Game Plan Friday: Tampa Bay

On Fridays, we will try to look at the key match-ups and the overall objectives for each Cowboys game.

When you start a season on the road against a team like Tampa Bay, you feel a fair amount of pressure to bring home a win by any means necessary. And you should. Simply put, if you closely examine the 2009 Dallas Cowboys schedule, there will not likely be a more favorable road match-up all season than this week 1 matchup against the Bucs. Kansas City is the other candidate for "easiest road matchup", but with a decent QB in Matt Cassel, a loud stadium, and 5 weeks to learn their new offensive coordinator, I think the Chiefs should present a more difficult match-up than Sunday.

Things working against Tampa Bay on Sunday:

1) New Coach who has never run a football game as a head coach at any level.
2) QB who is only starting by default until the "next one" (Josh Freeman) is ready.
3) QB has not practiced with either starting WRs since winning the job due to health issues.
4) New OC, named last week, who has had less than 10 days to install his offense - without healthy WRs.
5) New DC and new scheme with 6 new starters on defense.

Analyze The Enemy - Tampa Bay Bucs

On Thursdays, one of the in-season features we are having for Cowboys Season will be to simply checking all corners of the net to know our opponent as well as we possibly can. This will generally involve plenty of links for you to read as much as you want. Since I read it all to prepare for our radio show and the pregame show on Sunday, I thought you might like to read the same stuff. Then, on Friday, I will attempt to provide some guesses on what the game plan will be and what the key match-ups that will decide the game will also be.

So, basically, 2 posts at the end of each week to prepare you for what lies ahead. Today, I will also attempt to provide 2 more posts - one with my full league predictions, and another is a chat I recently had with the great Albert Breer from the Sporting News as we break down the Cowboys and NFC East for you. So, on this Texas Rangers off day, you should get plenty of NFL Opening Day content from Inside Corner.

Now, on to the Buccaneers breakdown:

Chatting NFL with Albert Breer

Albert Breer spent a couple of years at the Dallas Morning News recently writing a number of Dallas Cowboys items I found interesting and fresh. A lot of it was based on tracking closely various elements of Cowboys performance - and I don't mind telling you that I patterned some of what I do today off of his ideas from the 2007 season. I think it was needed, and to the best of my knowledge, he broke the barrier for stat heads here in Dallas to that extent.

Now, he has left and has joined the Sporting News and writes for them on a regular basis. Access his archive here ...

I wanted to chat with him about not only the Cowboys, but the NFC East in general, and here is how it went:

Garrett '08 vs Garrett '09

There is more than plenty of talk about what Jason Garrett should do with the offense this season. I happen to agree that the number #1 factor for the Cowboys is health this season; but #2 is how well Jason Garrett coordinates his offense.

Honestly, I thought he was poor last season. I thought his play calls were often to appease some; for instance Terrell Owens gets 18 targets (Washington, Week 4) which led to Felix Jones not getting a touch. I also thought he relied on the shotgun and the pass too much when a game began to develop. When you are down 14, sling the ball without regard for caution or care, but when you are down 3 in the 3rd Quarter, there is no reason to abandon your game plan. But, the facts indicate that the Cowboys were too willing to throw the ball early and often and that gets everyone in trouble.

It gets your QB hit too often, it puts too much pressure on your OL, it allows the defense to "pin their ears back" and disregard the running game. And if you review the games in December, you will see the disregard grew.

The Cowboys threw the ball 59.1% of the time in 2008 (579 passes/400 runs) - only 4 teams in football threw more often. Playoff teams in 2008 threw the ball 52.7% of the time. The difference? 64 run plays. 4 a week. The Cowboys averaged 61.1 offensive snaps in 2008, and the average split was 36 passes and 25 runs.

Chatting Hockey with Mike Heika

With the passing of Labor Day, I feel it is time to unleash the first hockey writing from my finger-tips in months. It has been an incredibly slow summer since the changing of the Head Coach and General Manager back in early June. That is a radical change to the team, and perhaps that will be enough to raise this team from its disappointing and scarring year.

Once I got my hockey brain working yesterday, I thought I would contact my long-time hockey media colleague, Mike Heika, of the Dallas Morning News, to see what he thinks about the items on my mind with the first hockey chat of the season.

There are plenty of items to visit about, so here you go:

Random Cowboys Thoughts

Well, one week from today, I will be writing my first post-game summary of the season, and we will be making huge generalizations about the 2009 season based on what we saw on Sunday in Tampa. But, with 6 days until "go time", we can still wonder what will be in that present we haven't opened yet. Will the Cowboys be good enough in 2009? Will they have enough to compete with their division rivals, who many claim is the toughest division in football (don't tell the AFC South and NFC North)? The truth will be told in very short order. Soon, I will look at the division rivals, but today, let's scattershoot about this thing with a week to go:

Our Hero on TV

How Do You Get to 53?

With almost no drama left for 80% of your roster heading into the final preseason game, I wanted to look at the last two years as a template for how Jerry Jones, Wade Phillips, and the Dallas Cowboys Personnel Department looks at its 53 man board.

As you know, by the weekend, teams across the league must trim to 53. This generally is followed by teams changing out the last few spots with other teams' discards, but, obviously, we can only analyze those who are currently owned by the Cowboys.

Position	2007	2008
QB	2	2
RB	5	4
TE	3	3
WR	6	5
OL	10	11
DL	6	6
LB	7	8
DB	11	11
ST	3	3
Total	53	53

Table Tutorial

As you can see, it is fairly consistent from year to year with just a few slight variations. However, there are 2 big deviations this year that will cause much consternation in the war room.

1) - The Cowboys are going with 3 QBs this year barring a shock with Stephen McGee.
2) - The Cowboys are going with 4 Special Team-only players with a kickoff specialist added to the punter, kicker, and deep snapper.

So, when you add a number to each of those categories, you must short two others.

With that in mind, let's see if we can get to 53 before the final Minnesota Game:

QB - 3
Romo, Kitna, McGee

RB - 4
Barber, Jones, Choice, Anderson

TE - 3
Witten, Bennett, Phillips

WR - 5
Williams, Hurd, Austin, Crayton, Ogletree

OL - 8
Adams, Kosier, Gurode, Davis, Colombo, Free, Holland, Preston,

DL - 6
Ratliff, Spears, Hatcher, Olshansky, Bowen, Siavii

LB - 8
James, Brooking, Carpenter, Williams, Ware, Spencer, Butler, Johnson

DB - 9
Newman, Scandrick, Jenkins, Ball, Mickens, Hamlin, Sensabaugh, Hamlin, Smith,

ST - 4
McBriar, Folk, Buehler, Ladouceur

So there is 50, and in my opinion, all have pretty much made the squad. The most curious selection may be Curtis Johnson at LB, but I thought Wade pretty much told us he was on the team the other day in his press conference. 3 more spots are left. Who is left to compete for the final 3 spots?

Isaiah Stanback, Cory Proctor, Patrick Watkins, Steve Octavien, Terrius George, Travis Bright, Pat McQuistan, Matt Stewart, and perhaps one of the DB's they brought in this week (Deangelo Willingham or Jeremy Haynes) will be battling for the final 3 spots.

The final spots at LB, OL, DB, and WR will all have special teams implications. So, consider that as you watch the final game; the best player at his given position will not necessarily be the guy - if a slightly lesser LB can do more on special teams, he will likely get the nod.

Anyway, just a light exercise this morning, before the Cowboys starters go through the motions tomorrow night. Just know that to many on the bottom of the roster, this is their last chance to play professional football. It is not meaningless to everyone.

Sources for 2007 and 2008 numbers: Archer 2008 and Archer 2007

Pitching Profile - August Edition

Just like we did at the end of May, and at the end of June (sorry about the end of July) - Here is the latest extensive look at the Rangers starting rotation. The point of this exercise is to dig a bit deeper than the basic stats for each starting pitcher to see what they are good at - or what they are not good at.

In the 129 games that were played before the calendar turned to September, 9 pitchers have started games for the Rangers. Kevin Millwood (26), Scott Feldman (24), Derek Holland (16), Tommy Hunter (12), Matt Harrison (11), Brandon McCarthy (11), Dustin Nippert (7), Kris Benson (2), and Doug Mathis (2). This study will focus on the six pitchers who have made at least 10 starts. The other 3 run into sample size issues that might render verdicts a bit meaningless.

Proceed at your own risk - for stat nerds only:

Who is Kevin Ogletree?

Given that there is a story every training camp about a player who everyone is buzzing about (Beau Morgan, Danny Amendola, Richmond Flowers, Lynn Scott - I guess usually the guy is white) I usually wait before I spend too much time getting to know the guy. The fact is, every year there is a guy - and usually he is gone as soon as he arrives. It is just too tough to emerge from nowhere to the roster in the NFL. For every time it is done, there are 50 times it is not done.

But, I think it is time we get to know Kevin Ogletree. Ogletree was a name that was no bigger than Jesse Holley on August 1, but here on September 1 it would seem he is a very strong finalist for the Cowboys roster. In fact, some have already said he is on the final 53.

So, how does a guy come out of nowhere and make his way on to the team?