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Practice Report — Tuesday, August 16th

What began as a slow paced practice that emphasized the smallest details of the game evolved into the most aggressive practice of the week and offers the promise that this weekends stumbling performance in Arizona will be soon forgotten.

The light finally appeared to come on for the offense, which has been at the mercy of the defense thus far. The coaching staff challenged the players individually and as units and they performed today. The capper of the day was a successful series of two minute drills in which all three units moved successfully into scoring range.

Intensity was the last word you would use to describe the first half hour today. The team seemed almost too relaxed. After stretching the team gathered at the near field to work on punt coverage. But the drill looked nothing like a punt. The ball was snapped to Matt McBriar, who would feign kicking the ball. And then, the linemen would take turn covering the fake kick; they would walk five yards up the field and stop. Coach Bruce DeHaven’s interest was in spacing them correctly.

After the team broke into units, the sleepy pace continued. Todd Bowles had his defensive backs standing opposite one another in a line, not moving. It took a few minutes for me to figure out what he was doing. This was a drill to teach proper spacing against receivers who go in motion. One of the “offensive” players would move laterally — at half speed — and his assigned defender would trail him. Bowles would stop them in half motion, so to speak and show the DB or S why he should not trail too far behind or crowd the man too closely. After a few series of this, he would drill them on switching on men in motion when the defense is in zone.

Farther up the field the inside linebackers were passing through repetition after repetition to see if they could read whether a QB was actually handing off to a back to keeping the ball to run a bootleg pass. One of the assistants would fake the handoff and other times actually hand it off. The backers had to yell the proper call to each other and respond quickly.

On the opposite field, the QBs and backs were working on confusing their opponents as much as possible. In one of those strange mirror drills, the three QBs would line up on the same yard line some fifteen yards apart. Each had a coach to snap the ball to them, a back behind them, a tight end and a receiver. Drew Bledsoe would call the signals and on the proper count the ball was snapped to all three QBs simultaneously. Each would drop back and either hand off, fake the handoff and then either drop back or rollout. The drill emphasized proper footwork and ball placement to sell the fake. But seeing all three units do it at the same time made that part of the field represent a ballroom dancing class more than a football practice.

The sum of these drills was a drowsy, sometimes silly looking early practice. But the need for them should be clear. These are the little details that can make or break a team’s execution. Good teams do them by rote. Bad teams merely talk about them. The Cowboys have been a bad team. They are coming off a bad game. These are the intricate details they must master if they want to get better.

After this set of drills, the team repeated many of the technique drills I reported on Monday morning. After that, the offense and defense met by position to challenge each other. It was here the the more intense tone of today’s practice became more apparent. The receivers squared off against the corners, but unlike yesterday, where it was unit against unit today it was one on one. Drew Bledsoe would take the snap and look to his right. Terry Glenn would be there, lined up against Terrence Newman. Nobody else. The sequence of duels could best be described a draw. The offense won some. The defense won some.

On the far field the offensive and defensive linemen were squaring off. Only here they were doing so in groups of three. OL coach Tony Sparano began the drill by having two guards and a center square off against a nose tackle and two inside linebackers. Later, he would have one side of his line, a tackle, guard and center match a defense end and an inside and outside linebacker. The defense won a few, with Greg Ellis getting the better of Flozell Adams on one occasion. However, the majority of the duels went to the offense. Andre Gurode showed some temper by planting nose tackles at least twice.

The hit of the drill was turned in by Larry Allen, who ate his Wheaties today. Allen caught an unsuspecting Ryan Fowler, who had another good practice himself, and literally threw him five yards backwards. This was the type of hit Allen made frequently in his prime and it brought oohs and ahs from his teammates. Poor Fowler had to take a long slow walk behind his group in order to gather his senses. He’s the biggest ILB the Cowboys have and Allen had thrown him like a medicine ball.

The team reassembled for some field goal drills and punt coverage drills. DeHaven first slowed practice down again in order to drill his edge men on working in tandem to jam the other team’s gunners. The linebackers also worked on running downfield, turning quickly, finding their man and blocking him. The quick pace then resumed when the first team coverage unit took on the first team punt returners. The top set right now shows how important this unit will be this year. Anthony Henry and Ike Reese were one set of wide men, while Aaron Glenn and Jacques Reeves worked on the other side. Terrence Newman lined up deep as the return man. That’s your top three cornerbacks, the top young reserve CB in Reeves and the free safety with the most special teams experience. After six returns, DeHaven appeared satisfied with the improvement in blocking and moved on.

Dallas then jumped into the first set of 11-on-11 drills. All running plays. The defense won a handful of battles but roughly two thirds of the plays went to the offense, who showed surprising strength on the right side, where Tyson Walter manned the RG and Rob Petitti the RT slot.

The team then broke again into two groups, with the skill position players running seven on seven drills against the defense and the linemen again squaring off in sub units. This time, they ran two on three drills, with two d-linemen running stunts against one side of an offensive line. Gurode again made some impressive hits. Parcells wandered over to this drill and worked with the defenders. If Parcells words carry any weight it was a good drill for Chris Canty and Thomas Johnson, who made strong penetration on their stunts and would have reached a real QB.

The team then returned to a second 11-on-11, which was again notable for the offense’s dominance. The crispness that was missing on Monday seemed to flourish overnight. Bledsoe finally began to string sequence of plays together. Big plays emerged. Tyson Thompson took a delay up the middle for an enormous gain; Bledsoe hit Anthony Thomas on a deep swing route behind Demarcus Ware for another huge play. Bledsoe just missed capping his set with a bomb to Terry Glenn, who had burned Aaron Glenn badly.

After a brief water break, Parcells summoned the team to the middle of the field to set up the final drill of the day. Each offensive unit would run a two minute offense against their defensive counterpart. Parcells would keep time. The offense would get one time out.

Each unit started at mid field. Bledsoe led an offense that featured Julius Jones at RB, Jason Witten at TE and Terry Glenn, Keyshawn Johnson and Patrick Crayton as WRs on the field. Bledsoe started their drive with a seven yard shallow cross to Keyshawn Johnson. The play was whistled dead on contact, with tackling not allowed. On the next play, Roy Williams joined a four man rush line of Greg Ellis, LaRoi Glover, Chris Canty and Demarcus Ware on a safety blitz. Witten picked up Williams, which allowed Bledsoe time to step up in the pocket and find Glenn sliding across the middle for 17 yards.

As the team ran to the line to continue the sequence with no huddle, Rob Petitti turned to Witten to discuss his assignment, which he had apparently blown. This slowed the offense and drew a delay of game penalty from Parcells. With the ball back on the 32, Bledsoe ran a rollout right and hit Glenn for seven on the far sideline. The play was the perfect antidote for a second safely blitz up the middle by Williams. The team huddled as Glenn stopped the clock. On the next play the defense sent Anthony Henry on a corner blitz from Bledsoe’s left side. He again adjusted, hitting Witten over the middle on a hot read for nine more yards. The offense ran into position, set and Bledsoe spiked the ball. Parcells motioned the first offense to the sideline and congratulated them on moving into medium field goal range.

Tony Romo brought Anthony Thomas, Dan Campbell, Quincy Morgan, Jamaica Rector and Zuriel Smith with him. Their drive did not begin as effectively, as a draw to Thomas was stopped for only two yards. Romo then beat his first blitz, finding Rector over the middle for sixteen yards. The offense ran to the line and Romo spiked the ball for an apparent successful first sequence. However, Parcells penalized them because only six men lined up on the line of scrimmage. After an incompletion, Romo beat another corner blitz by tossing a soft ball up the left seam for Thomas, who released upfield upon seeing the blitz. Thomas ran under the ball two yards behind Eric Ogbogu, who dropped into coverage on the zone blitz. The ball was whistled dead around the ten, though Thomas likely would have scored were full contact allowed. Parcells motioned the second unit off the field and brought on the third team.

Drew Henson moved his team to a quick first down with a 12 yard strike to Brett Pierce. After an incompletion and a sack for no gain, Henson ended the day, and earned a smile from his head coach by lofting a rainbow into the left corner of the end zone, where Reggie Harrell snagged it.

All three offensive units had faced intense pressure from the defense. This was a fully open drill, where nothing was telegraphed. There were two minor penalties, but the offense had responded to the challenges, as they had all day. There were no blocking breakdowns. The QBs and the receivers adjusted properly to the blitzes they faced. The no huddle was in sync for all players, from the linemen to the skill people. The overall execution was dramatically better than the fumbling I saw Monday. If you really play the way you practice, the Cowboys should be dramatically better this coming week against the Seahawks.

Bring on Wednesday.

Notes

• After watching Tyson Thompson today, I think the question is no longer whether he can make the team but whether he can beat out Anthony Thomas for the backup spot. He got A LOT of reps with the second team, and in many packages was ahead of the A-Train.
• After some near misses on bombs this week, Drew Bledsoe and Terry Glenn stayed a few minutes after practice to work on their timing. Glenn is burning Terrence Newman and Aaron Glenn with regularity and could have a really big year if Bledsoe can dial him in.
• Marion Barber got some encouraging words from Bill Parcells after a strong run in the second 11-on-11 drill. Barber is pressing too hard. He makes good plays and then drops a pass. He is obviously wound tight right now and Parcells was probably hoping some positive reenforcement would calm him down.
• Deja vu. When I’ve looked at Chris Canty I’ve had the nagging feeling that I’ve seen him before. The high cut figure, with thick legs and a slender upper body. The long arms. The way he stands arms akimbo between plays. Parcells has compared him to Too Tall Jones, but it didn’t fit. I thought maybe Leon Lett, but Leon was a thicker player than Canty, who looks skinny next to the other linemen. Today, it hit me — Chris Canty is built like Bob Lilly. We can only hope he’s half as good. Another familiar figure is Rob Petitti, who is built like Erik Williams. That he wears number 79 only heightens the illusion.
• The cyclone. The tornado. Get ready for it. Demarcus Ware has a devastating spin move that will demand a nickname. Yesterday he threw an outside spin at Brett Pierce. Today, he used an inside spin to waste Kurt Vollers in the three on two drill.
• I talked about the need to keep at least eight linebackers, to stock the special teams. Today, every linebacker on the team was involved in the special teams drills. So were all the corners and safeties.
• Anthony Henry has not been named the last two days because I’ve only seen one pass completed against him. And that was a comeback route by Keyshawn Johnson that Henry managed to graze.

Copyright 2005 by Rafael Vela

A Programming Note…

… as the networks say.

There is only one practice today, at 2 pm local time. Because of wifi access limitatations, my next report will go up early Wednesday morning.

– Rafael

UPDATE: Okay, I lied. But in a good way. I found an amazing bed and breakfast, cheap, three blocks from the ocean, WITH WIFI!!!!!

I’ll be posting around 11 pm Central time. A teaser: practice was amazing today. LOTS of positive news.

Monday Afternoon Report, August 15th

I believe that one reason the staff is working Rob Petitti so much with the first unit at RT is their confidence in Kurt Vollers to man the spot. It was therefore a concern to see him open the afternoon practice on the sideline with one of the trainers, walking the sideline and doing extra stretches. It was nothing but a false alarm, as Vollers worked the entire afternoon with the second unit at left tackle.

The afternoon began much like the morning, only the initial pace was slower. The team assembled on the far field and began the session working on punt coverage. After fifteen minutes the offense and defense squared off in a half speed drill to test knowledge of plays and recognition of sets by the defense. Where the morning featured base sets, the offense unwrapped its more aggressive passing formations here. It appears the Cowboys will stay relatively elemental, in great part because of Jason Witten’s versatility. The offense used a lot of three WR sets, with Terry Glenn lining up as a split end and Keyshawn Johnson lining up in the slot inside either Quincy Morgan or Patrick Crayton. When the Cowboys wanted to spread the defense even more, in something resembling a four WR set, Witten would split wide, standing in the slot opposite Johnson. This caused lots of mismatch problems and will likely do the same for opposing teams this year.

After spending the morning watching the linemen, I spent much of the afternoon session watching Todd Bowles work out the defensive backs in unit drills. Bowles, like Tony Sparano and Kacey Rogers, split his unit into two groups, with the cornerbacks working in one unit and the safeties in another.

The safeties devoted their early time to their positioning, on not getting turned too quickly and burned on combination moves. They also worked on dodging receivers who were attacking them on an angle during running plays. The CB group worked on similar recognition drills. First, they practiced recognizing and jumping slant routes, with Bowles acting as the QB. Every so often, he would instruct the “offensive” player to run a post corner, to see if his corners could adjust to the second move.

Both groups reunited in a wrap-up drill. Bowles had the defensive group ten yards apart from the offensive group. The offensive player would run forwards and try to fake out the defensive player. Any move was allowed. The defensive player had to initiate contact and wrap up. Tackling was not allowed. Jacques Reeves opened the drill by drawing Roy Williams as his defensive counterpart. The two smiled at each other and Williams did an ole, letting Reeves pass. Bowles made them repeat the rep and Williams got some love from the crowd when he wrapped Reeves up and spun him to the ground. Poor Jacques drew Williams a couple more times in the drill. He got tagged, but Roy had some mercy on him these times.

In the next fifteen minutes the D-backs grouped with the linebackers to work on coverage schemes. An offensive group slipped colored balaclavas onto their helmets so the defensive players could recognize them. The defense practiced a few zone schemes but mostly worked on man coverage. Almost all of the drill was done in the nickel defense, who had to recognize and line up properly against a number of offensive groupings. Much of the drill involved coverage against bunch formations, which set three receivers tight to one side or another in a “bunch” which then scatters at the snap of the ball. Gary Gibbs had some plays re-run, since his linebackers flubbed some switches. The corners and safeties however, had no trouble recognizing and reacting to the ball. Many of the plays were run against to the offenses right, where Terrence Newman and Aaron Glenn had several breakups.

The first unit nickel, as it lined up yesterday, had Dat Nguyen and Scott Shanle as its linebackers, with Glenn playing left corner and Anthony Henry on the right. Newman played the slot receiver. Roy Williams lined up as a safety behind Newman, and Keith Davis would slide to the side opposite the slot-WR. When the nickel faced a four wideout look, Williams would come up to the line and take the second inside man, with Davis playing in the deep middle.

After the nickel drill, the offense and defense matched up in units. The group nearest me had the linebackers and safeties square off against the tight ends and running backs in a blitz drill. The coached set up blocking pads and inverted trash cans to demark the positions of the center and the tackles. A cone was placed seven yards behind the center, to note where the QB would be on a seven step drop. A back or tight end would line up in the backfield and attempt to protect the cone against a blitzing defender. The drill offered up lots of information.

First, it appears that Parcells was probably right when he said the team might not carry a true fullback. Erik Bickerstaff was in uniform, but did not participate in this drill, probably to protect his strained neck. However, almost all the reps had tight ends Dan Campbell, Jason Witten and Brett Pierce lining up in the fullback spots. Next, it appears that Witten has worked extensively on his blocking. He was the most effective of the three tight ends in the drill, not allowing his man to reach the cone.

The backs were a mixed back of results. Julius Jones won’t make anybody forget Emmitt Smith’s blocking (Emmitt was the best pass blocking RB I have ever seen),but he’s okay. Marion Barber looks like a rookie, solid one play and confused the next. The real surprise was Anthony Thomas, who is flat out lousy as a pass blocker. He will probably make the team as the change-up back, because next to Jones he is the most assured runner in camp. But don’t expect to see him in the game as a third down back, because he’ll get his QB killed. Thomas was consistently overrun during the drill, and seemed to want no part of mixing it up.

Roy Williams was a star of the drill, regularly blowing past backs and once finishing his rep by scooping up the cone, to indicate a sack. The crowd edged forwards every time he got a turn. When he hits somebody it just sounds different. There were some pleasant surprises from the rookies. Kevin Burnett has some blitz potential. He probably won’t do it that often, but he showed that he could beat his man when called upon.

The guy who had everybody shaking their heads in admiration was Demarcus Ware. The man has skills. He got three turns in the drill and produced three memorable results. On his first play he lined up at right OLB opposite Brett Pierce. He made contact and shed Pierce with a silky smooth — and fast — spin move that landed him at the cone. His next rep put him at left OLB and this time he simply blew past Keylon Kincade untouched to the cone. After showing off his quickness, Ware surprised Dan Campbell with his power. Back at ROLB, Ware juked Campbell to the outside, then surprised the TE by blasting right into him. Ware got under Campbell’s pads, drove him backwards and deposited him on the cone. Campbell, as you might expect, was not pleased at getting embarrassed. If Ware can make a guy like Campbell look bad, I imagine there are not many TE or FBs out there who can take him one-on-one.

On the far field, the WRs and DBs were running seven on seven drills. Much of the action was obscured, but Reggie Harrell made a spectacular play that took everyone’s attention off the blitz drill for a moment. Harrell was running a go route against Bruce Thornton when he stopped, leaped and made a one handed stab of an underthrown Tony Romo pass. This alone won’t get him on the team, but if Harrell can do something like this in the exhibition games, he’s got a shot.

The practice ended with situational 11-on-11 drills. The first half of the drill put the ball on the offense’s own 40 and had them try deep and intermediate routes down the field. After each offensive unit got a couple of reps at this the ball as placed at the 20 and the team worked on red zone passing. The offense is clearly still behind the defense. All units, whether they were led by Bledsoe, Romo or Henson were erratic. The offense could not string three good plays together. They would have two good passes, and follow them up with two bad one. Bledsoe, for instance, opened the drill with a short completion to Glenn and a nice completion on a deep in to Campbell. The next two plays produced a false start and a center snap from Al Johnson that sailed over Bledsoe’s head. I don’t know how much of the sputtering is due to the defense and how much is due to the lack of a mesh on the offensive side of the ball.

What is clear is that all the QBs already trust Jason Witten with their football lives. Bledsoe knows where to find him and how to get him the ball. Romo does too. He caught TDs from both of them in the red zone drill. If you’re looking for an indespensible player on offense, I’d put Witten ahead of Julius Jones. Dallas has depth at RB and could go forward if Jones were hurt. If Witten went down, however, I think he’d take the entire passing game with him.

Copyright 2005 by Rafael Vela

Monday Morning Leftovers

The one and only cafe with free wifi in Oxnard has a peculiar habit of closing at 3 pm, so my report on Monday morning practice was cut short. Here are some more notes fresh off the cutting room floor:

Formation packages: In the seven on seven and eleven-on-eleven drills, the offense stayed in fairly basic packages. There were I formations, split-back formations and lots of two TE sets. There were no empty packages or even three WR sets then.

On the defensive side of things, I’d say at least 75% of the packages run were 3-4. As I said in the earlier post, all of the lineman drills put them in a 3-4 front. When the 11-on-11 drills took place, the defense ran 3-4 exclusively as a run defense and mixed in a few four man lines when they were in nickel.

Random notes: Chris Canty must have appeared like a fine watch that the coaches could only admire through the case, but could not open. He got a lot of reps in the morning, at different positions in the 3-4 and the 4-3. He lined up most of the time as a RE in a three man line, but slid inside to pair with Thomas Johnson when the team put in four man lines to front the nickel.

Torrin Tucker suffered the indignity of working the morning as a LT with the third unit. He was back at his more familiar RT spot with the second unit in the afternoon.

I’m not sure what they discussed, but Leonardo Carson and Bill Parcells had a long talk alone on the practice field, staying ten minutes after everyone else left. There did not appear to be rancor involved; Parcells looked upbeat, but each had something they needed to explain to the other. The two walked slowly to the locker room together to end the session.

The catch that drew the biggest oohs and ahs from the faithful in the seven on seven drill was a twisting, diving catch by Ahmad Merritt. The quality of his opposition was dubious. Merritt split the third unit tandem of Izell Reese and Woody Danzler, who were soft in their play.

Keith Davis, on the other hand, is clearly the best FS candidate on the current roster. He looks more assured and was the most aggressive player at his position Monday. His breakup of a pass for Keyshawn Johnson was one of the highlights of the passing drills. I’m not sure if he’s good enough to keep the Cowboys from claiming another veteran or trading for one, but he’s ahead of Lynn Scott and Ike Reese.

Copyright 2005 by Rafael Vela

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