What Cowboys Game Really Showed

Bang said:

Our pass defense was good against Dallas because they had no need to throw the ball. And when they did want to throw the ball, well they marched right on down and scored. Their scoring drive... 9 passes, 1 incompletion. 8 completed passes in a row.

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And for the other 57 minutes of the game, their passing line was 7/18, 90 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 INT, 1 sack. And all that dominating running. Net result: 0 points.

Dallas had every reason to throw the ball. They were losing the whole game, and hadn't scored yet! Not by a lot, mind you, but they didn't take the lead until a minute left. They were efficient on the ground, but only averaged 4.6 yards per carry. And when they passed, aside from that last drive, they failed. Finished 3/11 on third down. Rocky missed a pick 6 that would have put us in command too.

I'd rather blitz on every play as well, but you simply can't gamble on defense when you have our offense. Let them run. Let them succeed ... kind of. Yards, cool, but no points. Run the clock out .... for us. Give them the underneath, don't get beat deep, give the offense a chance to put together a drive or two for the win.

The secondary has looked awful on occasion this season, both in coverage and in run support, but against Dallas the secondary executed this 'God awful' bend-but-dont-break strategy to perfection, and it effectively kept a pretty good offense off the scoreboard for 57 minutes, generated two turnovers, and created enough opportunity for the offense to put them away.

Unfortunately, we didn't finish the job, but if we can execute this consistently every week, and not give up big plays, and most importantly, keep the opposing team off the scoreboard, then bring on the bend!

Aston Gambino said:

They were efficient on the ground, but only averaged 4.6 yards per carry.

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Only 4.6?! That's higher than the league average of 4.25. An average of 4.6 puts them in the top 10 in the league in rushing average. That's not good defense.

Wait, Antonio Dixon is succeeding?

Man, I really wanted us to keep that guy. He showed off a thing or two in the preseason (more than our other DTs not named Haynesworth or Griffin) and I thought he had some potential.

I guess our front office thought differently.

I hear excuses and no results.
The point of bringing Haynesworth in was to get a quick fix to both our offensive and defeinsive problems. Look at last years Super Bowl winners.
Their offense was nothing to speak of, their line was terrible. But they attacked on defense and took the ball, giving the offense short fields, and lo, they won.

We dhave the talent, and now we attack the ball, but we still don't get the turnovers, we still don't get the field position.
Why?
because we absolutely suck on 3rd down, none of our defenders can catch a football (drills! Drills! DRILLS! COACHING!!) and we suck on 3rd down because we stink against the run. Once a back breaks past the DL it's been EASY for them to sidestep Landry, etc. (That is, when he's not escorting them into the end zone himself.) The surest tackler in our secondary is Doughty. But i honestly could not tell you the last time i saw him actually defend a pass... put hands on the ball. We've got a #6, a #7, and a #9 overall pick starting in our secondary, and none of them can tackle, none of them (save Hall) can catch. Landry takes such ridiculous angles to ballcarriers as to make one cringe in embarrassment seeing it. And when he gets there he's just as likely to flop on the ground like a fish as he is to simply shoot right by, a flash in white, barely getting a forearm on the runner. (Unless, of course, the player is out of bounds, then WATCH OUT! By the way,, stupid ass penalties like that are a DIRECT condemnation of coaching, especially when they happen again and again and again and again. Bad discipline = bad coaching.)

The talent is there.
Any question about that?
Now, why can't it get done? (Statistically,, hooray! We look great. Reality says otherwise. The entire idea of spending ALL that money on Albert was to win the field position battle so we can come away with victories in these close games (and they usually are close). But nah,, we are consistently having to start in the foothills of our own goal line. Other teams continue to win the field position battle, and as a result, can make the final points to win a close game. Note the game on Sunday. End of the game, they start at midfield and score. We start at the 20 and don't.

One simple answer. Our players are poorly coached.

There is not one redeeming quality to what they've done. As I've said, the improvements in pass rush are due to talent, they can't help but be good. Haynesworth's presence alone has made that difference. (I do seem to recall him complaining early in mini camp that they wanted him to 'scheme' instead of play football. Let's remember, Greg Blache has said on record he does not believe in creating pressure with the front four. He prefers to flex them and allow them to tie up blocks while others create pressure. We see how well that works, eh?)
Our lack of stops on third down, our piss poor run defense, and the unbelievably BAD tackling that we see consistently shows ONE thing.
Our coaching staff is convoluted and clueless.

~Bang

Greg Blache will never embrace the type of attacking style that Richie Petitbon did and teams like the Eagles and Steelers still do.

What is ironic is that the 1980's Redskins had a lot to play for each week and chose to be aggressive.

This team is in last place and needs to create turnovers to stay in games and yet consistently we see no blitzing on third downs against inexperienced qbs or the prevent defense run way too early in the game.

Zorn and Blache together appear to want to finish up the season losing close games instead of taking any chances to pull some upsets.

I knew the team was in trouble on Sunday when Zorn decided to kick the field goal on third down.

No guts.

Avoid the press asking questions after the game by making the conservative call and saying "I played the odds."

The rest of the season for Zorn is CYA, make NO decisions from here on that you can be criticized for.
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Bulldog's Twin said:

Zorn and Blache...

No guts.

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You said it

~Bang