A Closer Look at the Tape
Posted: August 12, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
The Cowboys have broken camp at Oxnard and will begin butting heads with the Broncos tomorrow and Thursday, with two days of two-a-days scheduled.
In the meantime, here are some more crumbs of football goodness from the Chargers game:
Heavy Jumbo: Teams don’t game plan in their first preseason matches but it’s clear the Cowboys know the Chargers tendencies. On San Diego’s second play from scrimmage they went to their heavy packages, with two tight ends, two backs and just one wide receiver.
Dallas countered with a 4-4-3 package. There are several interesting aspects to the package. First, the position switch the team practiced was in effect, as Tank Johnson and Marcus Spears were the DTs and Jay Ratliff and Chris Canty were the DEs in a three point stance. Greg Ellis and Demarcus Ware were the OLBs and Bradie James and Zach Thomas were inside. Anthony Henry was the lone corner.
Both DTs exploded into the backfield, with Johnson getting the sack when the Chargers tried picking him up with a fullback. Tank threw the FB aside and wrapped up Philip Rivers.
Inside Pressure — Dallas rushed their inside backers at Tony Romo a lot during practice and this carried over to the game. Bradie James was given lots of first down blitzing responsibility and he got in free on pass plays or he got to the fullback on the offense’s side of the ball on running plays, giving Zach Thomas a free lane to the ball.
Spears Unleashed — Todd Grantham may already be paying dividends. He had two blowups on Dallas first two drives and shows much better agility than we’ve seen in the past.
Crayton Miscast — One reason to applaud Miles Austin’s strong game is that it would allow Patrick Crayton back into his ideal role as the 3rd receiver. KC Joyner mentions in Scientific Football ‘08 that Crayton had a YPA under 3.0 against “red” caliber corners (those who ranked in the top third of NFL CBs) but had a YPA over 10 against “yellow” (league average) and “green” corners (those in the bottom third).
Crayton is devastating in the middle of the field, but can’t shake the big time guys. He showed that in Dallas first two series, with two impressive catches over the middle. Both converted 3rd downs and kept drives alive.
Keep the Starting Job — The starting line of Canty, Ratliff and Spears lived in San Diego’s backfield. The group of Bowen, Johnson and Hatcher? Not so good. Hatcher could hold his point but Johnson was up and down against the run and Bowen was pushed around.
On the Line — We can handicap positions after every game but the biggest issues were for second year man James Marten and for backup center Cory Procter.
Marten was being beaten around the edge inside. When you’re working in a limited area you cannot let guys get around you. He also failed to switch on a Chargers twist, letting his guy get a free shot at Brad Johnson.
Procter lacks ballast. This was a problem last year, when big DTs and NTs pushed him into the backfield. Procter had the same problem Saturday. He got all the snaps at center, with Joe Berger working at guard but I wonder if Berger, who can also play center, will get some looks in the pivot this week.
Good Marks for the Backup Backs — The biggest question for Felix Jones and Tashard Choice entering ‘08 is their ability to block. So far, very good. Both rookies showed the will and the ability to find blizers and stop them.
Game ball – MIles Austin. We know what the Cowboys have at most of their starting spots but somebody has to step up at receiver. Austin made a strong case, running tight routes and displaying good hands. He ran a precise deep in on Dallas’ field goal drive at the end of the half. When he entered the game last year you knew he was running deep. Now, he’s putting the full repertoire together. He’s got the deep speed this team needs at the two.
Continued play at this level would be a BIG plus to this team.
Most Smug Man Today — Anthony Henry. Everybody and their dog was ready to shunt him to safety or the bench when Adam Jones was signed. Not so fast. Henry played well on Saturday and had a big goal line stop. Jones, on the other hand, was caked in rust. He missed tackles. He looked slow reacting to the ball. He drew penalties. He’s got talent, without question. But he’s not in sync with the game yet.
So what do we know? We know the coverage teams were ragged. Half of them were where they needed to be on any given play but half were slow arriving.
What we learned was that guys like Julius Crosslin, Marcus Smith and Junior Siavii have limited time on the Cowboys’ roster. But that’s not really news, is it?
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Great write up raf…could the special teams woes be a result of no contact at tc…ie: takes some time to get the nerve back for the intense contact…I was impressed by the rookie rb corps, both blocking and running…only time will tell and I am looking forward to the game on sat.
First!
godammit
oh …..1st….Sweet
sorry royce I must have clicked 1 second ahead of you…lol
oh and raf…for the computer dyslexic (sp?)…how do we get a pic on our id line
Raf do you think we’ll really keep all those backup o linemen i was not impressed by any of them . It would be a shame to keep one of them and have to cut ogelsby or amendola. Does Dixon make it thru wavers? And are you buying this Brad will be fine as our backup nonsense?
Anyone know if HBO is going to continue showing the Hard Knocks free on the Net?
Fighter, in answer to your probably rhetorical question, we were having that discussion
Cause we wanted too!
Why not.
And just to be clear, I love having Felix Jones, and time will tell, but we may end up being even happier with this Choice guy.
By the way, Ridgelake, you summed it up well last thread, as did Raf.
Is Martellius Bennett going to be another Jacob Rogers? I hope he starts focusing.
Austin really did look good this game, Raf. There were 2 or 3 catches that could have gone either way and he made the play.
Keeping Brad Johnson around makes no sense… Tex has seen better arms on a chair. Somebody please check his passport - if that fossil is 39, then those Chinese gymnasts are definitely legal. Dust off Bob Barker before going into the season with this guy. Talk about long in the tooth… BJ should be happy he isn’t a horse on Tex’s property.
Tex, they r gonna give BJ time with the first team this week to try and help the pressure situation….If he sux again…there are no excuses…(except that he knows the playbook…lol)
I’m fine with Barker, assuming the price is right and Testyverdy, Bledslow or DeBerg are not available.
great analysis.
very minor correction, but Crayton’s first catch wasn’t on a third down. They never even had a third down on that opening scoring drive, just showing how efficient the starting offense was.
Interesting point on hatcher.
I’ve long wondered why we are so ready to replace spears with hatcher.
he simply isnt as good as spears, certainly not against the run.
Also, for those comparing canty to spears in a sense of one is a 4th rounder and one is a 1st rounder, you can now stop. canty counts 2+ million this year, he’s not getting paid like a 4th rounder anymore (though he is worth the 2 million and a long term deal IMO).
Umm, who are we going to replace BJ with?
Im OK with bringing chris sims in here, but im not ready to cut BJ.
Given time, he made some nice throws (hey martellus, you gotta catch those man). under pressure, he looked old. no one ever claimed he was romo.
BTW,
sims cant beat out an old man in tampa either.
Tex - Bob Barker?!?! The price is WRONG, bitch!
Raf, Did Austin look this good all thru camp?
What’s your gut feel on Carpenter?
Jim Vance,
What did I write before camp? That there are “black hats” and that Carpenter and Roy Willy were probably 1 and 1A on that list.
And everybody has to micro-analyze every sniffle and fart Carpenter makes.
He’s fine. Period. He’s entering year three. At this point last year everybody was calling for Burnett’s head. Things got real quiet with him, didn’t they?
He’s gotten a lot better and unless people expect Zach Thomas to play until he’s 50, be happy he’s put in the work and improved himself. He’ll be ready and cost effective when Dallas needs to plug him in.
Austin has been steady. But nobody had seen him do it against people in different colored shirts.
Rafael,
what are you talking about??
He’s a BUST.
He couldnt even beat out greg ellis, or d.ware.
C’mom.
Saying you have to beat out Ware is a high standard.
thats right,
im suggesting those who call him a “bust” are pre-mature.
Raf,
Thanks for the insight. You sounded a bit defensive about Carp.
You were our man on the scene who could see these guys in action and then give us an educated opinion. If your gut tells you he’s going to be the man when the time comes, that’s good enough for me. I thought the guy looked pretty active in the preseason game.
I’m even more excited about Austin’s emergence.. he could really make a difference this year.
Is Bennett going to be the next ‘black hat’?
Eh, lets just wait a bit for Bennett.
considering he has only one preseason game under his belt, I don’t think I would worry about him yet.
Rafael,
So what is going to be the future for the Sports Doctors?
I love the show, please say it will become more permanent. I would love to hear your opinons on more than just the Cowboys and Football. The RGV has never had such a high quality sports show and I am sure it will start to get a bigger following. A TWR schedule makes sense, especially since Friday will probably be the friday night football show.
Becho,
We’re looking like a go. We’re working on going long term and things look good but it’s not 100% yet.
Well some comments after having a little time and looking at the game:
- Kyle Kosier keeps getting little love… On the TD drive he made 2 great plays, in the first one he pushed his guy from his LG position to right in front of Marc Colombo, Barber ran through the huge hole. On Anderson’s TD, Kosier first helped Gurode and then took a couple of steps forward and took the LB out of the way, Anderson ran right through.
- The whole starting line looks ready for the season.
- Tony Curtis needs to improve his pass protection, he got beat badly on Johnson’s interception… He just stood there and did nothing…
- 59 and 53 (George and Walden) looked like what they’re, a couple of really inexperienced OLBs, they were fooled in plays were Ware, Ellis and Spencer wouldn’t have been. Both also played in a lot of Special Teams and they had good and bad.
- I’ve heard criticism towards Carpenter and how he couldn’t get off a block in Sproles TD, yeah well, he couldn’t but it isn’t as if had he gotten off he would have blocked the only path for the RB… Sproles had several avenues to run through…
- I’m not surprized to see the 2nd team struggling in certain areas, they’re moving a lot of pieces and after only 2 weeks of training camp the team needed to put more attention on the players that were, and are, expected to start in all the packages that the team has on Offense and Defense. We have a versatile team and versatility takes a lot of time.
- I liked a lot of things that others have mentioned in other posts and the most important thing is that the things that I didn’t liked didn’t meant much to me, it might mean more if things aren’t smooter in 2 weeks…
Hey Raf,
Sorry I haven’t been around that much lately. I’m not only working overtime 6 days a week but I’m a new union steward so I’m busy all the time. Great job on camp. Worth the money.
I guess I’m worried about special teams too. I don’t know if it’s the guys or the coaching but they just seem to keep making mistake mental mistakes.
I’m hoping to see more from the 2nd pre-season game. You never see crap out of the 1st one or the 4th one. It’s always the 2nd and the 3rd where you see the starters start playing like it’s real football again. I want to see more out of our secondary to be honest. It just seems like no matter who we have out there or how many we just never seem to have enough. Someone always takes a bad angle or gets a stupid PI penalty. Can’t wait to see more out of these guys.
Marc Colombo, the 2nd Most Smug Cowboy.
WOW,
I got to check out some of First Take, and it was quite comical. Dana Jacobson looked like she was pretty close to using some bad language on television against Skip Bayless…. AWESOME.
Dana Jacobson looks like a white Shannon Sharpe with a bad haircut.
Dana’s got a lot of junk in that trunk.
So what did old Skippy say this time???
Just to add to the Carpenter thing, he’s nice to have because you could plug him in at both outside and Inside LB. Even if he’s never a starter, for right now, at his price he’s a valuable backup.
If he’s not that great, then let him go when his contract is up…..
There’s just nothing to discuss, he won’t beat out Ware, Ellis, Spencer, Thomas, or James., so unless there’s an injury, he’s gonna have trouble getting on the field.
As JarHead pointed out-YH, hop on the sarcasm train!
Dana J was a local sports girl here in Sacramento-talking about the Kings, and not much else.
Whatever made them think she was national material, I don’t know-she wasn’t that great here in a small local market.
Hmmm-across from Skip Baylesss, though, she probably seems pretty knowledgeable and professional, huh?
Well, on tonight’s episode of Hard Knocks, they certainly pushed the “Martellus Bennett is a petulant jackass” angle.
Yeah they did madmick… I hope the kid wakes up. He doesn’t seem to care that much.
DC.Com said that Bennett looked really good in practice today. Said that he’s working hard on his blocking. Which is awesome.
When Bennett was drafted I was told he would have a lot of bad habits to break, cause he was babied in college. (There’s a big reason why Dennis Franchione isn’t in College Station anymore.) I was told John Garrett was riding his ass every day in mini-camps.
I saw the same thing in camp. But I also saw a guy who’s big enough and strong enough to go one and one against the Wares, Ellis and Spencers and move them.
He’s raw and he’s getting a crash course in professionalism. He’s also got scary good physical ability.
I was already concerned about Bennett after he made the stupid ass comment about Romo & his lady after being drafted, it showed a lack of good judgement and immaturity now after the first two installments of “Hard Knocks” I’m really concerned. I don”t believe you can teach a guy to have passion, commitment and fire. Either they have it or they don’t.
I see the character of professional athletes on a bell curve. Your high character guys are exceptional. They are going to do the right thing and be the right kind of influence no matter what the climate is. I see the same phenomenon with bad character guys.
The massive middle can be swayed either way depending on their influences.
I believe Bennnett to be in the the middle. With the amount of high character guys and coaches in Dallas (disproportionate to the bell curve) and the lack of bad character guys, he will be just fine.
He has the perfect guy in front of him. If at any time he wonders, “what should I be doing?” all he has to do is look at Witten and do that.
He’ll be a force in 1 year.
His attitude needs to change immediately, that’s for sure. But, even with his poor attitude, I bet he will still be an upgrade over A. Fasano this year. And that is why we drafted him isn’t it?
The O-lineman’s junk in his wet shorts… whaaaaaaaaaat? Why the F was that necessary? Perhaps it was HBO (ahem) throwing a bone to any Redskins fans watching to keep them interested.
Lazy and bad attitude trumps size and talent. That f’ing jackass Bennett might very well be a bust. He needs to completely change the way he’s viewed everything in his life in order to become a pro football player, and there’s little chance that will happen in just a few seasons.
How much would it cost to have Dave Campo to come over to my house and just hang out with me for only like half an hour every day? It’s probably worth it at any price. That guy is HI larious. !
I am not sure where we are suppose to be for the Bronco preseason blog but this team does not good. I know it is only pre season but they are playing like a joke