Dallas Cowboys Game Tape Review: Defense

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Dallas really did dominate us statistically in this game, but we dared them to stay on schedule and take their yardage in chunks. They simply couldn't play like that for more than 35 yards at a time. A more disciplined team beats us fairly decisively in this one. For Dallas, it was the perfect strategy.

Was it strategy or was the best we can do at the moment. We are a young defense in this new scheme and we have one real game under our belt. At this moment I am willing to chalk it up to we are still learning the new system. We did not look a good a against a very terrible Dallas offensive line. We better pick it up or we will get blown out by real NFL team. Our ability to stop the run consistently is a real serious problem at the moment.
I also did not agree on some of the substitution pattern. It is a work in progress and I will to give Hasslett a chance to right the ship. If the defense does not improve we will not make the playoffs.
You better believe every team that will face us this year arew licking their chops after seeing the tape of Sunday's Dallas game. Our d-line got pushed around That is not good.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

Was it strategy or was the best we can do at the moment. We are a young defense in this new scheme and we have one real game under our belt. At this moment I am willing to chalk it up to we are still learning the new system. We did not look a good a against a very terrible Dallas offensive line. We better pick it up or we will get blown out by real NFL team. Our ability to stop the run consistently is a real serious problem at the moment.
I also did not agree on some of the substitution pattern. It is a work in progress and I will to give Hasslett a chance to right the ship. If the defense does not improve we will not make the playoffs.

Well, Dallas' longest run in the game was 12 yards. And Hall flat whiffed on a tackle on that play. Second longest running play was 11 yards, and Rogers whiffed on that tackle.

The consistency of the Dallas running game was given to them by design. Which I'm fine with. If they want to run a power draw in every third and 2 situation, I'm fine with that. You have to account for the fact that that strategy is going to cost the offense a chance to score points, giving up more first downs. But if they can't generate a meaningful running play, I'm not exactly sure why we should be concerned whether they are getting five yards or one yard on their runs.

They were much more successful in their passing game, despite the defense we were playing being pass-centric. So that's a concern.

Here for the record as who I marked in coverage on the 9 plays where Dallas attacked our pass defense in chunks. The nine plays out of 75 we need to improve on to be an elite defense:

Hall 4
Doughty 3
Fletcher 1
Blown (Orakpo) 1

And the Fletcher completion was after a whiffed sack by Landry, Austin just got behind him in space.

So Hall and Doughty were picked on and gave up some yards in chunks. But if only about 25% of Dallas' throws at Hall resulted in 10+ yards gained, we're winning that battle in the long run. That's a waste of their "best" offensive strategy.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Well, Dallas' longest run in the game was 12 yards. And Hall flat whiffed on a tackle on that play. Second longest running play was 11 yards, and Rogers whiffed on that tackle.

The consistency of the Dallas running game was given to them by design. Which I'm fine with. If they want to run a power draw in every third and 2 situation, I'm fine with that. You have to account for the fact that that strategy is going to cost the offense a chance to score points, giving up more first downs. But if they can't generate a meaningful running play, I'm not exactly sure why we should be concerned whether they are getting five yards or one yard on their runs.

They were much more successful in their passing game, despite the defense we were playing being pass-centric. So that's a concern.

Here for the record as who I marked in coverage on the 9 plays where Dallas attacked our pass defense in chunks. The nine plays out of 75 we need to improve on to be an elite defense:

Hall 4
Doughty 3
Fletcher 1
Blown (Orakpo) 1

And the Fletcher completion was after a whiffed sack by Landry, Austin just got behind him in space.

So Hall and Doughty were picked on and gave up some yards in chunks. But if only about 25% of Dallas' throws at Hall resulted in 10+ yards gained, we're winning that battle in the long run. That's a waste of their "best" offensive strategy.

The problem is in preseason we saw a pattern that we could not defend the run consistently. You act like us giving up five yards a run was planned and it is ok.
Dallas was not smart enough to take advantage of the run game advantage. That is why they did not win.
Their ego is such that they have to pass. That was some of the worst coaching by Dallas that I have ever seen.
Next week we are playing a team with a real coach that is smart enough to to stick with what is working that day. Hasslett and his defense is preparing this week for a power running team, lets see how prepared they are to stop the run? You can choose to call it stragedy, I at the moment call it weakness.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

The problem is in preseason we saw a pattern that we could not defend the run consistently. You act like us giving up five yards a run was planned and it is ok.
Dallas was not smart enough to take advantage of the run game advantage. That is why they did not win.
Their ego is such that they have to pass. That was some of the worst coaching by Dallas that I have ever seen.
Next week we are playing a team with a real coach that is smart enough to to stick with what is working that day.

Giving up 5 yards a run only matters if it forces you to pull extra guys out of pass defense to stop it because you can't make any other adjustment. Our front seven is far too good to reach that point.

Houston won't stick with the run even if it's working either. They did it against the Colts because they've been burned so many times that they had no choice but to run it and enjoy it. Schaub was 8/15 or something. They're going to come out firing the ball against our defense. The Houston running game won't matter in the outcome of this game. We need to stop Schaub.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Giving up 5 yards a run only matters if it forces you to pull extra guys out of pass defense to stop it because you can't make any other adjustment. Our front seven is far too good to reach that point.

Houston won't stick with the run even if it's working either. They did it against the Colts because they've been burned so many times that they had no choice but to run it and enjoy it. Schaub was 8/15 or something. They're going to come out firing the ball against our defense. The Houston running game won't matter in the outcome of this game. We need to stop Schaub.

We can agree to disagree.
Our front seven is not PLAYING consistently good right now. Our three down linemen are getting pushed around. I am not talking schemes or alignments or STATS. I am talking plain old button up your chin strap and whip the guy in front of you. Our LB's are not in the right places and not making the right decisions on a consistent basis.
Our secondary played well in comparison to our front seven.
There are several other 3-4 teams that play not to give up the long ball, but can also defend the run. We have not learned how to do that yet.
That is all.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

We can agree to disagree.
Our front seven is not PLAYING consistently good right now. Our three down linemen are getting pushed around. I am not talking schemes or alignments or STATS. I am talking plain old button up your chin strap and whip the guy in front of you. Our LB's are not in the right places and not making the right decisions on a consistent basis.
Our secondary played well in comparison to our front seven.
There are several other 3-4 teams that play not to give up the long ball, but can also defend the run. We have not learned how to do that yet.
That is all.

Agree, good call.

[30gut]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

We can agree to disagree.
Our front seven is not PLAYING consistently good right now. Our three down linemen are getting pushed around. I am not talking schemes or alignments or STATS. I am talking plain old button up your chin strap and whip the guy in front of you. Our LB's are not in the right places and not making the right decisions on a consistent basis.

I agree with you on this point.
Dallas has always been able to run the ball on us.
Thankfully Garrett is too fancy with his playcalling to stick to the run.
Our DL isn't playing well yet as unit.
I heard a stat during preseason that suggested that we were especially weak on the offensive left side.
Which would be solved if we just quit messing about and put #92 at RDE already!

-I think our ILB are on point but our OLB have to work on holding the edge.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by 30gut

I agree with you on this point.
Dallas has always been able to run the ball on us.
Thankfully Garrett is too fancy with his playcalling to stick to the run.
Our DL isn't playing well yet as unit.
I heard a stat during preseason that suggested that we were especially weak on the offensive left side.
Which would be solved if we just quit messing about and put #92 at RDE already!

-I think our ILB are on point but our OLB have to work on holding the edge.

The LB's except for good ol London Fletcher are having a tough time transitioning on the mental part. They are still learning. Even McIntosh was fooled and caught out of position a few times.
The one disadvantage we have is is our ILB's are smallish, so they can not make up physically when being walled off by a strong OL.
They have to make up for lack of size with speed and smart decision making.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Giving up 5 yards a run only matters if it forces you to pull extra guys out of pass defense to stop it because you can't make any other adjustment. Our front seven is far too good to reach that point.

Houston won't stick with the run even if it's working either. They did it against the Colts because they've been burned so many times that they had no choice but to run it and enjoy it. Schaub was 8/15 or something. They're going to come out firing the ball against our defense. The Houston running game won't matter in the outcome of this game. We need to stop Schaub.

Giving up 5 yds per run is what poor defenses do. It matters if a team is smart enough to keep doing it all the way down the field. What makes you think that if the D can't stop the run all the way down the field it will magically do so inside the 10? Plus running the ball keeps the ToP up for the O and keeps the D on the field, wearing them down.

Since the 2005 season there have been 23 teams that allowed over 4.5 yds/att. Only 5 of them finished over .500 (21.7%). Of those 5, one had Peyton Manning and led the league in Passing Yards, another the same year had Drew Brees and was 2nd in the NFL in Passing Yds.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

Giving up 5 yds per run is what poor defenses do. It matters if a team is smart enough to keep doing it all the way down the field. What makes you think that if the D can't stop the run all the way down the field it will magically do so inside the 10? Plus running the ball keeps the ToP up for the O and keeps the D on the field, wearing them down.

Since the 2005 season there have been 23 teams that allowed over 4.5 yds/att. Only 5 of them finished over .500 (21.7%). Of those 5, one had Peyton Manning and led the league in Passing Yards, another the same year had Drew Brees and was 2nd in the NFL in Passing Yds.

Football 101, running inside the ten requires better execution because there are more players in a confined area, holes are smaller, ballcarriers are reached quicker, etc.

I'm not saying there's no problem with the run defense, but it's not like we were whipped by Dallas in the rushing attack. They averaged like 4.8 YPC and never had a carry over 12 yards. That's an efficient day running the football, but hardly getting gashed like it seems some people are commenting on.

We're not going to give up 4.5 YPC for the season. It's just not going to happen. We might have a below average run defense overall (we did on Sunday, at least), but like I said above, if it doesn't affect the pass defense for the negative (because of schematic alterations to plug a leaky run defense), it won't matter.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Football 101, running inside the ten requires better execution because there are more players in a confined area, holes are smaller, ballcarriers are reached quicker, etc.

I'm not saying there's no problem with the run defense, but it's not like we were whipped by Dallas in the rushing attack. They averaged like 4.8 YPC and never had a carry over 12 yards. That's an efficient day running the football, but hardly getting gashed like it seems some people are commenting on.

We're not going to give up 4.5 YPC for the season. It's just not going to happen. We might have a below average run defense overall (we did on Sunday, at least), but like I said above, if it doesn't affect the pass defense for the negative (because of schematic alterations to plug a leaky run defense), it won't matter.

Thanks for the Football 101. It's very unusual for a D giving up over 4.5 Yds/Att to suddenly become a monster inside the 10. Of course it's harder to run inside the 10 because your options are cut down. But the same guys on the DL are still on the field inside the 10. And they're going against the same OL that has been kicking their ass up and down the field. Fine, you can put 9 in the box, but now I've got an extra TE and a power run formation. Bottom line, the chances of a D giving up a huge yds/att number and stuffing the opponent consistently inside the 10 is slim.

We actually were whipped in the run game, but because of piss-poor coaching and Garrett being to much of a "genius" for his own good Dallas didn't take advantage.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

Giving up 5 yds per run is what poor defenses do. It matters if a team is smart enough to keep doing it all the way down the field. What makes you think that if the D can't stop the run all the way down the field it will magically do so inside the 10? Plus running the ball keeps the ToP up for the O and keeps the D on the field, wearing them down.

Since the 2005 season there have been 23 teams that allowed over 4.5 yds/att. Only 5 of them finished over .500 (21.7%). Of those 5, one had Peyton Manning and led the league in Passing Yards, another the same year had Drew Brees and was 2nd in the NFL in Passing Yds.

Exactly.
Football 101 on defense:
Rule # 1 stop the run.
Not to many Sb winning teams that were weak against the run. Just a fact.

Back to my point, we did not give 5 yards a carry last night because we wanted to. We were not weak against the run all in preseason and now in game 1 because of scheme or coaching decisions. We are not good against the run because some of our DL and LB's are not playing well yet.