Offensive Playing Time Report

Last week, we attempted to investigate who is playing the most plays on the defense. The reason for the exercise is so that we may discuss the real football issue about "not all positions are created equal". Once we have the data, we are able to figure out which players we need to value higher than others.

Obviously, this is why people will talk about "you cannot take a RB in the first round" anymore. Running Backs, as you will see, are not full-time players on any level. We tracked this data all season long and found that even your top RB - Felix Jones - is barely playing more than half the snaps .

We will see below how vital offensive line excellence truly is. More on that in a bit.

Now, my data and the data at ProFootballFocus.com differ because they count plays where penalties occur because it satisfies their methodology with penalty tracking and so forth. When I kept the snaps this season, I did not count "unofficial" snaps so our math will differ a bit.

However, for the point of this exercise, let's see who played the most for the offense this season.


1105 Offensive Snaps

Name	Games	Snaps/Snap %
C - Gurode	16	1105 - 100%
LT - Free	16	1105 - 100%
TE - Witten	16	1077 - 97.4%
RG - Davis	16	1077 - 97.4%
RT - Colombo	15	1027 - 93.0%
WR - Austin	16	1019 - 92.3%
LG - Kosier	13	849 - 76.9%
WR - Williams	15	690 - 62.5%
QB - Kitna	10	623 - 56.4%
RB - Jones	16	571 - 51.7%
TE - Bennett	16	494 - 44.7%
WR - Bryant	12	431 - 39.0%
QB - Romo	6	372 - 33.6%
FB - Gronkowski	14	337 - 30.4%
RB - Barber	13	292 - 26.4%
RB - Choice	16	220 -19.9%
WR - Hurd	15	214 - 19.3%
G - Holland	14	177 - 16.0%
QB - McGee	2	110 - 9.8%
G - Costa	4	109 - 9.8%
T - Barron	11	80 - 7.2%
TE - Chandler	9	53 - 4.7%
WR - Ogletree	6	43 - 3.8%
WR - Johnson	2	42 - 3.8%

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Let's look at some things that jump out at us from this list:

* Perfect attendance for Gurode and Free. Also, Colombo had perfect attendance for the final 15 games. Basically, like the defense, if there is one disconcerting element about the way the offensive line played, it would be that it was NOT affected much by major injury. The entire defense had only one significant injury affect its season (Marcus Spears). On the offensive line, Kyle Kosier missed 3 games. Otherwise, the line of Free-Kosier-Gurode-Davis-Colombo was intact from start to finish. It wasn't the healthiest line in football, but it also did not test the depth very hard. We saw Alex Barron's level of play and Phil Costa was thrown out there before he was ready, too. The Cowboys have flirted with disaster with backup linemen for sometime and all it takes is one major knee injury to really see what your roster is made of. Considering we were all pretty disappointed with the OL play, one wonders what injury issues might have done.

* Miles Austin has nearly 400 more snaps than any of the other receivers. The biggest reason for this is his quality and health. But beyond that, he is the Cowboys WR of choice when they are in "22" or "13" personnel with only a single WR. I might surmise that is because he is a decent downfield blocker, but actually, I don't think he is as good in that category as Roy Williams. Yes, there is actually a category where Roy Williams is better than Austin! The reason I think he is the choice of Jason Garrett is his ability to stress the safety as a deep threat. With "22" personnel, if you do not have a deep threat who scares the opponent, then you are facing 10 in the box. With Austin, they keep a safety high, and the Cowboys have a number advantage at the point of attack if they run.

* Running Back splits are Jones - 52%, Barber - 26%, and Choice 20%. This explains the reluctance to pay Running Backs.

* Near the bottom, you understand the need for special teams play from guys who are not in the Top dozen or so. Gronkowski, Barber, Choice, Hurd, and Ogletree are on the brink of not having a role unless they play on special teams. Barber doesn't play at all on special teams and Ogletree was not a good option according to the way he was used.

* Any team with 3 QB's with over 100 snaps in a season do not have a very good chance at winning, I would assume. The 2010 Cowboys did not have many injuries, but the Tony Romo injury is not one that teams can overcome very often.

Defensive Playing Time Report

I was listening to one of my voices of great influence, Pat Kirwan, the other day on the radio and he was discussing how his teams used to decide how best to pay their players.

The idea is that as a front office, you have to pay some players more than you want. But, you have to make sure WHICH players you pay more than you might want.

The same concept for the draft, too. If a player is not playing in 80% of the snaps, then you cannot take him in the first rounds or pay him elite money. This is why Running Backs are seldom taken in the 1st Round anymore. And many Linebackers, too. If you are not an every down player, then we cannot pay you and have enough cash to go around.

And that is why the Cowboys allow Marcus Spears to walk. He is just a 1st and 2nd Down player. Or, Bobby Carpenter and Kevin Burnett - Just 3rd Down LBs. You need to know which players are merely situational players and which players are used in every situation.

By the way, that is why some of us are nervous about Von Miller. If he cannot set the edge against the run (something even Clay Matthews is challenged on to this day) then his coach will be tempted to take him off the field in running situations. Well, if you take Von Miller in the Top 5 of the draft and pay him that money, then you understand the issues if you he cannot play in all scenarios.

So, I will offer you some playing time reports here, courtesy of my good friends and data collectors at ProFootballFocus.Com. I will do offense as well, in a future post.

1040 Defensive Snaps

Name	Games	Snaps/Snap %
FS - Ball	16	987 - 94.9%
LB - Spencer	16	953 - 91.6%
LB - Ware	16	940 - 90.3%
CB - Jenkins	16	929 - 89.3%
SS - Sensabaugh	16	929 - 89.3%
MLB - James	16	920 - 88.4%
MLB - Brooking	16	908 - 87.3%
CB - Newman	16	891 - 85.6%
DT - Ratliff	16	733 - 70.4%
CB - Scandrick	16	604 - 58.1%
DE - Olshansky	16	574 - 55.1%
DE - Bowen	16	552 - 53%
DE - Spears	9	263 - 25.2%
DT - Brent	16	257 - 24.7%
DE - Hatcher	13	257 - 24.7%
MLB - Lee	14	167 -16.1%
LB - Butler	15	157 - 15%
CB - McCann	9	146 - 14%
SS - Church	16	119 - 11.4%
FS - McCray	16	46 - 4.4%

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Thoughts from this chart:

* Alan Ball playing the most snaps demonstrates the need to have excellent play at safety. And the lack of depth at Free Safety given Ball's performance.

* Jay Ratliff is at just over 70%. This is not because he can't play in all scenarios. Rather, I believe the Cowboys were looking for spots to get him rest so he would not wear down in a game or over the course of the season. He is undersized and constantly double-teamed so you have to know that takes a toll. Another argument to kick him out to end.

* Your 3rd Corner plays more than any of your defensive ends. This says a few things. 1) You need more complete DEs who can play on all 3 downs. 2) It is a passing league where you need 3 and 4 Corners. The argument that you don't take a corner because you already have 2 is flawed because we see that on 6 out of every 10 snaps, you need 3 Corners on the field.

* Sean Lee played less than 200 snaps. That is disappointing. He really needs to demonstrate health before we get too carried away about his upside. Of course, the Cowboys did not do a great job getting him snaps, either. For reasons that I didn't quite understand, they insisted on playing Keith Brooking over and over. I think you need to use seasons like 2010 to develop your kids as well. You were 1-7. Play the youngsters more.

* Josh Brent played 257 snaps which is more than I thought. I believe he is a nice prospect to continue to develop at defensive tackle.