It’s A Colts World Now
Posted: January 1, 2008 @ 11:15 pm
With all the hype over the ‘07 Patriots pursuit of perfection, and all the comparisons between these Patriots and the 1972 Dolphins, I’m struck by the lack of stylistic comparisons.
The Dolphins were perhaps the greatest rushing attack of the modern era. Bill Walsh credited Dolphins OL coach Monte Clark with revolutionizing the pro rushing attack with his combination blocking scheme. It’s common to every modern attack today, but in 1972 the league was slow to adapt. In the perfect season, the Dolphins had two 1,000 yard rushers with FB Larry Csonka and RB Mercury Morris. Both averaged over 5.2 yards a carry.
In 1972 the NFL moved its hash marks closer to the center of the field, doubling the number of 1000 yard rushers from the year before. That said, the Dolphins were still a better rushing machine; the champion ‘71 Cowboys, with a talented trio of Duane Thomas, Calvin Hill and Walt Garrison had a relatively balanced 57%/43% run pass ratio.
The Dolphins had a 71%/29% run to pass ratio that perfect year. Bob Griese’s broken leg contributed to the run-first philosophy, but the dominance of Clark’s line had more to do with it; opponents stacked the line but the Dolphins still led the NFL in scoring, proving conservative football could be sexy.
Miami was the perfect football team for active fans; they would take the football, grind out a couple of long scoring drives, take a 14-0 lead, shorten game times to about two hours and 20 minutes and give you extra afternoon for mowing the lawn or other pursuits.
The perfect ‘07 Pats lead a different era, where you pass to win. Look at the run-pass ratios of 2007’s top four playoff seeds:
- Patriots - 43/57
- Cowboys - 44/56
- Colts - 45/55
- Packers - 41/59
All throw the ball at least 45 percent of the time, and have ratios in line with last year’s Colts, who won the Super Bowl with a 44/56 run to pass ratio.
It appears the Patriots, despite winning three titles this decade, have adopted one-time winner Indy’s philosophy. The Patriots didn’t load up on defense this off season, though they did sign Adalius Thomas. Instead, they copied the Colts spread game, obtaining Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker for Tom Brady and scheming to outscore their opponents. In a cornerback-depleted NFL they exploited a fact the Colts have known for years — there are few teams with the secondary depth to match up with a good three-WR offense, never mind one that also has a quality receiving tight end.
Dallas has repeatedly used a “pass first” game plan to wear out opponents. Marion Barber made the Pro Bowl, but how often did he romp through a tired defense in the fourth quarter, after the front seven had tired itself trying to contain Tony Romo, Terrell Owens and Jason Witten?
Every one of the top seeds this year throws the ball as much, if not more than Mike Martz‘ famed Greatest Show On Turf Rams. Both Super Bowl Rams squads had 45/55 run to pass ratios. And they’re far more pass happy than the big teams from the late ’80s and ’90s:
- ‘89 49ers — 51/49
- ‘94 49ers — 49/51
- ‘95 Cowboys — 50/50
- ‘96 Packers — 46/54
- ‘98 Broncos — 52/48
Only the ‘96 Packers, with Brett Favre running Mike Holmgren’s offense, skewed more towards the pass. The ‘89 Joe Montana-led ‘Niners, the ‘94 Steve Young edition, the ‘95 Troy Aikman Cowboys and the ‘98 John Elway Broncos were all around 50/50 in their run/pass mix.
It used to be an NFL maxim that you ran and played defense to win championships. Last year’s Colts defied the conventional wisdom, fielding a 23rd ranked scoring defense in their title drive. This year’s champ, barring several upsets, will ride the passing game to the Lombardi trophy.
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1st! Happy New Year everyone.
The past couple of weeks all we’ve heard is the mediots talk about the two things you must be able to do to win a championship is have and effective running game and stop the run. It appears from Rafael analysis that only half of that sentiment is correct.
I’m excited about Garrett having two weeks to scheme and come up with new ways to take advantage of all his weapons. If we have a healthy TO and get any production out of Glenn they’ll light up the scoreboard like a pinball machine.
Ok Raf,
You have finally sold me. For the last 8 months since the draft last year you have been preaching drafting a top flight corner. I have been thinking to myself that we needed more offensive weapons.
While I still believe we need a quality compliment to MBIII, we can pick one up in later rounds. Hell, if we are lucky, we can find another Fast Willie after the draft. But there is no way we can find a quality corner in the 3rd round plus.
I think there will be sufficient talent at 22 to pick up a game changer in the secondary. I will even go so far as to say that I am in favor of trading Roy Williams for a 2nd or 3rd round pick to pick up a quality saftey with the pick ala Waddle like last year.
You won me over Raf.
You guys can hate all you want, But Roy Williams is not going anywhere. Wait and see, I think he’ll do something special in the playoffs. He’s a PLAYMAKER.
I like Rafe’s analysis and I think this fairly new spread ‘em out theory will result in teams getting deeper and more talendted in the DB area. I wouldn’t be sureprised if Dallas went to the DB position twice in the 1st 3 rounds - CB is, I think, a guarantee for round 1.
Roy Williams seems to miss more plays than he makes. He’s a big hitter, but I’d argue he’s not a good tackler. He often takes bad angles and goes for the power hit instead of trying to wrap up a player and get the sure tackle.
Looking forward some, but I liked the way USC’s McKnight ran the ball. It looked like he had Reggie Bush speed and agility, but McFad power and aggressiveness.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Dallas stands pat at RB. I think Jones is gone, but I’m not sure. Also, what role will Tyson Thompson play next year?
TT wont make the team, he fell out of favor I think for off the field reasons, and was not getting his main job KR done, so he wont be here either.
Adrian,
Roy Williams is exposed in pass coverage everysingle game. They go to him everytime with tight ends andhe still can’t cover them. Besides he’s one tackle away from a 4 game supension if not even more.
I say trade Roy Willy to Cincy for Ocho Cinco - They need defense and we need another receiver.
I would be all in favor of trading RW for a 2nd. I hate to admit it but it seems his play is beginning to slip against the run which is suppose to be his strength.
The only problem is GM’s may not have much interests in taking on a safety whose suspect in coverage and has a big contract.
If you guys think RW is so bad then why do you think other teams would be lining up to trade for him. Give it a rest, his contract says he stays. The only way a deal gets done is for another teams overpaid and underachieving player.
i’ve been a big RW supporter and defender due to the fact that his primary responsibility is not pass coverage. however, after watching running back after running back squirt through the middle of the line and RW taking horribly dumb angles and not wrapping up, i’m convinced. trade him. cut him. lose him. no longer a passing-down-only liability.
Anyone else noticed the top of the Blog on the NFL.com’s lead story. “Wade Phillips no chicken little, insists sky isnt falling.” Wow, the national news is also reading our blog and not just the local idiots.LOL
FYI, Peter King casts his lot with Greg Ellis for NFL Comeback Player of the Year. I couldn’t agree more, but I still think Randy Moss will get it. From King’s latest column:
EASY. THAT’S HOW. From Todd Soisson of Lansdale, Pa.: How can Big Ben Roethlisberger not be the choice for comeback player of the year?”
“Because Greg Ellis, at 32, came back from a completely torn Achilles (death to an aging pass-rusher) to have a career-high 12.5 sacks for the best team in the NFC. Roethlisberger played superbly, and he certainly merited consideration. But in terms of two excellent players in 2008, which Roethlisberger and Ellis both were, I thought Ellis’ comeback was a greater one.”
Now’s the time for all the RW fans to go get an authentic jersey. Romo, J.Jones, etc are all $224.99 from the http://www.DallasCowboys.com store. Roy-Dub are all $75off - marked down to $149.99. You’ve got your choice - home white, road blue or throwback - all marked down.
Not sure what that means.
The solution to the Roy Willy dilemma is for Brown or Watkins to step up as FS starters. Hamlin would be an all pro SS IMO and RW could serve as backup and on special teams until his can be released in a cap friendly way.
I think Ellis for comeback player is the right choice. Regarding Moss or Ben, what adversity exactly did they come back from?
Not sure, but having a poor year then a good one is not my idea of a comeback. If that were the critera, how about Bigg? He had a great year compared to last year, same as Moss.
For that matter, what about Favre?
Why does everyone assume that Hamlin can play SS. It seems on many of them long runs though the middle that the RB split the safetys. The most important part is who says Hamlin can cover man to man any better than RW. Hamlin does a good job at free safety but his coverages are over the top helping CBs or catching a WR after being released deep by a CB. Its a different kind of coverage. Yes it is different just like a LT and an RT and a #1WR and a #3WR are different. If he is so good at this coverage then how come he doesnt take the TE and allow Williams deep middle. If nothing else
I agree that RW needs to spend mucho time this offseason to work his game back up. It seems sitting around leading the fat cat life and blaming BPs D for his deficences isnt going to cut it. His game didnt seem to improve with a coach who works the D to his players strengths. If he doesnt vastly improve his game I can see us cutting him next year.
Remember all those runs in the Detroit game? Remember Wade saying that they had a player open to make the tackle? Guess who that player is. Roy Dub. Standing there bewildered watching Kevin Jones bust through for 60 yards. Ditch him. The only reason to stick up for him now is if you have an authentic jersey and cant bear the thought that you wasted a few hundred bucks on a guy who is a goner here in Dallas…
First thing first:
In all those runs, there was indeed always a tackler that was supposed to do his job and for most of the day, that wasn’t Williams. James, Ayodele and Hamlin had poor games.
Second:
Hamlin does has a much bigger range because of his backpedal and his quickness into heading where the ball’s going.
Third:
Teams indeed found a weakness in our team front, because of the pass rush and because of how weak the combo of Ayodele, James and Williams can form in certain passing situations they’re throwing the ball at them and they’re taking what they can get, if it’s a 4 to 6 yards gain it’s welcomed. The team’s finding it though to defend, but they’re doing some things to make this work, which leads me to:
Fourth:
During the course of the season we’ve seen more and more how the NT or a DT drops into the flat in short range coverage and how a LB runs through the hole created, with good execution we’ve seen how the guy that drops takes out his assignment as the QB inmediatelly looks elsewhere, Ratliff’s been real good at this.
We’ve obviously seen how Williams continues to get burned by short to intermedium passes and as I’ve said you can always point me in the direction of a perfect safety in coverage for me to point you how he isn’t, we have a perfect example in Hamlin, he’s better all around in coverage and has been burned. And to be fair, I’ve also seen how QBs have Williams area as his 1st or 2nd read and how they look out of it, so it isn’t as if he’s stinking the joint.
And because of all this, what I saw on Sunday is interesting for me, I saw how Hamlin was more active in run support so I paid a bit of more attention and saw that Williams was also in the field. After reading how Albert Breer of the DMN blog also noticed this I had my confirmation, they were testing something and the reasoning is simple.
They’ve seen how teams are abusing the short to intermedium passing ranges, taking your best coverage safety to take this out is a good move if the right defensive package is in (as in good pass rush that only lets the QB make 2 or 3 reads), our team has the talent to make work what Williams did when Woodson was around, their constant switching between getting closer to the line and going deep added an extra dimension to a not so complicated D, right now our team has a complicated D and has room for improvement.
I like that the press is dicounting the Cowboys in the playoffs. 13-3 buys no love with the DFW sports media. Great. Maybe our first opponent will read the blather and come in over confident. Get well Terrell, Andre, and Patrick. Go Cowboys.
:us_flag:
Chandus,
I am watching the tape right now and it is a big number 31 standing open behind the line watching 96 fill the gap in front of him and a big open gap to his left.
There is a reason that Roy and Reeves are targeted by the opposition.
I’m trying to think of one impact play RW made this season and can’t recall one. Maybe somebody else can think of one.
Chandus,
Ayodele and James did indeed have poor games in Detroit. So did Roy, who did an atrocious job tackling. If he can’t do that, what can he do?
I’ll say it again — Roy Williams is the second coming of David Fulcher. Fulcher had about four very good years for the Bengals in the late ’80s and ’90s and was central to their Super Bowl run in ‘88. He was linebacker sized. He could blitz and hit.
And when he lost his top gear, he was worthless. The Raiders claimed him and tried moving him to linebacker (and gee, where have we heard that line of reasoning before?).
He failed that and was out of football.
othello,
Did the Cowboys miss Roy in the Carolina game? I didn’t notice his absence. Did you?
When Newman is out, the defense suffers. They missed Henry. If Ware goes down, it would be a disaster.
But if Roy were suspended for the playoffs? I don’t think the defense would miss a beat.
RW is exactly the reason Jerry has to be prudent when giving someone a big contract. In some cases it just makes sense to let the player test the FA market it certainly would have been wise for Jerry to do so in RW’s case. Now he’s stuck with a safety who’s a liability in coverage and against the run often times.
Roy is not an impact player any more. I don’t know what happened to him but we no longer see the big hits. Without those who-dat hits there’s not much to his game.
Rafael:
Yes, I’m hearing you and this is why I think that having him on the move with Hamlin in certain pakages would be good idea, Williams is still capable of playing at a good enough level to make this work for one more season.
Or do you believe that in the upcoming months Jerry’s going to get something to bite hard while he cuts him? I mean, as he signed a 4 year extension in 2006 with $12Ms of signing bonus Jerry would have to deal with a cap hit that would be close to $3.5Ms.
I just can’t see that happening, Williams is still playing at a good enough level to prevent our team to make such a bold decision and just like that, I just can’t believe that Williams is playing at the level in which his 2008 salary would make you believe (expected to be around $6Ms).
Raf
I’m confused; Roy would cost 3.5 Mil if he was cut and 6 mil to play in ‘08.
My guess is RW plays many less downs in the playoffs.
Hopefully we will see Ellis, Spencer, Ratliff, Canty, Ware, Burnett, James, Reeves, Newman, Henry and Hamlin.
We may see RW coming in for James on passing situations. These are our best athletes.
That leaves great rotation guys in Spears, Tank, Bowen, Adoyle, Watkins, and Carpenter (still have no idea how he played against Washington), and maybe Brown and/or Ball.
Hopefully the fact that Nate Jones was not active against Washington sez something good about Ball and/or Brown.
For those who are interested, here’s a statistical look at the 2007 Cowboys season. I was gonna post this as its own thread, but I’m at a remote location for a few weeks and can’t remember my password for my Editor/Contributor account.
NFL RANKS– OFFENSE
Yardage Ranking: 3rd
Points Scored Ranking: 2nd
Passing Offense: 4th
Rushing Offense: 17th
For comparison’s sake, the Patriots, who “can’t run in January” according to many sports pundits, had the NFL’s 13th ranked rushing attack, four spots ahead of the Cowboys.
Individual Offensive Notes:
Terrell Owens: Tied for 4th in the entire NFL in TDs; 4th amongst WRs in receiving yardage
Nick Folk: 4th amongst kickers in points; 26-31 on the season (Mason Crosby was first in points, and 31-39 for the season)
Tony Romo’s accomplishments have been detailed at length already so I won’t go into them.
Also, a non-Cowboys offensive note– Drew Breese attempted 652 PASSES THIS YEAR!! That number blew my mind. The second highest total was Tom Brady with 578. No one was close. Brees also broke Rich Gannon’s 2002 completions record.
NFL RANKINGS– DEFENSE
Yardage Rankings: 9th
Points Allowed Ranking: 13th
Passing Defense: 13th
Rushing Defense: 6th
Sacks: 3rd (46 total)
INTs: 6th (19 total)
Wade Phillips’ arrival clearly helped on the pass rush front for the Cowboys. For those interested, Wade Phillips’ former team, the Chargers, dropped off a bit in sacks this year and finished 5th with 42. However, they led the NFL in INTs with 30.
Individual Defensive Notes:
Demarcus Ware: Tied for 3rd in NFL with 14 sacks
Greg Ellis: 6th in the NFL with 12.5 sacks (Tied with Shawne Merriman)
Anthony Henry: Tied for 5th in the NFL with 6 INTs
“The past couple of weeks all we’ve heard is the mediots talk about the two things you must be able to do to win”
1) Put points on the board
2) Drill their QB.
The Giants were hitting the Pats and managed a second half lead. They let up, so Brady/Moss torched them.
Roy Williams is not, nor was he ever, an elite safety. He was a pounder - nothing more and nothing less. He made his first pro-bowls by having his coverage weakneeses covered, and by his savage hits.
The savage hits have largely disappeared. I think it’s because he’s lost a step, and by losing a step he’s unable to take the right angles. It seems he whiffs on tackles more often, or bounces off ball carriers more than he nails ball carriers.
For him to improve, he needs to improve his tackling angles and go for the wrap-up tackle instead of the bone-jarring hit.
Going back to an earlier thought, the spread offense is going to result in more DB heavy rosters. Clearly Dallas needs another shut-down corner to add to the Newman/Henry mix otheriwse they’ll have match-up problems with the New Englands, Indy’s and Green Bay’s.
Charb:
Yes, you got that right, you would probably prefer to pay the $3.5Ms and try to live without Williams.
Me? I’m not so sure, I would prefer to keep him and draft a Safety from the 2nd to the 4th Round to have him compete with Watkins and Davis.
Cutting Williams after 2008 would pretty much mean status quo if we’re considering prorated signing bonus and salary.
Palm Beach Post is reporting that the Dolphins have reached an agreement with Ireland to be their GM: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/dolphins/content/sports/epaper/2008/01/02/0102ireland.html
Seems odd. He has essentially GM responsibilities here, and Parcells has final personell say in Miami. Doesn’t the NFL have a rule preventing lateral moves for front office employees (not just coaches) under contract?
And the Miami Dolphins now have it up on their website as well:
http://www.miamidolphins.com/newsite/news/top_story.asp?contentID=5620
“Give it a rest, his contract says he stays”
Can’t see Roy leaving in 08. Why choke down empty cap space?
“He was linebacker sized. He could blitz and hit.”
Roy should be positioned to hit WRs, TE and RBs coming over the middle - not cover them.
“Drew Breese attempted 652 PASSES THIS YEAR!! That number blew my mind”
That’s what happens when both big time RBs go down. Was it only two years ago when Brees was cut by the the Chargers and passed over by the Dolphins?
“match-up problems with the New Englands, Indy’s and Green Bay’s”
Have to face the Eagles, Giants and Redskins twice a year.
Reeves may play elsewhere next season for somebody with a wallet. One of those two firsts should be used for a CB (unless Jerry can squeeze those two early seconds out of the Falcons).
“Palm Beach Post is reporting that the Dolphins have reached an agreement with Ireland to be their GM”
Who’s around to keep Jerry in check? Looks like Quincy Carter just took a huge leap up Kiper’s Big Board.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong on this, but… If Roy Willy is traded, doesn’t his cap space go with him? If so, trade him NOW while we can still get something for him.
Buster,
If you were a GM would you trade for RW?
The signing bonus is divided and charged over the duration of the contract. 12 million signing bonus over a 4 year contract is 3 million a year (I did that in my head). Now if Roy is traded any remaining signing bonus is forwarded into the current year, gets real expensive early in the contract.
Just testing using block quotes….so you may see a series of irrelivant posts.
The bigger CAP equals bigger contracts, but if some teams are less willing to use all of their CAP then it means the ratio the CAP goes up will be greater then the ratio the contracts go up.
You pointed out some of the higher paying contracts signed recently.
Those headliners do address the fact that the total salary structure has been moving up at a much slower pace then the CAP has for the last four years.
It used to be if you spent 20% more then the average team you were doomed to CAP hell and eventually having to cut or let walk quality players in their prime.
Today you can spend 20% more then the average team and manage to be under the CAP for the long haul.