Decoding Linehan - Week 6 - Green Bay

http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2016/10/18/sturm-decoding-linehan-beating-packers-blitz-lucky-whitehead-game

Decoding Linehan

Sunday was yet another impressive offensive showing for this young Cowboys squad, which took apart a decent Green Bay defense for what many of us would call a near-perfect offensive performance in this league.

We hear coaches talk about objectives quite a bit over the course of their many visits with the eager media. They talk about scoring touchdowns instead of field goals. They talk about production in terms of yardage. And they talk about winning the turnover battle.

So here is the checklist as I see it for an A-plus offensive performance:

• 28 points or more
• 400 yards or more
• Win the turnover battle

And by all of these measures, the Cowboys had quite a day in Green Bay.

Six scores on 11 possessions for 30 points; 424 yards of total offense; +2.

If you nail all of these, you are nearly unbeatable. In fact, they are 10-2 under Jason Garrett when they accomplish this, with the two losses going down as two of the most insane losses in franchise history. The December 2011 "Lost in the Lights" game vs. the Giants, 37-34, and the even more absurd 51-48 loss to Denver in 2013.

In fact, the Cowboys under Jason Garrett have played 48 regular-season road games and have only hit the triple three times. At New York in his first game as coach in 2010, at Washington on Christmas weekend of 2014, and this game.

On the road: score 30, gain 400-plus yards and put together a turnover margin of +2.

And that is why "grading the offense" was pretty elementary stuff this week.

There is a lot to look at this week, but I wanted to start by suggesting I will reference this game from henceforth as "The Lucky Whitehead Game," if you don't mind. Lucky is a second-year undrafted free agent who was brought in merely as a return man, but one more sign of the excellence of this offense is that they have a design in mind for every member of the squad, trying to find an extra edge that may win them a game along the way this season.

This was when you were going to see Whitehead in motion and that there always was a purpose for it. He plays about 15 snaps a game and most of them are in a package we call "13" because there is one running back and three tight ends in the game:

This is a grouping that screams "run" to the defense. They are planning on pounding the ball because they have eight run blockers of size. Therefore, you better beef up that defense or they are going to run Zeke right at you.

But, they also plan to keep you honest. If you do not respect that one wide receiver, they will use him so that all future opponents know they are not bluffing. Often, it has been Dez Bryant as the lone wolf. But recently, it has been a "little," like Cole Beasley or Lucky Whitehead, who can destroy you if you only have one guy to match his quicks.

And on Sunday, there was destruction from Lucky Whitehead.

First, we should recognize how big that drive right before halftime was. Here is a few minutes of our conversation with Jason Witten from Monday about this play below:

Above, I circled Whitehead in blue and Julius Peppers in red. Peppers is the key here, and you will see in the video below that he is the unblocked player the Cowboys will read:

As Witten says in that audio, they use the threat of Zeke to take Peppers out of the play. Then, Lucky needs just a sliver to get by with his speed, and once he does, the Packers have nobody else over there if the tight ends -- Witten and Geoff Swaim -- can get out and block. It was so easy and yet so effective.

So then they come back to 13 later in the game. The Packers are terrified of the jet sweep again, so here comes the changeup to the changeup. Lucky on the sweep is the first changeup to a handoff to Zeke. Here is the next one, which served as the kill shot later in the game:

And the end-zone view:

This is the genius of this offense right now. There are so many threats, and if you demonstrate they can all hurt you, now you have the defense thinking and not attacking. You can hear the collective cussing of the entire Packers secondary on this play, when they know they have been duped again. You can see the culprit is No. 36, LaDarius Gunter, who had what we call a really rough day in the NFL.

That is why you cannot underestimate any injury on the field. Both coaching staffs are finding the weak spots. The Cowboys saw the Packers did not have Sam Shields. They also did not have Quinten Rollins. They then lost Damarious Randall on that play in the second quarter. So Gunter is their fourth corner and the Baylor basketball player, Demetri Goodson, is their fifth -- and both were playing all day. This changed the Packers' blitz attack and also changed the places Dak would go with the ball. Once they saw Gunter struggle, they went at him again and again.

This is a merciless league. Back to that play after the jet sweep on the drive that may have changed quite a bit about this 2016 season for both teams and the NFC race:

So Gunter switched sides after Randall got hurt and the Cowboys attack. Here, they try the undrafted corner out on the double move. He falls and Dak hits Terrance Williams for a huge gain.

Now, they have hit two huge plays in a row. What should they do for a third?

That's right. Send Brice Butler over there for a turn against Gunter. Beautiful fade. Touchdown. Dak Prescott hits on all of his throws in this scenario and his counterpart, Aaron Rodgers, did not.

And to prove they were watching Gunter all day, here he is again, being duped by yet another different Cowboy, Cole Beasley, for a touchdown.

There is a very good chance you had never heard of LaDarius Gunter until Sunday. Well, now you see his fingerprints all over this game.

This is what coaching can do. Find and destroy bad matchups.

WEEKLY OFFENSIVE DATA 

What an impressive showing from the offense that accomplished a ton on the ground as well. In fact, this may also show how we take this offensive line for granted if I am hardly giving Elliott and the line any time this morning after the way they carved up the "top rushing defense" in the league.

As I indicated in the preview, Green Bay had not seen anything like this offensive line and they were going to be in for a long day.

PRESCOTT THROW CHART

Ah, yes, the Dak Prescott deep shot made its debut. They had a real chance to hit on that long pass to Brice Butler right before the interception, but it didn't quit connect. We will see more of that in the future because the pass is there with all of this running.

With Dak Prescott as your quarterback, play action should be so effective. He seems to have way more Russell Wilson-like tendencies than we ever imagined.

PERSONNEL GROUPINGS

On days like this, we can see that it really isn't a question of what worked. Nearly everything they tried worked, and they saw a Green Bay team that likes to play nickel all day and, therefore, made them change that. This is what versatility brings. You make a defense leave its comfort zone by changing things up.

If they like to play big, you counter with "11 personnel" all day. But if they like to play small, you force them to defend multiple tight ends and even a fullback all day. One of the best sayings about offensive play-calling these days is to "make them wrong," which is to say that as a textbook offense, you can never let the defense choose correctly. They can't defend everything.

BEATING THE BLITZ

At the risk of making this report too long, I also wanted to circle back to the theme of last week, when I wrote that this would be a wonderful test. Going to Green Bay was going to force the Cowboys to prove they could beat pressure.

And that is the thing about blitzing. You can't count it in raw numbers because it is not something that can be counted blitz for blitz. If you can't deal with the blitz, they send more. If you burn it, they send fewer. And for a number of reasons -- including Green Bay realizing its corners were outclassed -- the Cowboys saw some blitzes early, dealt with them and chased them all away.

By my count, they faced six blitzes Sunday. Five were in the first half. Here they are:

A beautiful, quick out to Cole Beasley for an easy gain. This is how you stop a defense from blitzing. It looks so easy when you hit them right in their weakness.

Another blitz, another first down for Dak. Easy slant and nice gain. This is easy, although that hit hurt a bit. By the way: As you can see, a blitz almost always means man coverage. Cover 1 here.

Third blitz. Dak has a first-and-10, and he is confident. He moves Zeke out to ISO against the safety in another Cover 1 look. With protection, he finds a matchup and goes to work. This didn't connect, but it is enough to stress out a defensive coordinator about what happens if he tries it again.

Fourth blitz, still in the first quarter, and the Packers get home and a takeaway. You can see Dak is looking at Zeke at the top vs. Clay Matthews, and Clay is planning on jumping that route. This is the one point the Cowboys looked a bit stressed themselves.

Fifth blitz. This is the play where the Packers lost Randall, the corner, to the groin. He blew his groin trying to deal with another Dak decision. He also has Cole Beasley for a big gain across the middle. Dak makes very quick decisions and delivers a fastball. So the Cowboys have seen five blitzes and, four times, dealt with them very well.

That, and the poor personnel that was trying to play man coverage behind these blitzes, caused the Packers to stop until they were very desperate late in the game. One last try:

One last blitz. Cover 1 behind it. Prescott sees Jason Witten to move the chains again. Nice and easy.

If you beat the blitz, you stop seeing the blitz.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Standing ovation. There is nothing to nitpick, really.

Enjoy your bye week. You earned it.

The Morning After: Cowboys 30, Packers 16

http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2016/10/17/sturms-morning-cowboys-quiet-lambeau-packers

The Morning After

It feels like a weekly routine now, to gather here Monday morning and marvel at what we saw the day before from a Cowboys team from which most had no idea what to expect this season.

Could they win their division? Maybe. This is a very poor division, after all. But somehow they would have to keep the boat afloat until their hero could save them from a burning building in late October. We don't know many things in this unpredictable football world, but we sure know that this team cannot go on without the guy they have built around for a decade.

And then, without fanfare or notice, this guy arrived. And the whole thing hasn't been the same ever since.

So when the final minutes had elapsed Sunday evening from a thorough and decisive beatdown in a place where this team hardly ever wins and against an opponent that needs no introduction, it began to occur to many that it is time to realize what we may be looking at. Not the future, but the present.

As in, in the present tense, this is a very good football team. With a chance to be even better in an NFC that has some vacancies at the top that need filling.

The Cowboys were excellent yesterday in Green Bay in so many regards that it may take a few days to properly recognize all of those who did well. They took the opening kickoff and marched the ball right down the field in a way that declared their intentions right from the top. They were not going to be fun to deal with offensively all day long.

Now, to fully appreciate why that may be particularly noteworthy, we should keep in mind that one of the final stops on the Cowboys' schedule in 2015 was also Lambeau Field. On that day, the Cowboys had the dubious distinction of possessing the ball 12 different times and driving it to their own 40-yard line just twice. Now, things change in the NFL at a rapid pace, but that was December of 2015, when the Cowboys were the laughingstock of the league. Since then, they have transformed into a team that evidently can dismantle even the opponents who are pretty sure they can stand up to the Cowboys' power-packed attack.

You see, the Packers had all sorts of fancy defensive statistics in the first four games of their season that had given the impression they would be able to slow down Ezekiel Elliott and this ridiculously good offensive line. Then, they also had a pressure package that would certainly have a rookie quarterback -- making just his third road start -- confused and uncertain with guys in his face.

Wrong, and wrong.

We have grown accustomed in the past few years to expect the unexpected -- good and bad -- when it comes to Dallas Cowboys football. When it appears things are bad, they become quite phenomenal. When you think they are ready to win it all, something bad happens.

But 2016 has been a thoroughly unlikely start, with Tony Romo and Dez Bryant either absent or only barely present. And yet, this group has devoured five straight opponents by stacking one impressive performance on top of the next.

The best part of the win in Green Bay was late in the first half. The Cowboys had actually met some level of offensive resistance after that first impressive drive. On the next four occasions when the Cowboys had the football, they resulted in a punt, fumble, field goal and a punt. The defense kept that from becoming stressful, but for the first 29 minutes of the first half, the Cowboys had five possessions and scored only twice, with just the one touchdown. Unlike Cincinnati, this was a bit of a struggle at certain points early on.

The possession started at the Dallas 2-yard line. It seemed pretty clear the Cowboys just wanted a little breathing room in case they had to punt. It seemed pretty clear that Green Bay wanted to force that, as they called a timeout after each of Zeke's two runs that set up a third-and-1 from the Dallas 11. Had Green Bay been OK with going to the locker room down 10-6, it sure appeared the Cowboys would have been happy to oblige them.

Green Bay wanted the ball back. They weren't expecting to get it back after a kickoff, though.

Third-and-1 at their own 11. A punt is not a matter of life or death here. Thirteen personnel with Lucky Whitehead coming in motion right across the formation as the Packers expect Zeke again. It is important to note that Whitehead was running at Julius Peppers, a fantastic edge player since his draft back in 2002. But, if there is something that always gets Peppers, it is being left unblocked with misdirection. He always "eats the cheese" in a way that DeMarcus Ware would. Those fakes get those legends to freeze at the moment of truth, and just like the Cowboys scouted, it worked like a charm. Peppers sees Zeke, takes one false step to crash down and Whitehead is out of the gate for a massive gain of 26 yards down the sideline. And at that moment, the game changed.

Now, there is 40 seconds to play in the first half and the Cowboys are out of the shadow of their own goal posts. Still only at the 38-yard line, you can bet that on another day, the conservative Jason Garrett might have offered a few runs and went to the room. Not on this day. They decided to keep throwing punches. First down on the very next play, the Cowboys isolate another questionable defender -- this time it is LaDarius Gunter, a corner who is only playing because the Packers are down to their fourth and fifth corners for this game. Gunter is sitting at the sticks for Terrance Williams on a double move. The corner then slips and cannot recover, leaving Dak Prescott's throw over the top as easy as any practice field rep. Williams grabs another quick 42 yards in a matter of nine seconds. This is likely the longest throw of the season for the rookie, and as he demonstrated at Mississippi State, that deep throw is no big deal for him, even though the Cowboys have barely unveiled that feature.

One play later, Prescott smells blood and goes right back at Gunter with Brice Butler on a very similar fade for a beautiful fingertip catch in the back corner of the end zone, completing an amazing 98-yard drive that took 33 seconds and put the game at 17-6 going into halftime.

The game wasn't over, but it was going to be way uphill for a struggling Packers offense the rest of the way.

Prescott continued to pass every test. His work against the blitzes was so thorough and impressive in the first half that the Packers almost stopped trying it by halftime. He knew where to go each time, and aside from the play where Peppers was able to knock the ball loose after going around Doug Free, Prescott looked like a veteran against the blitz.

And then in the second half, Elliott provided the exact performance that his investment promised. He was brought in here to convert halftime leads into wins behind that unreal offensive line, and in the second half, it was pretty special. He had 12 carries for 60 yards in the first half, so I don't mean to underestimate that part of his contribution. But, the 16 carries for 97 yards in the second half is when the plays start to go downhill and life is taken out of the stadium completely. The team ran for 191 yards, which is 14 more than the Packers had allowed all season to that point.

It is pretty clear who won the battle of No. 1 rushing offense versus No. 1 rushing defense. One side will likely still be ranked at the top all season. The other will likely be league-average soon enough.

It would be foolish to not properly recognize the other side of this performance, as well. The Cowboys' defense was the next in the line to assist the Packers in driving that once-pristine offense off the side of a cliff, but give the Cowboys plenty of credit for stripping that football loose and taking it away four times on Sunday. Aaron Rodgers has started 67 games at Lambeau Field -- his offense had been guilty of four giveaways on one day just one other time. (And they won that game.) This one was simply impossible to win as the team stripped Jordy Nelson with a big hit from Barry Church, then Church stepped in front of a route to Randall Cobb on a play where Rodgers said he never saw Church. After that, a strip of Rodgers at the 1-yard line and another strip of Ty Montgomery late showed that David Irving has a knack for going after the ball. Rodgers left several plays on the field, but the Cowboys walked the tightrope well enough. And when you go get the ball for your offense that many times, you erase a lot of other mistakes.

Now the Cowboys can rest for a bit and get some players healthy. They are now the talk of the league and while we can debate where they rank among the best teams -- and we can certainly debate whether the Cowboys are smart enough not to block a moving train -- there is no debating what we witnessed the past two weekends.

The Cowboys have played two teams who have perfect attendance in the playoffs the past five seasons (10 for 10) in the Bengals and Packers. Not sure either is a Super Bowl contender, but they are definitely teams that play in January every year. The Cowboys dismantled both without Romo or Bryant or Scandrick, and it wasn't particularly close in either case.

These wins should do all sorts of good for the confidence level in their locker room, and the feeling of promise of what lies ahead. They are absolutely firing on all cylinders.

This all snuck up on us in August again. But, by October, it is undeniable:

This team is very good.

Gameplan - Dak Prescott Will Get A Chance To Pass Blitz Test In Green Bay

The ease with which Dak Prescott has passed every test that he has been administered continues to dazzle the football world.  To be honest, if you go all the way back to his first professional action in the preseason opener in the Los Angeles Coliseum, we are now approaching double-digit performances in a row where this rookie QB has left the masses with a good taste in their mouths.  He was largely ignored in the first two days of his draft class, and then within the first month of his NFL career is making every other draft-room recheck their notes that said not to touch him.  

That look in his eye seems to be one of his finest attributes.  His calm and his poise make you forget he is just a lad in professional terms.  No situation has rocked his exterior and he makes almost every proper read and decision as the team continues to march down the field and put the ball in the end zone. 

Sunday may hold a new test for young Prescott that will be interesting to track.  This week the Cowboys play in Green Bay for the sixth time since 2008.  That was the year that Tony Romo became the only Dallas QB to ever win in that stadium over the course of the nearly six decades they have been playing each other.   

Since then, the Cowboys have visited Green Bay three times in the regular season  (the playoff visit has certainly been well-documented) and have scored seven points each time in three rather emphatic losses where Green Bay has averaged 30.  On only one occasion did the Cowboys have Tony Romo, and he'll obviously be missing this matchup, as well.   And in all three of those matchups, Dom Capers did pretty much the same thing he always does.

He brings pressure as much as nearly anyone on the schedule.  In a league where defenses range between roughly 20 and 40 percent in their regularity of bringing more than four pass rushers, the Cowboys have not faced this test yet. Thanks to the schedule, Prescott has been able to play his first five games against opponents that do not blitz at even the league average.  All of those opponents are not pressure defenses, and Washington, Chicago and Cincinnati are among those that are at the bottom of the league in pressure occasions, at or below 20 percent.  Green Bay is up over 40 percent.

Green Bay loves to play a high-risk version of defense in rushing mostly five and sometimes six to stress a quarterback.  Especially at Lambeau Field where the crowd can cause even more of an issue.  Since Capers was hired, no team in the NFL has more interceptions, and they also rank near the top in sacks. 

It does come with a price, though.  Like touching a hot stove, they have been burned by being vulnerable to big plays when the blitz pulls defenders out of safe places and leaves open field behind them.  The Cowboys will continue to use quick hitters to Cole Beasley and friends to try to expose that.  You may recall Romo hit them against the blitz a few times in that playoff game.  That is the only way to stop it.

In a week where everyone talks about the Packer run defense, I suspect the Cowboys will do quite well on the ground.  Green Bay's numbers are inflated because the early part of their schedule has included a majority of teams that don't threaten anyone running the ball.  But, quite possibly, the key to this matchup is how Prescott deals with his first taste of heavy blitzing when he wishes to pass. 

It is worth watching this closely to see if he jumps this hurdle as easily as all of the others.

Marinelli Report - Week 5 - Bengals

http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2016/10/12/sturms-marinelli-report-defenses-big-advantage-back

Hopefully, you have been reading my weekly reports for years and years.  If you have, you know all about some of my theories and findings that this many years have provided.  If not, let's get you caught up on one of the main truths about defense -- it plays in wildly different game situations that it often has very little to do with.  And when you ask it to play downhill versus uphill, it wildly affects its ability to help you win.

This is what is tricky about football sometimes.  We want to evaluate everything independently, but sometimes that is very difficult.  A defense needs an offense to hold the ball a bit, but far more importantly than the overrated time of possession obsession that so many people have, the defense needs the offense to score.  This may seem obvious, but sometimes when we talk about T.O.P. there are actually some people who wonder about the negative byproducts of scoring too fast.  Let me help you on that -- there are none.  

The main objective of any and every offense is to score.  Owning the ball is a theory that the defense will never have to take the field -- which is a theory that only works if you play in a make-it-take-it league.  Since none of those exist in the pro ranks, it is a faulty system.  Now, of course, if you can score and eat 10 minutes, great.  But, there is no real correlation between winning and time of possession.  It is a product of winning, not a driver of winning.  

But, there is correlation between that game situation for a defense.  Across the NFL, when a defense is ahead by 4+ points, the interception rate shoots up off the graph and the sack rate compounds over and over again.  In other words, defenses that are ahead do more of the fun things we all want to see.

Why?  There are a number of reasons.  One, the opposition stops running a balanced offense and simply starts passing more. It also gets aggressive and holds the ball in the pocket hoping for a play to open up out of desperation.  It forces the ball into coverage.  Meanwhile, the defense starts pinning its ears back and simply not caring about playing the run honestly.  It starts stunting and blitzing because there is blood in the water.  

By in large, sacks are found when you are ahead.  And since the Cowboys took a lead early against the Bengals, we saw this play out yet again on Sunday.  

To give you an example of how this might have something to do with what you think of the Cowboys defense, just know this: In 2014, the Cowboys defense played with a 4+ point lead on 49 percent of all snaps (483 snaps).  It was an insane amount of advantageous snaps.  In 2015, that number dropped off the face of the planet all the way down to 16 percent (159 snaps).  So far this year?  The defense has played in 206 snaps up 4+ points!  That is good for 63 percent!  

So that is good news and bad news.  The good news is that the Cowboys are always ahead!  The bad news is that even with this great advantage, they are still below league average in sacks and takeaways.  In other words, they have probably been ahead more than almost anyone (Minnesota would be the exception) and while some teams are up near 20 sacks, the Cowboys needed a huge night to get the season total to 10.  They are 17th in sacks and 22nd in takeaways, despite having everything tilted in their direction.

But, let's not worry about those ominous clouds.  Let's focus on the uptick that coincided nicely with the return of DeMarcus Lawrence.  Anytime the Cowboys get 4 sacks in a game, our film study demands we go in that direction.  

This is just the fourth time since the start of the Marinelli era (39 games now) when the team has achieved the 4-sack badge -- 2015 vs. New England, 2014 in London vs. Jacksonville and at Philadelphia.

Let's look at some of the damage:

You are going to see a lot of this is built around Anthony Brown blitzing today.   Here, the Bengals sniff out the slot blitzer, and move the right guard to pull out on a play-action look to get the edge guy which works well.  What doesn't work well is that the center 61-Bodine tries to deal with 92-Cedric Thornton and is just flat destroyed.  It looks like he got tripped, but Thornton arrives at Dalton in a hurry and this play never had a chance.  That was at 14-0.  The rest are when the game is in full-blowout mode.

This isn't a sack, but it is a play destroyed by pass rush.  Bootleg to get Dalton out in space, but 93-Benson Mayowa is showing outside linebacker wheels and motor to end this play pretty quick, too.  I thought it deserved some recognition today.  Wonderful power to knock the TE off the block and then great quicks to chase Dalton down.  Mayowa is a very useful piece on passing downs.

Rod Marinelli defenses employ a ton of teamwork in pass rushing.  He wants active bodies and he wants to use them in concert and tandems to free each other up.  It is difficult to say if this is an intended tackle-tackle game or whether it just organically occurred (to me it looks intentional), but Maliek Collins definitely  freed up Terrell McClain for a clear path at Dalton here.  You will see this a lot, so I am pretty sure they are taught to try to get home, but if you can't, obstruct or hip check someone else's guy to give him a win.  This is clearly something that doesn't show up in the box-score, but Maliek Collins deserves something for making this sack possible.  

Coverage sack here.  You can see nothing open so Dalton has to wait.  That, of course, makes this happen.  This is McClain and Jack Crawford (so underrated) who meet at the QB as he tries to escape the pocket.  This play shows the 4 rushers are just a pack of wild animals here.  Great effort levels and motor.  Like we said, they can smell blood now in the fourth quarter of a 28-0 rout.  

This sack didn't count because of a bit of a ticky-tack call on Justin Durant in the secondary.  But, watch 75-Ryan Davis work over the Aggie 70-Cedric Ogbuehi who offers the body posture of someone who knows they just did something very wrong.  Again, it didn't count, but you can see why Ryan Davis is worth having on this roster.

And then this final sack is just an example of what this defense is all about right now.  Full effort from everyone for 3 hours and that 97-Terrell McClain might be the best of the bunch at this.  His energy is so good.  I have been really impressed with him all season. What a great under-the-radar improvement to just get him healthy.  Mayowa gets this sack as again, you have multiple guys bearing down on the QB which makes life miserable for a guy trying to look downfield.  

This bonus GIF is from the second quarter on third down.  I just wanted you to see another rush where they are perfectly in concert and working together to cause problems.  Dalton did not get near the sticks, so this is a win -- getting off the field on third down.

Can they keep this up?  I like their chances if the score is going to continue to be in their favor so much.

WEEKLY DATA

A massive improvement on allowing explosives.  Just two is great.  Also, you will take 5.5 yards per play.  Again, so much garbage time influences a lot of numbers.

ANDY DALTON THROW CHART

What a job by this team for taking AJ Green out of any sort of explosive day.  I think the corners have all played very well for five weeks.  Anthony Brown looks like a great sixth-round pick and Claiborne keeps making plays.  More importantly, you can see Claiborne get that swagger back.  It was long gone for quite a while.

SPLASH PLAYS

And now the season totals for splash plays through 5 games show some unlikely leaders:

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

There is nothing to say after this defensive performance other than offer positive reviews and wonder if they have figured out how to make an anonymous defensive line work again.  Surely, this needs to be tested against the Packers, Eagles, and Steelers in the next month or so, but the pressure is coming and although the attempts per sack are still way too low (19.7 attempts per sack), Sunday was a big step forward.  

Green Bay wants to run to put less on a passing game that is just stuck in a low gear right now, but Eddie Lacy's availability and effectiveness are going to be called into question with what appears to be a high ankle sprain last Sunday against the Giants.  You won't believe this, but it seems like a great time to play Aaron Rodgers.  Their passing game is just not close to what it has been for years.  In other words, whatever the plan was against the Bengals in coverage, I suspect that will be pretty good this week.  However, the Packers' pass protection has been so good and Rodgers often gets forever to try to find receivers that don't seem open very often.  

But, that might depend on the game situation as well.  Which means we don't know how much of the plan was dependent on the Cowboys being up 14-0 before the Bengals touched the ball a second time.  And that is highly unrealistic to expect each week.  

This should be a very interesting test for this defense.