• Home
• Privacy Policy
• “The Sports Doctors”

Subscribe

• Games
  • Previews
  • Threads
  • Wrapup
• General
  • Fantasy
  • The Leon Awards
  • Trends
  • Trolling the Universe
• News
  • Draft
  • History
  • Interviews
  • Podcast
• NFL
  • Players
  • Teams
• Training Camp

A Carbon Copy Deja Vu

When Dallas faces the Eagles Sunday night, they’ll be taking their second swipe at a Jim Johnson-style scheme.  As you’ll recall, first year Giants DC Steve Spagnuolo was Johnson’s linebacker coach the past few years and week one offered a chance to see how Jason Garrett would fare against a Johnsonesque blitz-happy scheme.

45 points was an emphatic answer.

Now, Garrett gets a two week run against the same defensive scheme, going against the mentor Johnson this week and  Spagnuolo in New York next week.

The Eagles defense Dallas sees this week maintains its proven approach.  Johnson will blitz you silly until you prove you can resist the rushes and hurt his pass defense.  In years past, teams with good running attacks would forego passing to hammer at the Philadelphia interior.

The Eagles were weak against the run but have made a dramatic improvement this year.  They rank just two steps behind Dallas in overall yardage allowed (6th vs. 8th) passing (13th vs. 15th) and rush defense (5th vs. 8th).   Philadelphia bests the Cowboys in points allowed (16.7 to 22.6) but if you remove the 35 points Dallas has allowed on a kickoff return, a punt return, two INT returns and a fumble return for a score, the margin narrows to 16.7 to 17.6.

Dallas will in effect, be facing a carbon copy of its own defense this week.

The difference may be the Eagles offense.  Philadelphia has struggled all year to score, topping 16 points just twice this year.  A 56 blowout versus Detroit in week three convinced many people that the Eagles were over a sluggish 0-2 start where they scored only 15 points but Philly followed that outburst with a 3 point letdown against the Giants.  Last weeks 23 points against the Vikings was the second highest posting this year.

How do the Cowboys match up?  We’ll look at one half of the matchup tomorrow.

Quick Kill Opportunity

Game eights can hardly be called critical but Sunday Night’s game is a great opportunity for Dallas to make a quick kill on one of its divisional rivals.

The Eagles are already 2-4 in the conference and 0-2 in the division. Only Atlanta and the winless Rams are worse in those categories among NFC teams.

Pushing the Eagles to 2-5 and 0-3 while rising to 5-0 and 2-0 in the same categories would put the Eagles’ tie breaker hopes on a respirator.

But as we’ve seen time and again, that’s easier said than done. One thing we can say for Wade Phillips this year — he’s had his teams prepared every week. The Cowboys were outgunned by the Pats and Tony Romo’s head was foggy in Buffalo but I can’t think of a week when the team was flat across the board. That was an all too-frequent circumstance in the Bill Parcells Era.

The Eagles will have to win outright Sunday night because the Cowboys won’t give it to them.

Mo Romo — Six Year’s Worth

He’d like to thank you on behalf of himself and the team ’cause it looks like he passed the audition:

ESPN, citing unnamed sources, says the Cowboys and Tony Romo have agreed to a six year, $67.5 million deal that includes $30 million in guaranteed money.

The team will hold a press conference tomorrow morning to announce the contract.

Missing Terry

The numbers don’t lie:

First four games:  37.8 pts. per game.  High — 45,  low — 34;

Next three games:  25.3 pts. per game.  High — 27,  low — 24.

The NFL is a game of adjustments and counter-adjustments.  For the first month the Cowboys offense was unstoppable.  Buffalo tamed the passing game somewhat, playing double zone and keeping the Cowboys’ receivers locked down.  Jason Witten scored a TD on a seam route, but that’s been it for Dallas’ deep game the past three matches.

Jason Garrett was able to hide Dallas’ lack of a true deep threat but teams have caught on.  Dallas started to adjust against the Vikings, but turnovers spoiled several strong intermediate-throw based drives.  Terry Glenn is still a few weeks away, according to the latest reports, but he can’t come back soon enough.

Sunday Thread

Redskins/Pats tops my viewing bill.

What do you know?

Henry Could Finally Suture the Secondary’s Wounds

We all recall the carnage of last December, when the coaches room resembled a triage center. The Cowboys secondary was gashed and no amount of blitzes or soft coverages could prevent it from bleeding big plays:

61 and 42 yard TDs to the Saints.

52, 43 and 26 yard leaks against the Falcons.

24, 35 and 65 yard breakdowns on Christmas Day against the Eagles, and finally,

20, 24, 24 and 21 yard surrenders in a slow, closing-day death against the Lions.

The first week of the new year, have long argued, resembles most closely the last month of the previous campaign. And so Cowboys fans everywhere felt heartburn when Eli Manning went 60 yards over the top to Plaxico Burress on the third play of the new season. Manning picked away at the soft, eight-yards off edge coverage of Anthony Henry and Jacques Reeves finding Burress for several more big plays. Terence Newman was injured and it felt as if the coverage would limp along as he did that September, tentatively and painfully.

Today, as we reach the end of bye week, it’s time to give Dr. Wade Phillips come credit for bravely and deliberately raising his secondary to health. He, his coordinator Brian Stewart, secondary coach Todd Bowles and the training staff made some critical decisions that appear to be paying off.

The first was cutting veteran Aaron Glenn and inserting Jacques Reeves at left corner. Reeves is entering his contract year and many questioned whether he would even survive camp, much less start. The staff gave Reeves his mandate — keep the ball in front of you. His September play was maddening in its conservative consistency. Reeves played eight to nine yards off the line of scrimmage and gave up 8, 9, 10, 12 and 15 yard outs and comebacks by the handful.

But the directive had a purpose. Reeves might give up the intermediate throw but only one, in Miami, did a receiver get behind him, when Chris Chambers caught an 18 yard TD fade.

After the Chicago game, Reeves began to gain in confidence. His cushion tightened and now the 10 to 15 yard receptions are gone. Donte Stallworth broke him for 69 yards in the Pats loss, but teams are not even trying him right now and when throws are made to his side, they’re going for 5 to 8 yards now. He’s proven to be a much better solution than Glenn, who is playing out his days on Jacksonville’s bench.

The team let Newman’s plantar fascia tear heal. Now, he looks spry and Reeves looks confident. With Henry due to return against Philadelphia the Cowboys will have a healthy corner trio for the first time this year. (They played together in Chicago but Newman was used sparingly.) That offers promise to a secondary which has curbed the big pass play. The Giants did hit Dallas for several and Tom Brady ripped the secondary for four passes of 20 yards or more but no other team has scored more than one big pass play per game on the back four.

With Henry back at right corner, Newman can play his favored slot position against three receiver packages.

The Eagles injury-ravaged offense seems to be healing just in time for the Dallas game and we keep hearing from the national press how the Giants have changed.

So, it appears, will the Dallas secondary. Newman didn’t play against New York and Reeves was making his first ever start. Henry’s return means Dallas could finally have the personnel to stop the coverage bleeding, for once and for all.

Mirror 7

How this year’s and last year’s Cowboys stack up after seven games:

	2006	2007
Record	4-3	6-1
Pts. scored	203	227
Avg.	29.0	32.4
Pts. allowed	142	158
Avg.	20.1	22.6
Home	2-1	3-1
Road	2-2	3-0

The points scored and allowed are not that much different from ‘06 to ‘07. So how can we account for the two game improvement? Let’s start under center.

Player	Att.	Comp.	Comp. %	Yds.	Yds. Att.	TDs	INTs	Rating
Bledsoe ‘06	169	90	53.3	1164	6.9	7	8	69.2
Romo ‘07	239	150	62.8	1984	8.3	16	9	95.6

(Bledsoe’s stats through six games)

At this point in ‘06 the Tony Romo era was one game old, that a comeback win over Carolina. The Cowboys were on their way to their most jarring loss of the season, a last-play 22-19 defeat in Washington.

Next week, Dallas begins divisional play with a vengeance, starting a three game streak against the Eagles, Giants and Redskins. Last year’s crew failed to improve from 9-7 because it went 2-4 in the division. The next month will show us how much better this year’s model will perform.

Bye Thread

New posts on the horizon.  In the meantime, run amok — in a polite way, of course.

West Coast Cowboys — Dallas Slides Past the Vikes 24-14

After two weeks of sputtering starts and sporadic finishes, the Cowboys went small on Sunday against the Vikings. The Cowboys free wheeling, down-the-field approach went wide and short against a Minnesota team that ranked first against the run.

The result was a game in reverse, where Dallas scored a TD after 14 methodical plays to open the game. The Vikings answered with a quarter ending 11 play drive that left the contest knotted at 7 fifteen minutes into the action.

Dallas looked like a West Coast offense, utilizing backs, fullbacks and backup tight ends in a grinding approach that came two plays from blowing the game away in the second quarter. Three costly mistakes, one mental, the other two big plays by Minnesota’s hustling, opportunistic offense left Dallas behind 14-7 after dominating the first half’s second half.

The slip ups left Cowboys fans and TV announcers dismayed. On Fox, Howie Long warned that, “the Cowboys need to wake up.” Long is an astute analyst, but I think he missed the point here. Dallas failed to close the sale on three key 2nd quarter drives, but that should not distract us from the fact that the offense was this far from leaving a very good defense in a sweaty puddle on the Texas Stadium turf. Dallas was about 90% of the way towards offensive perfection and if the bye is used wisely, the new tactics and plays we saw should work much better when the Cowboys take a run at the division two weeks from now.

Slo-no Huddle

The first change in Cowboys tactics is what I’ll call the Slo-no Huddle. Some teams, like the early ’90s Bills, used a no-huddle to increase game tempo and trap opponents in base sets in order to gain huge matchup advantages. Others, like the Sam Wyche Bengals of the mid and late ’80s, ran what they called a “sugar huddle,” where the offense would rush to the line, scan the field and make quick snaps if a defense tried a late substitution.

Dallas ran a variation of the Cinci sugar on its opening drive. Tony Romo and the line would go directly to the line of scrimmage after a play was whistled. Romo would listen to Jason Garrett’s call on his helmet speaker and begin the play from there. The tactic seemed to tighten the Cowboys’ focus.

Garrett also installed a few uniques; on one third down play, Terrell Owens motioned into the backfield and lined up as the I-back. Julius Jones lined up as the fullback in an offset-I right. At the snap, Owens ran a circle route right and took the Vikings’ attention with him. Jones meanwhile slipped into the left flat with three linemen and carried a screen pass for a first down.

This was a drive Bill Walsh would have approved; of the 14 plays only two were for more than six yards — a 12 yard cross to Patrick Crayton to convert one third down and a Romo dart to T.O. down the right sideline for a first down inside the Vikings’ 20. Romo found Owens in the back of the end zone to complete the nearly nine minute drive.

The next four Cowboys drives were even more efficient — at everything except scoring. While only two of Dallas’ first 14 plays were for more than six yards 19 of Dallas next 25 plays went for six yards of more. Consider:

yards — # of plays

• 6 — 2
• 7 — 1
• 8 — 3
• 9 — 3
• 10 — 1
• 11 — 5
• 12 — 2
• 14 — 1
• 18 — 1

Miami Redux

This was an offense that took yards in huge chunks. Look at the yardage sequence on the second drive: 10-11-9-2-11-8. Then, Marion Barber had a brain freeze. He went five yards forward and then eight yards back on a second and two. The Vikings jumped a rollout pass to T.O. on the following play and Dallas had to punt.

Look at the sequence on series three: 4-11-11-12-11-4. This moved Dallas from its own 41 to Minnesota’s six. Here, another brain freeze. Marc Colombo jumped offsides. On the next play, Kenechi Udeze got around Colombo and hit Romo from his blind side, causing a drive ending fumble.

On the next sequence, Garrett called plays for 8, 14, 9 and 9 before Patrick Crayton caught a seven yard pass and fumbled. Minnesota returned the miscue for a TD and Dallas’ amazing between-the-10s 2nd quarter production still amounted to nothing.

Three quarters of the plays noted here were passes. Garrett called a 21-7 pass/run ratio in the first half. This wore out the Vikings stout front, especially DTs Pat Williams and Kevin Williams. Kevin ran Romo’s fumble back some 90 yards for an apparent score, only to see the runback nullified by a holding penalty. Williams knelt in the end zone for a long time and left the field early for a halftime IV.

This was a replay of Garrett’s Miami strategy, when he wore out the Dolphins big line by making them rush extensively in the early quartiles.  This had the desired effect in the 2nd half when the Cowboys were able to begin running on the allegedly invincible Vikings front seven.  Dallas sandwiched several Marion Barber runs around a big pass from Romo to Owens and the Cowboys drew even at 14.

The game karma then balanced out as the Vikings began taking control of the game clock, only to see their second best drive of the day give Dallas a lead.  Chris Canty lined up in the gap between the Vikings snapper and right guard, leaped over the snapper and pushed five yards into the Minnesota backfield.  Canty laid out and blocked Ryan Longwell’s field goal attempt.  Patrick Watkins picked up the ball and got outstanding blocking down the Vikings sideline on his touchdown return.

In the meantime, the Cowboys defense was keeping star RB Adrian Peterson under wraps.  Peterson dazzed with a short pass and a dandy 20 yard TD run to close out the Vikings opening drive.  His skills are amazing.  Imagine Marion Barber with warp speed and you get the idea.

The Cowboys tackles and ends did a superb job of preventing Peterson from turning the corner.  Only twice did he get a clear lane to the perimeter.  Dallas kept Minnesota in 3rd and long situations all game and then shut down the Vikings passing attack, which consisted mainly of Tarvares Jackson passes to Peterson.   Jackson went almost 30 minutes in the middle of the game without completing a throw.

The defense finished the scoring by forcing a Peterson fumble deep in Vikings territory.  Nick Folk kicked a mid-range shot to push the lead to 24-14.  It was then left to the offense to close the game with a slashing, time-consuming drive that consisted of nine Marion Barber runs that propelled the Cowboys from their own 19 to the Vikings 19 and ate up five minutes in the process.

The Cowboys were not sleepy on Sunday.  They lacked sharpness.  Look at the numbers and realize that their sharpness increased, over the Bills and Patriots play.  Give them 5% more over the bye and we could be looking at a fearsome offense.

Notes:

Missing Terry

The Cowboys passing offense is getting really good at ball control and that’s necessary, because it lacks a consistent deep threat.  Teams understand Patrick Crayton isn’t a burner and Sam Hurd isn’t an every down player.

It will be great to see Anthony Henry back in two weeks and it will be equally important to the offense to get Terry Glenn back in action.  News has been slow to non-existent on his recovery.  Hope that he’s improving.  The offense can go to another dimension with him in the lineup.

Say Hello to our New Sponsor

You might have seen some slight changes in our advertising spots over the past week or so. There’s a good reason for that.

I’d like to welcome Sportsfly on board as an official sponsor of TheBoysBlog.

“Sportsfly is the first casual gaming site that focuses specifically on the male sports fan while offering the benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook,” says Aaron Rose, Marketing Manager at Sportsfly. “In addition to playing original games, users can set-up a personal profile, talk on the forums, check the latest sports news or watch their rank on the Sportsfly leaderboards. Sportsfly’s mission is to serve fun, dynamic games and rich live content to both the avid and casual sports fan while becoming an important part of their daily sports diet.”

Sportsfly offers free games to be played online as well, so don’t think you have to sign up for a fee to play. You can, of course, and gain access to higher level gaming.

We invite you to click on over to Sportsfly and give it a walk through — just look for their ad in the right column or use the link provided above. It’s a way of thanking them for helping us at TheBoysBlog continue to provide you with the in-depth information and analysis on the Cowboys that you cannot get anywhere else.

Second Half Thread — Cowboys vs. Vikings

2nd Quarter Hairball:

Dallas gains over 160 yards in the 2nd.

The Vikings gain 8.

Minnesota takes the lead 14 -7. How? Blame the skill position guys.

1. Marion Barber loses his head on Dallas’ second drive. Facing 2nd and 2, Barber runs off tackle and rips 5 yards upfield. Then, meeting resistance, the Barry Sanders gene kicks in; he bounces outside, losing yardage once, then bounces again and loses more. He gives up eight yards all told, turning what should have been 1st and 10 into 3rd and 3. An incompletion on the next play forces a punt.

2. Tony Romo gets blindsided. Scrambling left inside the Minnesota 9, Romo is hit from behind and fumbles. The Vikings recover.

3. Patrick Crayton pays. Crayton catches a pass at mid-field, spins and fumbles. LB Ben Leber recovers, laterals to a cornerback who returns the ball for a score.

4. Folk not a hero. Nick Folk mis hits his first kick of the year pulling a 50 yarder wide left at the first half gun.

On the good side, Romo threw 32 passes in the first half. The Vikings duo of Pat and Kevin Williams wilted in the second quarter. Romo’s pocket got much tighter, and running lanes started to open up. One of them left early to get an IV. If Dallas can get out of their own way, there is a chance to grind the Vikings down in the second half.

Cowboys vs. Vikings First Half Thread

Too long to kickoff.

Cowboys vs. Vikings Preview

What good is a bye? Did the Vikings retool their game or was it a coincidence that their best game of the year came after their break?

Minnesota had averaged just 16 points a game through the first month before hanging 34 on the Bears last week. Rookie flash Adrian Peterson led the way, cutting around and through the Bears for 224 yards and three long TD runs.

He and the Vikings offer the opposite of the Patriots attack, a run first, pass later scheme. To be fair to New England, the Pats have more balance but prefer to go over the top.

When Minnesota Has the Ball

How do you slow Peterson down? First, make sure your corners eat their Wheaties. Peterson has the full package, with explosive speed to the corners. Only Washington and Detroit call more tosses to the perimeters of defenses than Minnesota. The corners must be able to beat blocks and pinch Peterson to the inside, allowing time for pursuit to close in.

Inside, the defense must maintain gap discipline and not allow Peterson wide cutback lanes. Against Chicago everything flowed from the Vikings ability to get solid push on the Bears right side. Peterson got big yardage starting to his left, then later cutting back when the Bears would slant or stack that side.

The Vikings run defense gets well deserved credit for stopping the run but the Cowboys front deserves some credit of its own, ranking 6th in the Football Outsiders adjusted run stats. Dallas d-line ranks first in runs off left tackle (Chris Canty, take a bow) and 5th on runs up the middle (Jay Ratliff, take your own). Who said the run defense would collapse without Jason Ferguson? The matchups of Canty vs. LT Brian McKinney and LG Steve Hutchinson vs. Akin Ayodele and Bradie James will tell a lot about Dallas’ chances.

The Vikings line got regular and deep pushes against the Bears across the board. Look at Peterson’s runs and you’ll see he’s well onto Chicago’s side of the line before he encounters any resistance. Dallas has a much bigger front and should be able to hold its ground better.

That said, Dallas weakness if off left end, where Anthony Spencer is learning the ropes. The Cowboys have to guard against over-pursuing off this edge and giving Peterson room for big counters.

The Cowboys can overemphasize the run because Minnesota has a poor passing attack. Tarvaris Jackson and Kelly Holcomb have alternated starts this year and neither has a passer rating above 70. Jackson looks to be the starter this week though he’s been the weaker of the two.

To give you an idea of how anemic the Vikings have been though the air consider that Peterson is the team’s best downfield threat, with a receiving average of 17.5 yards. Sidney Rice ranks second on the team in receptions with 11 for 119 yards, stats that Jason Witten nearly matched in the season opener.

When Dallas Has the Ball

We’ve heard all week about the Vikings stout run defense. It’s #1 and plays off the DT duo of Pat Williams and Kevin Williams. Pat is the beefier fireplug. Kevin the more athletic member of the pair. Behind them, MLB E.J. Henderson completes a dominant trio. Henderson has size and quickness between the hashes.

This year, Minnesota has also improved its run stopping ability to its right side. DE Ray Edwards and second year LB Chad Greenaway give the Vikings athleticism to match the inside bulk. Teams are averaging a microscopic one yard per carry trying to run wide their way.

Is there any hope of running on the Vikings? Yes. Go right. The left perimeter of Minnesota’s defense, with DE Kenechi Udeze and WOLB Ben Leber is much smaller and slower than their opposites. They ran 25th in yards allowed per rush.

Look for the Dallas game play to include the gamut of traps, tosses and off tackle runs to their side. The Cowboys found success running right last week against the Patriots. TE Jason Witten’s outstanding perimeter blocks keyed Julius Jones’ long 3rd quarter runs. Look for Dallas to use two TE sets a lot to spread Minnesota’s front and get Witten head up on Leber.

The most likely early tactic will be passes — lots of them. The flip side to Minnesota’s stout front is a 32nd ranked pass defense.  Opponents are averaging 288 yards per game and the last two QBs to test the Vikings both topped 340 yards.  One reason is the Vikings tepid rush;  they have a respectable 13 sacks for the year but when you look at the number of passes they’ve had to face they rank in the bottom quarter of sacks per attempt.

Special Teams

Look out for Superman.  Not only is Peterson the Vikings best running and receiving weapon but he’s averaging a team best 31 yards per attempt on kickoffs.   Dallas will need consistent inside pentration and land discipline from its kickoff coverage units no matter whom the Vikings field;  they have three returners averaging over 28 yards.

The kicking game looks like a wash.  Dallas duo of Mat McBriar and Nick Folk are money but the Vikings pair of Chris Kluwe and Ryan Longwell can match them on distance. Longwell’s 53 yarder at the gun won the game.

Prediction

Be prepared to be dazzled by Peterson.  He’s got the game.  The key for Dallas is to keep him from running amok.  100 to 110 yards and Dallas wins.  150-200 and we’ll all be sweating.   The Cowboys will move the ball and get points.  Avoiding turnovers should put them back in the win column.

Dallas 27  Minnesota 17

The Corners Are Rising! The Corners are Rising!

Okay, the Browns must lose.

It’s bad enough that Darren McFadden is out of reach, though I would be wary of paying him — or anybody — #1 money. Today, Scouts Inc’s Todd McShay releases an updated hot-15 list (protected) that puts Ohio State CB Malcolm Jenkins at #7 and Penn State’s Justin King at #12.

7-9 people. We need the Browns no higher than 7-9.

Update:

Whoops. This list is for draft-eligible juniors. Jenkins and King rank between 14 and 21 overall.

Still, the Browns must lose.

We’re All Mediots Now

I guess it’s our turn.

• 2008 Cowboys Tickets on eBay

• Burst Media

Copyright © 2008 Blue and Silver Report · Log in