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
It had been a while since this sort of defensive performance has been seen around here. The transformation of the 2021Cowboysdefense from what 2020 produced has been massive and impressive. That defense was poor in all of the important fundamentals and disorganized.
This defense has lined up well, battled hard and started by stopping the run.
Everything was going really well for the Cowboys' defense on Sunday. With 10:12 left in the game, the Cowboys had limited the Giants to just 13 points on seven drives.
In the second half of the game, the Cowboys had stopped Eli Manning with a Brandon Carr interception on the first drive of the third quarter, a Benson Mayowa sack on the next drive, an Orlando Scandrick sack on the next drive and a pretty impressive play by Byron Jones to break up a pass on third down on the fourth drive that was early in the fourth quarter.
The Cowboys were making plays defensively. A takeaway, two sacks and breaking up passes? Who were these guys?
But as we know, the game didn't end with 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. At that point, the Giants hadn't accomplished too much offensively and very little on the ground. But, somehow, on the final two drives, when the Dallas defense had only played about 16 minutes the entire afternoon, they were unable to deal with the Giants' running game right down the middle.
The Cowboys were about to taste the pain. The Giants cranked up a running game we didn't really realize they had and pushed the ball down the field twice when it counted most. Once to take the lead was just complementing Eli and his crew through the air. But the killer was the final Giants drive that took the clock and all the timeouts away from the Cowboys.
It was a classic four-minute drill. This is not as famous among fans as the two-minute drill, because it is pretty much the opposite. Instead of trying to score quickly, you are trying to bleed the clock dry. This is best done on the ground so that you don't stop the clock. The problem is that the defense knows you want to run and that means it is a matter of might. Can your guys block theirs?
With Terrell McClain, Cedric Thornton and a healthy Tyrone Crawford, I was optimistic the Cowboys would be fine in these situations. But, if any part of your preseason confidence should be rattled, it might be what we saw in those final two drives. A fresh Cowboys defense was gouged repeatedly.
In yellow, please see six carries for 58 yards -- very discouraging against what the league expects will not be much of a run game. But they ran it down the Cowboys' throat in Dallas.
Just demoralizing -- and almost all similar runs where they were between the tackles and attacking the Cowboys in the heart. And maybe most discouraging, with all six of these runs, is there are almost no signs of linebackers making a positive impact.
We saw the first sign back in the second quarter. Look at this run right at the Cowboys' middle:
The Giants' left guard, Justin Pugh (No. 67), counters around and Rashad Jennings goes untouched into the secondary. Both linebackers get blocked and there is just nothing the Cowboys' front is able to accomplish.
Now, on to those six runs in the fourth quarter. Ben McAdoo knew he could go back to this.
The Giants' right guard, John Jerry (No. 67), counters the other direction with Shane Vereen behind him through the hole. Rookie defensive tackle Maliek Collins (No. 96) is tossed aside and you could drive a truck through that hole. Lee gets blocked, Durant gets caught in the traffic and again, your safety makes a tackle.
Fullback lead. Same concepts. Double-team the defensive tackle, push the defensive end out and have a lead run right at a linebacker untouched. Secondary is exposed and must make the tackle.
Do you think, by now, the Giants are wondering if the Cowboys can stop them? Jennings, your turn again. Look at this one. Double-team the 1-tech (McClain), pull the weak-side guard to get the linebacker, and off to the races again.
Now, pull the weak-side guard in the other direction. This is getting silly now. Mayowa gets shoved inside by the tight end (can't happen) and now, on a play that looks confusing, the Giants and Jennings are in the secondary again.
This is the portion of the review where it might be worth asking why in the world Rod Marinelli isn't putting this team in the right defense. You know, when the team is getting killed in the middle, why are they still with only six men in the box? Why not - as the Giants did all day - put 7 or 8 in the box to chase the Giants out of this repeated hammer session?
At this point of the exercise, it is possible you are starting to understand why the Cowboys have an irrational dependency on Rolando McClain, right? It is tough to play in this league without a middle linebacker.
And finally, a 3rd-and-12, where they almost got it.
I didn't mean to make you sick on this Wednesday morning, but these are seven runs -- all pretty important in the game -- where I'm not sure a running back had to break an attempted tackle from the D-line or linebackers. They were seven big runs in which the safeties and corners had to make all of the tackles on inside runs! Ground-and-pound.
Heaven help us.
WEEKLY DATA BREAKDOWN
The defensive overview shows us plenty of interesting things, with a lot of numbers you will take on a weekly basis. In this league, giving up 20 and 316 yards is pretty decent. Low explosive plays against (20-plus yards) and that time of possession is solid.
But you can't give up three touchdowns on three red zone drives -- that is not going to get it done. Last year, of all of the things the Cowboys tried to do on defense, they actually were pretty solid in this category: finishing eighth in the league with a red zone defense of 51 percent. Only 51 percent of drives by opponents in the red zone ended with touchdowns. That was good. Allowing 100 percent is going to get you beat.
ELI MANNING THROW CHART:
Behold, the McAdoo offense. Get the ball out quickly and spread it around. You can see a lot more between the numbers than Dak Prescott from yesterday. Also, fewer shots downfield.
SPLASH PLAYS:
We are looking for playmakers and moments in the game where the defense has a chance to do something to turn the tide.
That is why I keep splash plays here to see who is doing what. There is no question that the big takeaway from Week 1 was the run defense could not get a stop in the fourth quarter. I don't want that to influence you about the quality of Terrell McClain. I think he was the bright spot defensively in Week 1 as a defensive tackle who was routinely making big plays and causing havoc. He lost some snaps -- this league is hard and the players are very good -- but he also ended the game with a team-high 3.5 splash plays, demonstrating why everyone on the coaching staff raved about him through training camp.
TEAM TOTALS - SPLASHES - WEEK 1:
Unfortunately, all we saw from the defense with any degree of consistency was the play of Terrell McClain (3.5 splashes). Otherwise, there were several occasions when someone made one play.
Clearly, watching Mayowa rush the passer was enjoyable, but there are concerns about him holding up against the run. Scandrick certainly didn't look like he could run vertically with someone like Odell Beckham, but in blitzing, he has some real value.
And even publicly, Jason Garrett said they need more from Tyrone Crawford, which is starting to become a bit of a trend we hope changes quickly.
I thought David Irving really showed he needs more opportunities and Byron Jones has plenty of value as both a safety and a slot guy against tight ends. And, more than anything, I am very worried about Anthony Hitchens and Justin Durant trying to play big snaps at middle linebacker. It seems like a real weak spot right now, but we need to see more to verify on Sunday.
I thought we would see more blitzes in 2016, but I also said we shouldn't expect it against the Giants in Week 1. Teams don't blitz them and for good reason. So, this is just for your information. But, 6-29 is roughly the 20 percent Rod Marinelli usually sends.
CONCLUSIONS AND TAKEAWAYS
Overall, the defense was like the offense: Some good, but too much that needs to be better. From the defensive perspective, they are trying to play without defensive ends and linebackers they believe in (besides Sean Lee). The good news is that the most talented defensive lineman they have will be returning for Week 5 in DeMarcus Lawrence, but that won't help them get ready for their next three opponents.
They have to find their strengths and identity. You have to be good at either stopping the run or stopping the pass. When you look at the personnel, you are tempted to say that stopping the pass should be their strength, but then you see that rushing the passer is a real issue. You think they have some good run-stoppers, but then you see they have no linebackers who can clean up any issues on run plays in the middle, like peak Rolando McClain would. If a perfectly fresh defense can't stop the Giants' running game in the fourth quarter, what happens when they play a solid running team and are tired?
In other words, Marinelli has his work cut out for Week 2 and beyond. They have interesting parts, but they appear to be a few short of a solid defense at the moment.
Late in the week, we finally get a chance to "look at the tape" as Jason Garrett likes to say and examine some plays that we cannot fully digest on TV. I can't promise that every week we will be able to do this, but honestly, this is my favorite exercise of the week because only here can you fully appreciate how advanced and complex the NFL game can be sometimes.
Here, we are not looking to call anyone out, and we surely want to leave open the possibility of our eyes deceiving us and more than anything, I want to admit that I don't have the benefit of the coaches telling me what coverage they were in. So, sometimes, this diagnosis will be "pretty sure" rather than "100% sure" even though I am trying to get it right. I will make calls and try to hunt down the right answer, but I will just admit right here that we will try our best to be accurate but invariably, I will see something wrong.
But, let's pick plays that are interesting but not played out by this point of the week and have some fun talking Xs and Os. Feel free to tweet me @SportsSturm when a game shows you a play that you would like broken down and I will attempt to include it in this post.
It is totally normal to not see a few things that get lost in the mud of a terrible year. But, if you want a deeper look at the Cowboys as an observer, or if it is your job to get this team on the right path for 2016, I think it makes quite a bit of sense to try to evaluate each player separately as we go.
Which leads me to today's breakdown. While this has been a pretty strong year for Sean Lee, I might argue the same cannot be said for almost the entire remainder of the linebacking group. Now, this is primarily about Rolando McClain, Anthony Hitchens, and a bit of Kyle Wilber, as the young Damien Wilson did not see the field much as a rookie.
As we look ahead to the draft, there will be questions for sure about whether the Cowboys should seek a destroyer at linebacker to make this defense into something more special. Because, to be honest, there was not a ton of "special" in this group all year.
This is not a very complex look from Buffalo at all. But, you might have to help me with what exactly 55-McClain and 59-Hitchens are doing here. McClain is thinking the lead blocker is coming for him (he is not) and totally misses everything. Meanwhile, Hitchens is watching the lead blocker go inside, so he follows - not realizing that he is running right from the path of the Running Back.
We should be careful not to over-use terms like this, but this is pretty much "garbage LB play".
The play ends with a nice facemask from Byron Jones and the Bills march 41 yards on one snap of the most simple of run concepts. And it was the 1st Quarter, so we should have a focused and motivated group right here. Let's look at another play.
Well, this is clearly man coverage (causing all of the traffic underneath) and there is where 55-McClain gets caught up in traffic again trying to run with Mike Gillislee. I think Gillislee showed some things this week, but this is not Darren Sproles in space. This is also not all the way to the sideline. If McClain is fit (fair question), this is a play your middle LB has to be able to erase in no time. Instead, he barely touches the RB and gives up a touchdown (that was ruled down at the 1 after further review).
McClain has shown off some elite skills at certain times during his run here and was an amazing player out of Alabama. But, a few snaps in a game like this have you questioning whether you can give him the job in 2016. This is not good enough at all.
Here is one that really smarts. It is a 9-6 game and there is still time. But, you need a stop right here or the game might be over.
And, as you know, there would be no stop and the game would be over on this pretty simple 2nd and 5 run right with Mike Gillislee again.
Cowboys are in base personnel against the Bills. Buffalo pulls a guard right with a lead blocker and suddenly they are off to the races. Again, this is a really basic running concept that seems to out-flank the Cowboys way too easily.
Watch Byron Jones at the snap. He is walking down (sort of) and then bolts back into a 2-high look which is a mysterious coverage for 2nd and 5 with that lone receiver to his side of the field (Chris Hogan). Regardless, darting back takes Jones out of any sort of run support angle and that is going to be a problem, as the end zone view below will show.
So, Lee follows the lead blocker inside. I think Lee should have stayed outside more to try to set some sort of an edge, because when he gets sealed off it is off to the races. The LG gets McClain on the pull, so now in a foot race between Hitchens and the RB, it is too much for Hitchens to make up. But even at that corner, you see Brandon Carr, Jones, and Hitchens with only Hogan and Gillislie.
You would like to think a 3-man situation could at least lay a hand on the runner, but there is no such thing. I would say you had about 4 or 5 defenders that could have done better there: 50, 39, 31, 59 and 90 all come quickly to mind.
The Cowboys gave up 236 yards on the ground to the Bills after 230 to the Packers earlier in the month. Those were the only 2 days of 200+ yards rushing against this year, but the taste in your mouth after these two games makes you wonder about the personnel up front against the run. Especially as the game wears on, the Cowboys are wearing down.
Football is a pretty simple game when you boil it down to its roots. Sure, we see it present itself in new places with new names every new year, but the basic tenets of football reveal themselves every Sunday in the following way: Blocking and tackling. In other words, can my guys block better than your guys can tackle? Can my guys tackle better than your guys can block?
Well, on Sunday, everyone who followed football knew the Cowboys were going to have their hands full with Julio Jones. He is awesome and maybe the best in the business as of this moment. But, nobody in the world expected the Cowboys, who had just been praised for limiting the Eagles running game to 7 yards on 17 carries, to be beaten into a bloody pulp by Devonta Freeman. Freeman is a talented young player, but up until this day, in 2 seasons in the NFL, he had 87 career carries for 291 yards (3.3 per carry). So, who anticipated 30 carries for 141 (4.7)?
Welcome to the NFL, where you better bring it every Sunday.
And if there is a lesson to be learned from this past week, it is that the league is still interested in challenging the Cowboys with a punch in the face to see how Dallas responds.
Patrick DiMarco is a fullback for Atlanta that I certainly confess to not knowing much about before Sunday. According to Wikipedia, he is the nephew of golfer and Masters runner-up in 2005, Chris DiMarco. He also played for the Chargers in 2011, the Chiefs in 2012, and now the Falcons since 2013. During that stretch of time, he almost never played the 36 snaps that he played against the Cowboys on Sunday, but his effects were felt as the Falcons decided to load up with a fullback in front of Freeman, and attack the Cowboys with some downhill runs - mostly to the edges - to see what Dallas would do about it.
The results were pretty disappointing from Rod Marinelli's standpoint.
And, unfortunately, it didn't replace the attack of Julio Jones; It complemented it. When that happens, when you get spanked on the ground and through the air, well, let's just say we must curb our enthusiasm a bit with regards to the 2015 Cowboys defense.
The following is a chart that represents very bad days. Thanks to Game Finder on Profootballreference.com, it is a list of the 22 occasions in Cowboys' history where the defense had the dubious double of allowing over 400 yards and generating no takeaways. As we discuss on a routine basis, your defense better be good at one or the other - either stop the yard production or take the ball away. Great defenses can do both. Poor squads can do neither. And on Sunday, the Cowboys were a very poor defense:
You will want to pay very special attention to the W/L column on the right. All-time, Dallas is 2-20 when they give up 400+ and get 0 takeaways, and only have 1 win (2009 in Tampa Bay) since Tom Landry walked the sidelines.
It is total and complete domination.
In fact, under Jason Garrett, this team has been at the mercy of the takeaway game quite a bit. Here is a helpful chart to understand how this works:
Team Takeaways
Record Under Garrett (43-32)
2+
29-6, 81%
1
13-12, 52%
0
1-14, 7%
As you can see, if Garrett's Cowboys take the ball away at least twice, they almost never lose. But, if they don't get any - like Sunday - then they simply cannot win (save for Week 1 against the Giants this season).
So, what happened? Well, this isn't complicated. The Cowboys were down a lot on the defensive Front 7 - Jeremy Mincey and Terrell McClain were key reasons the Eagles struggled up front. Mincey missed this game and McClain will miss the rest of the season. Add those two to the absences of Greg Hardy, Randy Gregory, Rolando McClain and you are especially thin. Those that remain include guys like DeMarcus Lawrence and Kyle Wilber - guys who are known for pass rushing, not run stoutness. We saw a ton of Ryan Russell, Davin Coleman, Ken Bishop, and Jack Crawford on Sunday. Are they all NFL players? Yes. Should they be able to step up and "next man up" their opportunities? Yes. Did the Cowboys look like they missed those who were gone as Freeman was storming the castle repeatedly? Yes.
The above one is funny/sad. The Falcons right guard actually goes the wrong way, leaving the Cowboys with a free LB to hit Freeman. It didn't help Anthony Hitchens.
Ryan Russell was untouched and over-ran the play above. Those were only the 1st half runs for Freeman of 7 yards or more. Here comes the killer 3rd Quarter:
Here, the two DTs - Crawford and Hayden look to be on different pages and the hole opens right up.
How many times is the defensive end going to fall for this? Russell again. And Hitchens? Oh, my.
I wish we were done. Now, the 4th.
DeMarcus Lawrence with a free shot.
10 runs of 7 yards or more. From Devonta Freeman. The Cowboys made him famous in one afternoon.
It sure looks like the inexperienced defensive ends caused plenty of this with falling for the inside movement and then losing contain. I assume Mincey would have dealt with this much better. But, again, that is the sport. Who can play has to play well.
Do you blame the Falcons for simply looking at the personnel, seeing the Cowboys were light up front (in numbers and in run stoppers) and decided to attack with muscle and a fullback? Pretty sharp idea from Atlanta that I am sure future opponents will make note of very carefully.
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Pretty much across the board, the Cowboys defense was not good enough on Sunday and the stats on the left here demonstrate it rather loudly. 64% on 3rd down. 80% in the red zone. 3rd downs were all 3rd and manageable, it seemed, and you just can't do much good if you are giving up 5 yards a carry over and over to a backup RB.
Again, there is nothing wrong with Freeman, but the Falcons don't think he is a starter and that is why they invested in Tevin Coleman. But, on Sunday, both sides saw how deep Atlanta appears to be a that spot.
Now, similarly, what was the plan with stopping Julio Jones? Well, the Cowboys decided to mix coverages and try to figure out ways to slow Matt Ryan and Jones down. Of course, the Falcons deal with this issue every week and laugh at your plan, because the reason Dez Bryant and Julio Jones are who they are is because they can make NFL defenses look like small college defenses with these unstoppable weapons. Health is the only way to slow them down, and unlike Dez, Julio appears to be in pretty good shape at the moment for destroying coverages.
The Cowboys mixed things up, but the Falcons threw 20 balls to Julio Jones. Here is map for how that happened. They simply and happily force the ball into him.
Here is the damage from an individual standpoint as the Cowboys show some level of stubbornness about "traveling" corners. Instead, they pretty much remain in their individual spots and the Falcons can move Julio around to get the matchups they want. Again, so much of the Cowboys defense is from Seattle, so this shouldn't surprise us, but you do wonder if there should be exceptions made to make sure that when they are in a man-coverage, the Falcons don't get him against a little corner like Tyler Patmon.
We will break down some of the coverage breakdowns, tomorrow.
SPLASH PLAYS
A very small list of impact plays were made on Sunday as you might imagine. our leader for the game is Nick Hayden, which with no offense to Nick, is probably never a good thing.
I do believe and enjoy in this splash play tabulation each week, but it should be noted that a flaw in the system is for defensive backs who generally accumulate those splashes when they are being picked on or attacked. On Sunday, there is little question that Morris Claiborne was being targeted and I believe he saw more action than he has in just about any game of his career. On one drive alone I believe Ryan threw 8 balls in his direction. He held up pretty well, but he did have a shot at an interception deep in Cowboys territory that might have swung the game, but Julio Jones timed a hip check to break up the play.
On the right are the season totals for the Splash Plays through 3 games.
It has been noted by many of you that DeMarcus Lawrence is having a disappointing start to his season. I would certainly agree. Many of us hoped his playoff performances would launch him into Year 2 with great ease, but his growing pains are likely normal. That said, on a day like Sunday, they needed him to take the game over a few times, and he showed no signs of doing that and was actually at fault a few times on those run plays we showed above.
PASS RUSH
To nobody's surprise, the Cowboys weren't bringing the rush very much on Sunday. They knew they needed a populated secondary, but in doing so, they hardly pressured Matt Ryan at all. It was definitely a case of picking your poison. Below is the season total which again shows just a 14% clip for bringing pressure (league average is about 32%). That is VERY low. Even lower than last year so far for Rod Marinelli - and that says something.
CONCLUSIONS
There is no question that this defensive effort will be looked at as a cautionary example of declaring problems fixed too soon. We believe the 2015 defense is much more talented than its predecessors, but that is predicated on many talented players making a difference and most of those "difference makers" were not present.
That may sound like an excuse, but if the Cowboys were featuring Ryan Russell and Jack Crawford high on their depth chart in August, nobody would have forecasted a force to be reckoned with. But, reinforcements are coming. When they do, the product should be better.
In the meantime, we do wonder about the Cowboys coverage plans moving forward. After being a base "Cover 3" team last season, it seems the Cowboys are more determined to play more "Cover 1" this season, but without Orlando Scandrick, do they have the corners to do that?
The bottom line is the bottom line. The Cowboys got whipped up front on both sides of the ball in the 2nd half on Sunday - and for large parts of the entire game. This was a 12-4 team that we believed had switched their identity to a team that is known for being strong in the trenches. Unfortunately, in their latest game, they looked like the 2nd most physical side against Altanta. The Falcons might be this years surprise, but nobody expected them to be able to do that with a smash-mouth attack.
They did, and now the Cowboys try to pick themselves up off the mat. Because New Orleans is a game they need to win and then the reinforcements arrive for Marinelli and his squad.
