Romo world. He had served the organization well and gave seasons of excitement filled with enough highlights to fill a YouTube queue for hours and hours. He had a style, and it ended in many celebrations and quite a few fiery explosions, too. You never knew where the roller coaster would take you. This is life with an excellent gun-slinger. You take him as far as he can take you, because it is all built around him. There were discussions before the year - as early as 2008 - that they needed to design something more "Romo-friendly," then the next year they told us he just needed more weapons, with the next year Jerry Jones (his GM!) telling us he didn't really need a good offensive line (this really happened), followed by the next year his GM admitting that he could use some help on the offensive line.
It was a decade of joy and pain. It was unpredictable and exciting. That is great for a movie. But, for football, any coach would tell you that exciting works sometimes, but they could live without it if they could find something more predictable.
So, when the Dak Prescott/Ezekiel Elliott era blasted off, it only took a few weeks before I started describing it as repeatable and sustainable. They had an offense that did not seem overly complex, nor did it appear difficult for those asked to do their jobs. It isn't easy - don't misunderstand me, but it also didn't seem terribly difficult for the offense to succeed if they simply followed their own recipe. Regardless of opponent, weather, playing surface, or even game situation, if they followed their own simple plan, we started seeing that defenses couldn't slow them down.
Even with a rookie QB and a rookie RB, we kept waiting for the league to catch up to them. And, it really never happened. Now, 24 games into this new era, we are seeing the 2017 stats back where most of the 2016 stats were. We are also seeing this new group has gone 18-6 over this stretch of games which measures up against anyone. Only New England (20) has won more games since the start of 2016 than the Dallas Cowboys. And, despite a few flaws and constant headlines for nonsense, this team can be described as an offensive juggernaut. A machine, of sorts.
So, to see them - once again - against the Kansas City Chiefs roll out several length-of-the-field drives that ended in touchdowns, we see what they continue to do well. They are powerful, they are efficient, and when they need a play, they get one. Third-down efficient. Lots of red-zone trips. And when they get down there, they punch it in for a touchdown.
On third downs, the Cowboys are fourth in the NFL. They move the chains constantly. That keeps drives alive where they move the ball down the field.
They have the third-best red-zone TD percentage. When they get inside your 20, you cannot stop them. Only two teams are better - the Packers and the Eagles.
But, the Cowboys get to the red zone more than those teams. They rank third in red-zone trips. The Rams and the Patriots have been there more often.
If you rank third in trips and third in percentage, you are going to be No. 1 in red-zone points. And they are. They have scored 173 red-zone points this year in the NFL. In other words, you can't keep them out of the red zone - and when you do, they are getting a touchdown. Look at this week-by-week chart:
This week was yet another perfect cash-in percentage. Just like against the Cardinals and the Packers, the Cowboys got 7 points every single time they broke the 20.
Again, not to sound like a broken record here, but we will say it all again: Third down is great. Red zone is perfect. No giveaways. Very good yardage. Solid time of possession. And 28 points.
Rinse, repeat. This is why I call them a machine. They just press start and it takes care of itself.
DAK PRESCOTT THROW CHART
Another week of Dak moving the offense without any interceptions. One scare on the out to Witten, but otherwise the best part of the secondary for the Chiefs was the sun - which broke up three plays to Cowboys receivers. In fact, three of those red dots between the numbers are sun plays. SMH.
PERSONNEL GROUPINGS
You can start to see that 11-personnel is coming around. I think this will be quite important in the long term and the Cowboys certainly agree with 42 snaps and 273 yards in that set. At the end of the day, this is where we will need to be in the fourth quarter of games, so it is vital that Dez Bryant, Terrance Williams and Cole Beasley can beat defenses - especially if they are to move forward without Elliott.
Let's look at some tape:
This might be the throw of his career. Dak on a 3rd and 15, and the Cowboys got a little aggressive. In fact, this is football in a nutshell. Because the throw was made and the catch was performed so well, we will call the coaches "aggressive and ruthless." If that ball sails on Dak into the teeth of a three-deep secondary and it is turned over at this crucial spot in the game, the same coaches would be ripped a new one.
That said, their confidence in their QB to make a throw is something we don't always see. And then for him to repay that confidence with converting it is just fantastic stuff.
Same play - look at the protection. And then, look at this throw. Tell me about the arm strength and the accuracy and the bus driver stuff again. This is a big-time play in a big-time game.
That sets up the next play.
Now, Dak is flushed from the pocket to the right. He loves to leave this way, but he also loves to keep his eyes downfield. Why? Because he knows that he has the corner in a bind. If the corner stays with Williams, he will run for 10-15 free yards. If the corner comes to him, Williams will be wide open down the sideline. This is knowing your coverages and the situation and how isolating one defender and making him make a decision is how you stay out of trouble as a QB. Make the defense choose their poison. And then you make them pay. This is beautiful QB play.
Again, if you don't make the defense pay for this mistake, you show inefficiency. But, it is no accident that Dak Prescott and this offense are so good at making teams pay for mistakes. There are no let-offs when you show Dak an opening. He is seeing the field like a champ right now.
Third and goal from the 10 - same drive. Watch the Chiefs double the two red-zone threats - 82-Witten and 11-Beasley, so you have seven Chiefs in coverage and they all have assignments. So, again, Dak knows if he breaks the pocket, there is nobody watching him. This is all one decision-tree sequence. He goes down his mental list and sees he could make this throw to Beasley, but why? He is safer to just take it himself.
He has to break the pocket and elude 97-Bailey. He almost stumbles, but his athleticism is the key here and then when he gets in, you see what that means. Love his game right now.
So, why is this team so good in the red zone? The RPOs. We showed you this above at that link, but here is a reminder of the RPO sequence. No. 1: Give to Zeke. No. 2: Keep and run when the DE dives in. No. 3 is keep and throw to either Dez on the fade or No. 4 the Beasley matchup if you see the middle wide open because they are all sitting on the run.
It is literally the easiest throw on the field. The Chiefs might not have cable. Here it is again. Same spot, and almost the same everything.
How is this throw available again? Well, let's look below. It isn't just the threat to Zeke.
Look at 38 peel out of there. He knows the defense needs help with Dez on the fade. So, the safety vacates, the LBs are sitting on Zeke, and there is no way to deal with Beasley, who has a 2-way option based on leverage of his man. Play inside and he goes to the pylon. Play outside and he goes to the post.
Unstoppable. Repeatable. I really am not sure how to defend everything. Which is why I continue to say I expect this offense to be in pretty good shape without Zeke in the short term. There are still plenty of headaches for opponents if you have a replacement level RB. And they have three reasonable options without Zeke.
This last concept I wanted to show you is something they have been doing more and more this year. It is basically putting Williams as a tight end on this Dak bootleg. Why? Because he is so much faster than anyone else who would play this TE spot, so on this shallow boot, he blows right by any LB who would have to account for him.
Again, the concept is that the play-action fake gets the defense moving the other way, and then you reverse back against the grain. This isolates the edge defender to choose. Go get Dak or get Williams. You can't get both.
Choose one, he does the other. It is an easy throw, it is without danger, and it moves the chains.
Simple. Move the chains and game over.
When you have this much talent and a QB who understands risk/reward and has the ability to put the ball where he needs and keep his composure, you can run your offense like a machine. And since October 1, they are elite - 32.4 points per game with 409 yards of offense per game and 917 rushing yards, which leads the league. Also, since the Rams game, Prescott has been rolling along with a quarterback rating of 104.2 with 11 touchdown passes, three more touchdown runs and just two interceptions.
They remain on course. Keep everyone healthy and keep rolling.
