Cowboys by the Numbers: Defense

As we continue to examine 2012 as a primer for what needs to be accomplished heading into training camp of 2013 and beyond, we should follow up our breakdown of the offensive numbers with a thorough checkup of the statistics that the defense was responsible for.

Clearly, this is less relevant when you consider the wholesale adjustments to the defense moving forward.  They spent the offseason changing the coaching staff and the scheme of the defense and asking much of their 3-4 personnel to now simply switch to the 4-3.  Most NFL experts would argue that this is a very unwise endeavor as players are often identified as one or the other on draft day and yet now the Cowboys are asking their entire Front 7 on the defense - who were all drafted because they were tailor-made for the 3-4 scheme to not only learn but perform at a high level on the 4-3.

Much of this is also mitigated by the fact that the Cowboys did run a very multiple and versatile front with Rob Ryan in the last few years and that they have very talented players who should work in any scheme, but still, it is not a sure thing this will work when they have 6 of their projected 7 starters as hold overs from the old scheme.  Only newcomer Justin Durant, the projected SAM linebacker in Monte Kiffin's scheme has every played a snap in a 4-3.  That is a shocking reality of what the Cowboys are about to try to do.

On the other hand, what you are about to see are the statistics that the Cowboys defense has amassed in 2012 with their old scheme.  Now remember, health had a ton to do with another disappointing effort from the defense - so much so that the firing of Rob Ryan doesn't really seem fair based on 2012 performance - but, make no mistake;  we should not be too bothered with the Cowboys trying a new defensive strategy moving forward.

Trouble is, we know from experience that scheme doesn't make the team.  Players do.  Special ones.  And, honestly, I have significant doubts that the Cowboys can be a special defense based on a scheme that requires a team to get pressure with only the front 4 (The Tampa 2 seldom blitzes) and is based on the cognitive skills of safeties to orchestrate the entire secondary.  But, I will let the coaches sort through those issues in a long camp and see where it goes.

In the meantime, let's try our best to sort through those 2012 numbers.  When we did the offense, we found 5 great stats, 5 good stats, and 5 poor stats to analyze.  Unfortunately, finding 5 great stats from the 2012 defense will not be easy, so I am forced to relabel the categories.

Here we go:

5 Good to Great Stats from the Cowboys Defense in 2012

Opponents Quick Strike Drives:  Rated 9th in NFL with 28 drives of 4 plays or less.  NFL Average was 41 drives and Playoff Teams averaged 31 drives where points were scored in 4 plays or fewer.

3rd Down and Long 10 yards+ Conversions: 4th best in NFL with 15.9%.  NFL Average = 20.6%, Playoff Average = 21%

Opponents rushing for 4+ yards:  42% was 7th in NFL.  NFL Average = 43.5%, Playoff Average = 43.9%

Opponents rushes for 50 yards:  Allowed 0 plays ranked 1st.  NFL Average = 1, Playoff Average = 1

Opponents Drives Starting inside the 20:  5th in NFL, 56.  NFL = 48, Playoffs = 48


As you can see, I am really scraping the bottom of our barrel to find 5 stats where the Cowboys rank in the Top 10 in the league.  And let's be honest - none of them really seem to be a major category of excellence.  Rather, they are subcomponents of larger categories.  It is certainly good news that the Cowboys did not give up huge plays very often, but they did give up tons of other things - long drives and big time of possession ground and pounds.

You do have to like that they made teams work hard for rushing yards and did not allow 4 yards a lot relative to the league.  Also, it should be pointed out that the 5th stat I found - opponents' drives starting deep in their own territory is actually a stat that is reflective of strong special teams work - not defensive excellence.

Overall, as you can see, there just wasn't much at all that this defense was really good at.  So, we arrive back at the question of what is the argument for keeping the scheme and the coaching staff the same?


5 League Average Stats from the Cowboys Defense in 2012

Opponents Net Passing Yards Per Game:  230, 19th in NFL.  NFL Average = 231, Playoff Teams Average = 230

Opponents Red Zone Scoring:  54.5 TD%, 18th in the NFL.  NFL Average = 54.1, Playoff Teams = 53.1

Explosive Plays (Plays of 20 yards or more): 67, 22nd in NFL.  NFL = 60, Playoffs = 60

Opponents First Downs:  317, 16th in the NFL.  NFL Average = 318, Playoff Teams = 312

Opponents Time of Possession:  29:27 for 13th in NFL.  NFL Average = 30:00, Playoff Teams 29:23

Here we see that the squad did some things in line with the pack in the NFL.  They weren't killed with yardage through the air and did a reasonable enough job with the clock and limiting the first downs.  However, 67 explosive plays is at the low end of average and there just wasn't enough meat here to help when it mattered most.  They found themselves behind quite a bit early in games and that actually might lead to some misleading numbers through the air as well.  As you will see below, when QB's wanted to move the ball against the Cowboys, they didn't struggle to do so.


5 Very Poor Stats from the Cowboys Defense in 2012

Opponents Negative Plays (in yards):  Cowboys -295, 30th best in NFL.  NFL Average = -370, Playoff Teams -385

Takeaways:  16, which ranked 28th.  NFL Average = 25, Playoffs = 27

Opponents Passer Rating:  94.7, ranked 29th.  NFL Average = 85.6, Playoff Teams Average = 81.8

10 Play Drives Allowed:  32, 28th.  NFL Average = 27, Playoff teams = 28

Opponents Passer Rating vs Blitz:  106.1, 29th.  NFL Average = 83.4, Playoff Teams = 77.8


Holy Cow.

Look at those opponent's passer rating numbers. So, first, just look at all passes.  We have always talked about how 80 is the NFL average and 90+ is an elite QB.  As you can see, the Cowboys defense made their entire schedule to be elite QBs.

Then, with the blitz, they actually got even worse.  They somehow conceded a 106.1 QB rating when they brought pressure.  They also did not turn the ball over (again) and had fewer tackles for loss and sacks than almost anyone in the league.  This is particularly depressing given the monster investment in the cornerback position last offseason.

They just didn't make any plays on defense.  They didn't take the ball away, nor did they make the opponent lose yardage and set up longer plays.

They just didn't do much defensively that you can sink your teeth into.

Moving forward, we look to better health, a new scheme, and better safety play (gulp) to improve upon things.  But, looking at these numbers, you can see the reason some were scratching their heads when the Cowboys did nothing to address the defense of note in the early part of the draft or free agency.  These numbers are the argument for Shariff Floyd or players like that could have added a playmaker to the front 4.

But, they elected to look elsewhere and we will see if they end up regretting that.

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Rob Ryan Exits Stage Left

Yogi Berra supposedly once told us, "it's tough to make predictions; especially about the future."

So, I take solace in that modern-day philosopher when I attempt to predict what is going to happen next in the Jerry Jones empire of football.  There is no predicting what he will do, and when he starts making moves, conventional thinking or consensus should likely just be ignored.  There is no point in playing this game.

Yet, last week, I was ready to try to interpret the "uncomfortable change" that was around the corner according to an irate Jones a few days after the failure in Washington.

I was pretty sure it would be a new play-caller on offense.  But, a change in the coach running the defense?  Here is what I wrote about it (please note that I felt the conversation barely needed to happen given that a long-winded guy only used one paragraph for the entire discussion):

I also don't think I would campaign for a dismissal of Rob Ryan.  I believe in what he likes to do and although nobody wants to hear this, I still don't think we have much of an idea of what he would like to do with this crew.  In 2011, he had a very poor personnel situation at corner and in 2012, he enjoyed about a month of Sean Lee and Bruce Carter together with a legit pair of corners.  They need health and a better defensive line group, but this defense is not far away if you ask me.

So, that was that.  Done and dusted.

Until yesterday when Ryan was fired.  That makes Skip Peete, the Running Backs coach since 2007, on Monday and Rob Ryan, the defensive coordinator since 2011, on Tuesday.

We can only imagine what Wednesday brings us.

And to some, there is the response of "Good.  It is about time Jerry makes some sweeping changes around there."  To which I say that changing out a RBs coach would change nearly nothing about the offense that doesn't care to run anyway, and changing out Rob Ryan is simply moving someone out who had no Cowboys-equity to begin with - and was only hired begrudgingly 2 seasons ago after the worst defensive season in Cowboys history.

That is not changing anything about the systematic ills that continue to plague this proud organization.

What it sounds like to me, for different reasons, is that the Cowboys likely let two guys go who did not necessarily do anything fireable in a sense of coaching strategy.  Rather, to either freshen things up or to change philosophically, the two men were fired so that we could "go in a different direction".

Seriously, if anyone was hit harder than Rob Ryan from an injury standpoint (Lee, Carter, Ratliff, Coleman, Church), it might be the guy in charge of running backs (DeMarco Murray missed a huge chunk of the year).  To fire them under the pretense of under-performance is flat-out silly.

So, is there issues with factions in the coaching staff?  Well, let me say that this is my biggest hot-button issue with Jerry Jones (once we accept that he has given himself a life-time term as the team's general manager), the idea that a head coach has somewhere between little and nothing to do with who is on his staff.

You have to understand how difficult this makes this job.  A head coach, no matter who he is, needs and must receive unconditional loyalty from his coaching staff.  When that doesn't happen - when a coach undercuts him to the players or to other assistants or even the public - we have major issues.  We have a powerless head coach which is 100% the opposite way of how the legendary successful coaches have always operated.  This is why their staff is made up of people they generally know or trust and one reason why coaching is thought of internally as an honorable occupation with a strict code of ethics that you are loyal to the man who gave you the opportunity.

And this is why the Cowboys have it all wrong.

You don't hire Jason Garrett to be your offensive coordinator when you have not hired a head coach yet.  And that is what Jones did in 2007.  You don't hire a head coach and tell him who is assistants are.  And that is something Jones has done with nearly every coach since Jimmy left with the exception of Bill Parcells - who assumed many coaches, but at least had a little say in that matter.

And, if you are Jason Garrett, and you are being made head coach, you cannot take assistants from the last regime unless you believe you have their 100% loyalty.  And sometimes that is difficult.  Sometimes, they don't have loyalty to you because they were an equal with you years ago, and think that perhaps they deserve to have your job - but perhaps they weren't the owner's pet.  Regardless, if you name your own staff, you aren't naming guys who you aren't sure would "buy in" to what you are selling to your players, which should be an unconditional commitment to the same goal.

And if you don't have that unconditional commitment to make the Jason Garrett-led Cowboys Super Bowl champions, then you shouldn't be on his staff.  Said another way, if you think you are a better candidate to be your team's coach than the coach himself, you have to know how to keep that to yourself or there will always be fractures in the organization and most obviously in the locker-room.

That is why 2008 was such a disaster.  Terrell Owens, Patrick Crayton, and the wide receivers are having "keeping it real Thursdays" with their position coach Ray Sherman.  Inside these meetings, there reportedly are unflattering things being said about the offensive coordinator, the quarterback, and the tight end - who all happen to be too friendly according to Owens and company.  This friendliness, in their minds, is leading to decisions made on the football field that rewards friends with footballs.  And before long, we have half of the offense accusing the other half of a friendship organization and it leads to lack of unity and continuity.  All the while, the head coach, Wade Phillips, was presiding over the circus by acting like it wasn't happening.

And if that controversy in 2008 didn't teach Jerry that a staff must all have each-other's backs - and therefore a head coach better be able to name his entire staff with guys he trusts and that will respect and fear him, then nothing will.

And guess what.  Nothing will.

This is not meant to be a love-letter to the Jason Garrett-led Cowboys.  I am certainly not a full believer in his regime (can you have a regime if you don't have the power to name your own coaching staff?), although I believe he has some characteristics that intrigue me.  But, rather, on this day where we think 2 coaches just got fired for issues that cannot be based on their 2012 on-field performance - they had no chance of success with the injury cards they were dealt - I continue to wonder if this is an effort to get the coaching staff all on the same Garrett-led page.

What else could it be?

Some will say that the Cowboys just wanted to move to the 4-3.  And maybe that is all it is.  But, if you read this column, you know that I have been saying they have been running a modified 4-3 for Ryan's entire run here.  At least half of the game every week is either in an actual 4-3 (nickel defense on 3rd Downs and other passing scenarios) or a modified 3-4 where Ware rushes 88% of the time getting him defined as a DE in a 4-3 defense and the front 3 is just a DE and 2 DTs.

That is why I am somewhat amused by the universal freak-out about their personnel in a supposed change to the 4-3.  Ware and Anthony Spencer are your defensive ends - just like they were at Troy and Purdue.  Jason Hatcher and Jay Ratliff would be your ideal defensive tackles - although, who knows about Ratliff anymore.  Tyrone Crawford and Sean Lissemore could play either in a depth rotation, and you were going to focus on DL in the draft anyway.

Linebackers are easy given your talent base already.  Sean Lee is your middle linebacker (Mic), and Bruce Carter would look to be a fantastic weak side LB (Will).  The strong side linebacker (Sam) may not be on your roster or it could be Alex Albright.  But, as you can see, you have strong personnel that could be made stronger with upgrades, of course, but is not in dire straits as it is.

I say it has to be that the long-haired member of the most abrasive family in football likely showed his abrasive side at one point or another in this incredibly high-stress 2012 season.  And when he does, he appears to have a tongue that might not always regulate itself well.  Was it his personality that got him fired?  I have no idea, but since people want a guess, that is where I am looking.  Otherwise, you cannot ask a guy to coach half the year with street free agents comprising his defense and then fire him when things don't work out.  This simply has to be bigger than that.

And given that I think Ryan has been running what amounts to a 4-3 anyway, the idea that he couldn't help usher in the new scheme is a bit far-fetched, too.

With Peete, I have spent less time thinking about it, other than to say that A) he goes back to 2007 with Garrett and fresh looks at this offense should not be discounted and B) there are a lot of fractured relationships from anyone around in 2008 when everything went wrong.  If people want to make this an argument of which guy should go, a RB's coach or a head coach, then you need your head examined.  If he is your head coach, then you allow him to change out whatever he wishes on his staff to tinker with what is clearly broken.  I am sure Peete will be fine and working again whenever he wants, but I don't have the slightest issue with changes being made to the staff.

And that is why I wonder if more changes are coming.  The play-calling position still seems up for grabs - Norv is still a wildcard as are several other interesting names.  And we haven't even discussed the personnel department that has had about as much stability over the last 15 years as any football front-office in the league.  I know the GM and his family are safe, but there are many sets of eyeballs with scouts and personnel types in the organization that have been there a long-time.  I imagine Jerry realizes his last few drafts have been some of his best, but if he wants discomfort in that building, who knows what he has planned?

This team is never short of story-lines, and maybe this is the year that Jason Garrett gets full control of his coaching staff.

But, I highly doubt it.

If there is one change we can bet against, it is the idea that Jerry will ever truly change his ways.  You can't predict much about the man, except for the idea that he will still be doing things his way for many years to come and there is nothing you can do about it.

So what changes will truly matter if the biggest change doesn't happen?  Well, that is tough to predict.  But, the outcomes might not be as difficult to forecast.

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Eli Owns Dallas

December 14, 2008 was the last win at Texas Stadium for the Dallas Cowboys franchise. The game was played against Eli Manning and the New York Giants. In that month, December 2008, almost nothing went right for the Cowboys. But, one thing that did was this Sunday Night affair against their bitter rivals.

In that game, the Cowboys battered, bruised, and flat-out beat up Manning to the tune of 8 sacks. DeMarcus Ware had 3. Greg Ellis had 2.5. Bradie James and Chris Canty each had 1, and 2nd year LB Anthony Spencer even picked up one half of a sack. The Cowboys won that game 20-8, over the then Super Bowl Champion Giants, and felt that they had cracked the code on how to beat the younger Manning brother: Beat him up. But, since we have mentioned Texas Stadium and Greg Ellis in the opening 2 paragraphs of this story, it has been a while since that night.

Since then, the two teams have squared off 6 times. Manning has won 5 of them, losing to Cowboys' back-up QB Jon Kitna in Jason Garrett's 1st game as head coach in 2010.

And since that night, the New York Giants have run 230 pass plays against the Cowboys 3-4 defense. And in those 230 passes over the span of 3 seasons and 6 games, the Cowboys have sacked Manning 4 times or once every 57.5 pass plays (as a comparison, the Cowboys averaged a sack every 14 pass attempts against the league last year). And to make it much, much worse, over those 230 pass plays, DeMarcus Ware has 3.5 of the 4 sacks. That's right. The rest of the Cowboys defense, with 230 chances at getting to the QB, only Jason Hatcher has tallied even half of a sack. Pitiful may not properly sum up this reality.

So, the pressure does not get to the QB without blitzing. And when blitzing, Eli can get rid of the ball to exactly the proper place, ripping the cornerbacks of the Cowboys to shreds. Have a look at the game log of Eli since that fateful night at Texas Stadium:

Date	Result	C-A-Yds-TD-INT	Rating	Sacked
9/20/09	Win	25-38-330-2-0	110.6	0
12/06/09	Win	11-25-241-2-1	88.9	1
10/25/11	Win	25-35-306-4-3	100.4	1
11/14/10	Loss	33-48-373-2-2	88.3	0
12/11/11	Win	27-47-400-2-1	90.7	0
1/1/12	Win	24-33-346-3-0	136.7	2
Totals	5-1	145-226-1996-15-7	101.6	4

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That is unreal. His AVERAGE game against the Cowboys over the last 3 seasons: 24-38-365-2-1 for a QB rating of 101. That is average, as he has done much better than that.

The NFL is a matchup league. Teams play in a division that requires them to see the rest of their division twice a year. Therefore, it is mandatory that as you build your team and plan drafts and free agency every year, you must consider those teams that you will see every single year. Twice.

And in the case of the Giants and the Cowboys, we are going through a period of time where it seems rather clear that the Giants hold some rather substantial matchup issues on both sides of the ball. It has been and will be well documented how the Cowboys offensive line has very little success keeping the Giants DL off of Tony Romo (9 sacks against in 2011). But, perhaps it has not been properly investigated that the Giants hold a similar, fundamental advantage in this matchup because the Cowboys defense, regardless of coordinator, has had no good answer against Eli Manning.

What is interesting to note is that Washington has had great success in slowing down Eli Manning as he has a NFL average QB rating against Washington of 80. Against Philadelphia, he is 1-5 since 2009. But, against the Cowboys, he has all day and shreds the defense so much so that nobody thought it was out of line that he autographed the wall in the Cowboys visiting locker-room in Arlington. He really does own them. But, it should also be noted that Washington has 10 sacks in 3 seasons. Philadelphia 13 sacks. Meanwhile, the Cowboys have 4.

And yet, when you examine the numbers, it seems disingenuous to simply blame the pass rush. In fact, the Cowboys seemed to speak with their actions this spring that they believe Eli Manning owns them because their secondary was not good enough. It is worth noting that from 2009-2011, the top 3 corners on the Cowboys remained the same: Terence Newman, Mike Jenkins, and Orlando Scandrick.

And, time after time, he lit all of their rears on fire whenever they played. Jenkins was the least burned, but his health kept him off the field for almost half of the action. But overall, Eli could throw in any direction. Take a look - Here are the numbers for the 6 games combined when Manning threw the ball at a particular Cowboys' corner (numbers courtesy of ProFootballFocus):

Vs Corner	C-A-Yds-TD-INT	Rating	Snaps
Vs Newman	29-48-498-4-1	114.6	333/430
Vs Jenkins	17-29-237-0-1	70.6	249/430
Vs Scandrick	31-43-409-5-0	140.5	330/430

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Clearly, Eli Manning loved playing the Cowboys because he loved throwing at the corners.

First, the plays against Terence Newman, where Eli would seek out #41 and his "off and soft" techniques and seek him again and again. Sometimes, he would go after him to a fault and he almost threw away last season's game in Arlington, but a pass that hit Newman between the numbers fell harmlessly to the ground. But in 48 passes at Newman over 6 games (8 per), he amassed nearly 500 yards or over 80 per game. What is also worth noting is that none of these corners were able to stay on the field. All 3 of them missed at least 97 snaps in these games due to bangs, bruises, and breathers.

The Cowboys knew that this was an issue and so did anyone watching. Newman's diminished performance was one of the worst kept secrets going around in Cowboys land. So, in free agency, the Cowboys made a tremendous upgrade when they paid Brandon Carr to join their side for $50m. This should challenge Manning with a physical corner who has both the size and the speed to take things away on occasions where the Cowboys wish to press.

But, take a look at the slot. Last week, I was under the impression that Orlando Scandrick might have been able to prevent the long TD pass to Victor Cruz last season with some better slot technique against the option routes of the Giants.

However, after doing the research and reviewing Manning vs Scandrick over 3 years, I was reminded about the nights that Steve Smith dominated Scandrick before Cruz was even in the league. Scandrick may be a reasonable slot receiver and a player who they did not need to focus on replacing, but Scandrick against the Giants has had a pork chop hanging around his neck. A line of 31-43-405 and 5 touchdowns against 0 interceptions equals a QB rating that approaches perfection. The receivers have changed against Scandrick, but the QB and the corner remain the same in the slot, and Eli loves to throw at #32.

These numbers - the idea that Manning has thrown for 500 yards against Newman and 400 more against Scandrick - reveal the issues that Wade Phillips and Rob Ryan have faced when playing him. Either they try to get pressure and risk the secondary being undermanned, or they fortify the secondary and give Eli all day to pick them apart. Either way, they are dead.

And the proof is on the scoreboard, where the Cowboys held the Giants to under 31 points in a game just once in the last 6 meetings. And, in this league, when you give up 31 points or more, you lose. Since 2009, the Cowboys have allowed 31 points on 11 occasions, and are 1-10 (lone win at Indianapolis in 2010, 38-35 (overtime)).

With Carr and the 1st round pick, Mo Claiborne, the Cowboys have now invested in the corner position to a point that it risked other spots on the field to be ignored (OL). With Claiborne, it is more of a long play than a fix for the immediate nature of Wednesday night. Corners, no matter how special and talented, endure a growing process filled with pains, lessons, and tests against veteran QBs. And you can bet that on Wednesday, it will be up to Claiborne to answer all of the questions that are asked of him when Rob Ryan decides to leave him on an island with whoever he is being asked to blanket. Rookie corners always get welcomed to the NFL in the most unkind way possible.

To me, Eli Manning is one of the most complicated QBs to rate in the NFL. He does things that the very best QBs don't do that detract from his greatness. He reminds you of what Jimmy Johnson used to say about league MVP, Brett Favre: He will throw a few to us if we are patient. Manning always mixes in a few plays that could be disastrous. In Super Bowl 42, the Patriots had the game in their hands but Asante Samuel dropped the sure pick. Newman did Manning the same favor last December. As did the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game last January.

He is not near flawless, but I have also decided to stop betting against him. He is better than I have been willing to admit over these last many seasons. I even spent an entire blog on the man and my opinion of him last season.

But, in Dallas, the biggest argument for him is not that he has 2 rings (although that is a rather large argument). The biggest argument for Eli Manning in Dallas is that he owns the Cowboys. He has unreasonable success against the team that loathes him the most. And no matter how they try to slow him down, he wears that smirk and throws another touchdown.

With no Newman to kick around anymore, and 2 very important pieces at the corner position, it will be most interesting to see what posture the Cowboys defense brings into this battle. The good news is that the bar is 365 yards and 31 points. Anything south of either of those 2 numbers will be considered better than usual. The bad news is just how low that bar is right now.

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Rob Ryan's New Season

One of the more easy-to-see story lines in Cowboys' camp 2012 is the idea that the defense simply must get better for the team to succeed. No matter how many times the network studio shows assure us that this team could go further if they had better QB play, people that actually break down the team with thoroughness quickly turn their attention to the defense not pulling its weight for large swaths of last season.

Last year, Rob Ryan was brought in to clean up the mess from 2010. There was improvement, but that doesn't say a whole lot, given the circumstances surrounding 2010. That team quit. Badly. On its coach, Wade Phillips. And on quite a few games at the end of his reign. The team absolutely quit about the time Tony Romo's collarbone snapped, and against Jacksonville and Green Bay in the subsequent weeks, the opposition had free paths to the end zone of surprising ease to even them.

So, to issue statistics that point out that the 2010 Cowboys surrendered 436 points and the 2011 Cowboys improved to allow only 347 is all true. But, that 89-point improvement was not enough to get the team into the playoffs, nor was it enough to slow down the rivals in Philadelphia or New York for even one second in the 4 meetings against them. And frankly, when you factor in the quit jobs of 2010, it is tough to even quantify how much improvement there really was.

But, as we enter the 2012 year, very little of that matters. Regulars like Terence Newman and Bradie James are in training camps for other employers, and in their place are acquisitions brought in to understand their orders and carry them out. Specifically, if this team is to find post season play, they must slow down the offenses inside their own division.

And that is the goal of Rob Ryan. Ryan, who is on camera during Cowboys games as much as any assistant coach in the NFL, is a fiery figure who attracts plenty of attention. He has charisma and seems only a short time from his first head coaching job in the league. But, to get there and to get the Cowboys back to the post-season, he has got to figure out how to make this defense strong again.

They improved at times last year. In fact, as of Week 7, when they traveled to Philadelphia on a Sunday Night, it really seemed like he had things somewhat figured out. The team had allowed just 19 explosive plays (plays of 20 yards or more) in 6 games, a number that had the Cowboys amongst the league leaders after conceding 69 in 2010. The final 10 games of 2011 proved that the issue wasn't fixed, however. In those final 10 games, the Cowboys defense limped home and allowed a shocking 45 more explosive plays for a season total that was improved but not fixed. Instead of 69 explosives, they cut it down to 64. Still, 4 times a game they were being shredded for a big play.

In case you are wondering about explosives, and what they could mean to a team, consider Pittsburgh. The Steelers, who happen to own one of the best defenses in all of football on an annual basis, run the 3-4 in such a way that they almost never concede big plays. They led the NFL in fewest explosives allowed in 2011 with 43. They led the NFL in fewest explosives allowed in 2010 with 36. So, basically, in 2 years and 32 regular season games, they have allowed exactly 79 plays of 20 yards or more. And Dallas has, over that same stretch, conceded 133. Pittsburgh gives up 2.4 explosives per game over those 2 years, and Dallas is giving up 4.2 during that same stretch. In a league this close, you don't think 2 big plays PER GAME make a tremendous difference?

It is a sport of big plays. Big plays are what every offense is looking for. And big plays are what every defense is trying to stop.

The Cowboys went to the obvious solution to fix this. If you are allowing 64 big plays, and 57 of them are through the air, then you understand the premium they put on cornerbacks in the offseason. The acquisitions of Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne are well documented and discussed. Tons of money and resources, that surely could have gone elsewhere, were poured into the position of corner. And for good reason. Newman, despite many years of being a good contributor, just had nothing left. His speed, confidence, and ability had all dropped off and when Ryan needed to ask him to man-up, Newman seemed to back off even more.

Mike Jenkins, on the other side, had moments of solid play, but for the most part it was another year of wondering if Mike Jenkins can play physically enough in the NFL. Then, every time he would attempt to get physical, his body would break down again. He either plays passive and healthy, or physical and hurt. It is a bad combination for a player who is young.

Now, with Carr on one side and Claiborne on the other, the idea is that Ryan can finally do what Ryan wants to do as the coordinator of this defense - bring the pressure. And, since the Cowboys have another glaring hole in their personnel structure - they don't seem to have enough guys who can win their battles up front to generate a pass rush without having to resort to risky blitzes - he is asked to make lemonade out of lemons.

To understand his dilemma in simple terms, just understand the math issues of playing the Giants twice a season. Eli Manning, now one of the best QBs in the NFL when he is blitzed, understands this math problem quite well. If the Cowboys would play him straight up (rushing 4 and dropping 7) there was almost no pressure on Manning, and he would take underneath routes or wait on one of his regular sideline routes at 20 yards that is precision based and almost uncover-able to the sideline. If you would bring the blitz (rush more than 4) than he picks up his hot route, normally, someone like Victor Cruz underneath who knows if you are dedicating more players to a pass rush, then he will be in man-coverage because a safety is making sure that nobody gets beat over the top for a huge play.

Also, if you blitz, the Cowboys are counting on the corners to play tight enough so when Eli wants to get rid of the ball, there is nowhere to go. Trouble is, Newman was not playing press coverage - even when he thought he was - for most of last season. He played "off and soft". This prevents more over the top plays, but concedes a slow death of pitch and catch routes that move the chains as Newman is often not even on the screen when the receiver catches the ball.

Ryan would blitz and would get beat. He would play coverage and get beat. It was at its worse in the division. Against the NFC East last season, the Cowboys were shredded by the explosives. Amazingly, in 6 games inside the division, there were 33 explosives allowed. In the other 10 games outside the division, there was just 31. So, if you play in a division that gives you fits, then you better sort that out immediately. The Redskins will be better soon with a QB, and the Giants and Eagles are already familiar with how to carve Dallas up.

One under-reported item that happened more than a few times in 2011 was that teams like the Eagles were starting to attack DeMarcus Ware. At least 6 different times in 2011, the Cowboys had a screen pass right into the teeth of their blitz go for an explosive (a play that totals 20 or more yards). Many times, the screen would set up right behind where Ware was coming from. Chip him with a tight end, like Brent Celek, then release Ware to the QB and Celek would accept the pass with nothing but green grass in front of him. The Jets, Dolphins, Patriots, Eagles, Rams, Lions, and Eagles again all sprung this trap on the Cowboys to back off the blitzing tactics. There is nothing more demoralizing than sending 6 or 7 rushers and then having a QB dink a short pass right behind your men and they run free for 30 yards down the field.

Here is a link to all 64 of the explosives Rob Ryan's defense allowed and you can see how many times the screen was stuck on them. Keep in mind, the Cowboys did not generate a single explosive off the screen in 2011 offensively.

So, if you touch a hot stove, you stop touching it. Many close observers of the team last season felt that Ryan caused many of his own problems by being caught badly in blitzes. His biggest weapon had turned into a predictable weakness. And the Cowboys, as best demonstrated at Philadelphia and at New York, would have their hands burned early and often in games and then lose all confidence and swagger with their blitzing tactics the rest of the way. You could literally see in the eyes of many defenders that they knew their goose was cooked before the game reached half-time. They were screwed if they blitzed, and screwed if they didn't.

Will Anthony Spencer suddenly become the 10 sack guy who can change all of this? Or will more Sean Lissemore and the addition of Tyrone Crawford help the team assemble the pressure from up front? I think both all 3 of those players can help make a real difference. That will get the QB worried without exposing a secondary that is better, but far from perfect with a safety group that still sticks out like a sore thumb when opposing teams begin to assemble game plans to expose weaknesses.

People will yell for Rob Ryan to "do something!" and get mad every time the networks show him after a big play. It is hardly an enviable position, but it is what he is signed up to do. Attack, but not too much. Prevent big plays, but hopefully make big plays, too.

In a short phrase, Ryan's job for 2012 is to make the Cowboys defense part of the solution rather than part of the problem. It is an easy charge in August. But, as we saw last year, the deeper you wade into the year, the tougher this job becomes.

But, let's be clear - either Ryan sorts this defense in 2012 and makes himself a candidate for a head coaching job elsewhere, or he doesn't sort it out and gets replaced in 2013. Either way, I expect this will be the last year for the controversial coordinator in Dallas.

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Why did Wade Phillips Work In Houston?

DIscussing defenses around the league is a fun thing to do this time of year on all mediums. On Monday, it was time to sort through why the New York Giants seemed to have so many great defensive lineman and a relentless pass rush that did not depend on one player (answer: they have committed to building a core of depth in New York and they have been successful in doing so).

I have been asked by a few different readers to examine what is going on down in Houston, with Wade Phillips and the Texans installing an entirely new scheme to their personnel and finding great success in year one. If I am going to allow Rob Ryan the mulligan on account of not having an off-season program to make sure everyone was comfortable with the scheme and familiar with what was expected of them, then certainly Houston could have the same excuse for moving from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense.

In fact, much of the off-season, the narrative in Houston was based on the idea that they had players - most notably one of the very best players in the NFL, Mario Williams - that would not fit the 3-4 scheme. He was exceptional as a 4-3 defensive end, but perhaps without a home in Phillips' new scheme. He weighed nearly 300 pounds, and as much versatility as the OLB position required seemed to suggest that this move would have been crazy. But, they tried it with brave faces.

In the Texans 5th game of the season, at home against the Raiders, Williams grabbed his 5th sack of the year by getting to Jason Campbell. In doing so, he ripped his left pectoral muscle and was lost for the season. The Houston equivalent of DeMarcus Ware was going on injured reserve and now Wade Phillips and his staff would have to navigate with both a new scheme and a season-ending injury to their best pass rusher. Surely, as the media quickly typed, this would be the start of a very rocky learning experience.

And clearly, nobody in the media knows what they are talking about. How do we explain this?

Houston Texans - Defense 2010-2011

Year	PPG Vs	Sacks	Takeaways
2010	26.7 (29th)	30 (23rd)	18 (30th)
2011	17.4 (4th)	44 (6th)	27 (12th)

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Not just improvement in every single category, but substantial improvement in every single category. Now, there are some mitigating circumstances that are beyond their control, such as no meetings against Peyton Manning this year, but still, that across-the-board improvement clearly shows a team that won 10 games and their division despite losing their Quarterback and best defender for the season.

So, how does a team improve in every category like this in one year? Especially when switching to a completely scheme and having no offseason to work through all of the bugs? And then, losing their best player within one month of the new season?

When Frank Bush was fired at the end of 2010, Pro Football talk wrote the following: there wasn’t a soul that watched the Texans defense this season that didn’t know that this move was coming. They finished 30th in yards allowed, 29th in points allowed and made quarterbacks from Tim Tebow to Bruce Gradkowski to Kerry Collins look like All-Pros at various points this season. Of course, all those numbers are just part of the reason why this news raises no eyebrows.

It seemed clear to those who did not follow the team closely that adding Wade Phillips and his scheme that helped get him fired in Dallas would end poorly in Houston, too.

And that is when we were reminded again that players play. And when you wonder why a team is as good or bad as it is, you should spend most of your time looking at what kind of players are being put on the field.

Before we go on, let's look at the same graphic from above to show how Dallas did in 2010-2011.

Dallas Cowboys - Defense 2010-2011

Year	PPG Vs	Sacks	Takeaways
2010	27.3 (31st)	35 (16th)	30 (8th)
2011	21.7 (16th)	42 (7th)	25 (16th)

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Perhaps the most important statistic to notice here is that while points allowed and sacks were both improved, the Rob Ryan defense actually generated less takeaways than the 2010 defense that most people would agree spent the last half of October and the first part of November not even exerting much effort or energy.

Here is what I wrote on the topic of Rob Ryan's 1st season last week:

the Cowboys offered almost no personnel changes in 2011. The marginal swap of Kenyon Coleman for Igor Olshansky at DE (which is one veteran replacement level DE for another) and Abram Elam for Alan Ball which appeared to be an upgrade, albeit a incremental upgrade rather than the big dollar upgrades that were available last summer at safety.

In the draft, they offered little to know defensive support. The one potential impact addition would have been in the 2nd round, but the Cowboys took LB Bruce Carter who was returning from a major knee surgery, and he wouldn't be ready until mid November. Essentially, there was no support at all from the 2011 draft, despite the issues the Cowboys faced in 2010 defensively.

So, everyone was invited back. No free agency strikes. No draft support. No dollar investment in the team aside from discount purchases of players of the Cleveland defense who were not heavily sought after in the league.

But, in the end, I think Rob Ryan did as much with the same defense that he was left with as anyone could reasonably be expected to do with no offseason.

What we need to recognize is that he was not given enough to work with. He still had mediocre secondary personnel and one legit pass rusher. Until that changes, bring in any coordinator you want. They may not be as brash as Rob Ryan, but I don't anticipate that they will be able to make this defense elite, either, until some elite players are brought in.

Put another way, of the top 17 Cowboys defensive players (in terms of snaps taken) that were a part of the 2010 disaster, 15 of them were back on the defense this season. Igor Olshansky (573 snaps) and Stephen Bowen (554) were the only non-returners at defensive end.

The Cowboys tried the ultimate experiment of changing a coach, but keeping the personnel almost completely static. Everyone was back, and aside from the two Cleveland Browns who were brought over (Elam and Coleman) the Cowboys were believing that Rob Ryan could simply deploy them differently.

Meanwhile in Houston, their defense in 2010 was thought of as an even bigger disaster. They were at the bottom of the league in all sorts of defensive metrics and decided if they were ever going to win their division and compete in the playoffs, they would have to solve their defensive issues.

And as one takes a look at how they became such an impressive defense in one year, there are a few in the Dallas media that point to Wade Phillips as the difference. Phillips is certainly a capable coordinator, so this is not to dispute that his scheme works in the NFL. But, he surely used all of his tricks in Dallas, and they weren't working. So, why did those same tricks work in Houston? Or did they?

A closer look reveals that in 2011, the Houston Texans overhauled their defense in one short off-season. They are in the final 8 of the NFL Playoffs and have that coveted playoff win in their back pocket as they head to Baltimore to go for another.

Of the spine of that defense, there were 8 players that played more than 700 snaps this season. Quin Glover, Brian Cushing, and Antonio Smith were the 3 holdovers from the Frank Bush crew that finished in the bottom of the league. However, the other 5 players were all brought different pieces that provided Wade Phillips with proper personnel to change the defense to a 3-4.

One of those 5 players was the return of Connor Barwin who suffered a major injury in Week 1 of 2010. His return from his nasty ankle dislocation gave them a perfect outside LB edge rusher to snap right into Wade's plans. His 12 sacks and 18 QB hits combined for 30 different occasions where he hit the quarterback - more than any Dallas defender - including Ware (28 - 20 sacks, 8 QB hits).

The other 4 major defensive contributors all arrived in the spring and summer of 2011. And all 4 required major investments on the part of the Texans. They used free agency and the draft, and they decided to get Phillips players that could make a significant difference right away.

First in the draft, Houston poured all of its resources into the defense. In the 1st Round, they used pick #11 on Wisconsin DE JJ Watt. This, many agree, was the pick the Cowboys would snag if Tyron Smith was not left on the board. The Cowboys made the pick that they most needed, but Watt gave Houston a DE in the 3-4 that causes havoc every Sunday. According to www.profootballfocus.com he graded as Houston's best defender and was able to get to the QB for 7 sacks and 11 QB hits, while standing up in the run game.

Then, in the 2nd round, took OLB Brooks Reed from Arizona at pick #42 (2 picks after the Cowboys had grabbed LB Bruce Carter at #40). Reed was thought to be depth and insurance because the Texans were planning on Barwin and Mario Williams at OLB, but when Mario was lost for the year, Reed took over. He then played 799 snaps and totaled 6 sacks as a rookie. Later in the 2nd round, the Texans traded up with New England to take a cornerback from Miami, Brandon Harris. Harris has played quite sparingly in 2011, but at the age of 21, he has plenty of time to contribute.

In the summer, free agency was the next factor and the Texans used it to make a major strike and to fix their secondary. They signed 27-year old corner, Johnathan Joseph from the Bengals. This was a major expenditure of $48.75 million dollars over 5 years, including $23.5 million guaranteed.

That very same day, they targeted a free safety from Chicago, Danieal Manning. They inked his services at the price of $20 million over $4 seasons, including $9 million guaranteed. He provided kick returning and safety play, and despite missing a month with a fractured fibula, he still played 743 snaps.

So, where do we credit this major improvement and defensive success in Houston? Phillips? The Draft with Watt and Reed? Free agency with Joseph and Manning?

I imagine in Houston it doesn't matter where the credit goes. They covered all of the bases and now have a defense that swarmed Andy Dalton and the Bengals and never let them up for air.

Players play and coaches coach. But, from my seat, I suggest that Houston's off season strategy put them in a spot where they could suffer a major injury and still have their best defensive season ever.

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Where (Ware) are the Sacks?

The Cowboys defense has been heavy under the microscope this week after surrendering 400 yards passing, 510 yards in total offense, and 37 points in the home loss to the Giants on the weekend. Rob Ryan's credentials have been examined closer and the defense in general has been targeted for ridicule for their inability to come close to sacking Eli Manning.

The best way to stop an aerial show in the NFL is to apply pressure to the QB. When you cannot get to him in a reasonable amount of time, he is able to then get comfortable, go through his read progressions, and then make an easy throw to his intended target. The QBs at this level are too good to allow that to happen. Yet, again, the Cowboys did just that.

So, over the last several days, I have been asked to break down the pass rush of the Cowboys by the numbers and attempt to figure out how the Giants are doing this, and who on the Cowboys we should be asking much more of.

First, I believe it should all be heading of how good Eli Manning played in this game from an intelligence standpoint. His ability and maturity as a QB has really progressed over the last few seasons, and as critical as I have been of him over the years, I leave this evaluation very impressed by Manning. Rob Ryan threw a ton of things in his direction and was unable to rattle him. In 2008, Eli Manning was sacked 8 times in his final visit to Texas Stadium (the biggest sack performance by a Cowboys defense since 1997) and looked very poor. Since then, he has played 3 games at Dallas and has been sacked once. And I submit that much of it is due to the QB learning how to slow down a pass rush by making sound decisions and getting the ball out quickly. His older brother has been a master of this art for more than a decade, and now it appears Eli is figuring it out, too.

Keep in mind that the Giants had David Diehl (LG) playing Left Tackle against DeMarcus Ware. This was supposed to be a field day for Ware, and it never materialized. It has been suggested in the media that the Cowboys had Ware double-teamed every down. I went back and tried to verify that theory, and here is what I found:

DeMarcus Ware Against New York - 33 pass rush situations:

Lined Up	Single Team	Sacks-Pressure	Double Team	Sacks-Pressure
RT	6	0-2	7	0-1
LT	15	0-2	5	0-0

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As you can see, Ware had 33 chances to get after Eli Manning and ended up with 5 pressures, 0 QB hits, and 0 sacks. How did the Giants do that with David Diehl? Click here to see Ware's 5 pressures.



If you go back and look at those situations where Ware and Diehl squared off, there were almost no occasions when Eli Manning held the ball for any period of time. The ball was out on 3-step drops on quick outs to his WRs or dump downs to a TE. They were not crazy enough to ask Diehl to hold his ground against Ware except on rare occasions. And each of those rare occasions included Eli looking out of the corner of his eye and ready to get rid of the ball.

Then, the Cowboys tried to flip him to the right against the equally underwhelming Kareem McKenzie. McKenzie has been their full-time Right Tackle and ProFootballFocus.com rates him as the 66th tackle in the NFL this year. And yet, the Cowboys were unable to get there on him, either.

Ware did slightly better against McKenzie, but the Giants were very quick to send double teams if they knew they had a pass on that would require any amount of protection.

Here is how Rob Ryan deployed pass rushers, separated by down:

Pass Rushers Against New York - 50 pass rush situations:

Pass Rushers	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
3	6	5	1	0	12
4	6	4	5	0	15
5	7	4	4	1	16
6	2	1	3	0	6
7	0	0	1	0	1

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Eli threw 47 passes (and 3 more passes where penalties rendered it "no play) and the Cowboys tried many different ideas. Ryan would try to bring 5, 6, and even 7 and his guys couldn't get home. On 10 occasions, Ryan sent defensive backs. Still no sacks.
And even worse, no real hits on Manning. He was comfortable and the Cowboys couldn't change that comfort no matter what they tried.

There has been plenty said about the Cowboys defense and the deployment of the 11. Still more is bothersome about the apparent confusion on assignments and timeouts are wasted. At this point of the season, there is no question things should be more seamless, however, on the issue of pass rush, I fear that the strategy is not the problem.

When you have a coordinator who is varying his approach, by trying every conceivable idea in every possible scenario, then you are left to wonder about the quality of the players involved. With Ware, you have true quality. His credentials are flawless and his production is off the charts, by any standard. But, it appears he is hurt and the season has taken its toll. He had 12 sacks after 7 games but just 3 sacks in the last 6.

Additionally, if you are the Giants, you will spend all week figuring out how to handle Ware in each and every scenario. It is certainly way easier said than done, but they executed it flawlessly and then were aided with Ware missing 18 of the final 24 snaps. On 2 of the 6 he was back, he committed crucial penalties trying to cheat the snap count.

But, what of the rest of those Dallas defenders? Anthony Spencer was largely facing single-teams (as is often the case) and he couldn't get home. In fact, Victor Butler had one of the two QB hits (Barry Church) in his spells for Ware late in the game. The defensive ends rushed 68 times and never touched the QB once. Jay Ratliff makes plays every game, but interior pass rush is merely a bonus to his arsenal until the Cowboys move him outside (which doesn't appear to be an option on a defense without a true nose tackle).

Bottom line seems to be this: We can continue to blame Rob Ryan for getting the scheme wrong and wonder why DeMarcus Ware doesn't have 4 sacks a game, but the truth is that Ryan tried everything and the Giants only objective is to stop Ware. The Giants gambled that nobody else would bother Eli Manning on the Cowboys defensive front and they were quite right. The Tyron Smith pick was a marvelous one that addressed a real need on the offensive line, but passing on elite rookie defensive ends like JJ Watt really hurt after games like this one. If only the Cowboys had 2 picks at #9.

This is not to say that Rob Ryan is flawless or that Ware does need to get home regardless of what the Giants do. But the truth seems that the Cowboys have many holes on this roster that scheme can only cover up on certain occasions. They lack difference makers that defy Xs and Os, and until they improve that number of difference makers, we might continue to blame the coordinator for not "coaching them up".

This lack of pass rush seems to be a simple matter of the Cowboys needing to improve the pieces on their defense. Many suggested that last summer, but Dallas thought they could get away with some cheap fixes. And now, they see why that might not have been a great decision.

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The Morning After: Giants 37, Cowboys 34 (7-6)

It is certainly difficult to define what constitutes a "good defense" in today's NFL. The days of domination from the defensive side of the ball seem almost theoretical and nostalgic in many regards. The Steel Curtain? Doomsday? Most defenses in this league now routinely surrender 4 Touchdowns in a big game and we just accept that the new rules and the evolution of football dictate that you never shut down offenses anymore - you just try to get a key stop at a key moment.

So, against that backdrop, we examine the post-Wade Phillips defensive era and attempt to provide some context to a Cowboys defense that never excites the fans and media like the torching of Tony Romo and Jason Garrett, but it may provide a little more substance than those exercises anyway.

A fascinating number started circulating last night after the Cowboys gutting 37-34 defeat at the hands of the Giants that provided some insight about how the Cowboys continue to lose games that are in their grasp at the moment of truth. Now that Garrett is 12-9 as coach of the Cowboys, it is interesting to note that 8 of the 9 defeats featured a Dallas 4th Quarter lead (only the Sunday night loss in Philadelphia did not). Many of them, including last night's affair were of the double-digit variety (NYJ, Det, NYG) and all of them threaten to derail the playoff train here in 2011.

Last night's 4th Quarter lead was maximized when Sean Lee picked off a pass and 2 plays later Romo hits a wide-open Dez Bryant from midfield and the Cowboys appeared to have sealed a huge divisional battle with a 34-22 lead with less than 6 minutes to go in the game.

The only way the Cowboys lose the game from there is if they allow 2 Touchdowns on 2 drives and score nothing on their 2 remaining drives to end the game. And, in that exercise, they sadly went 4-4.

Eli Manning, the subject of countless debates and a fair amount of ridicule, absolutely owns this stadium. In 3 trips in, he has left with 3 wins - all requiring his passing to be excellent, and he answered the bell all 3 times. 77-120, 1036 yards and 8 TDs in only 3 trips! If anyone deserves to sign the wall at Cowboys Stadium, it would be Eli. His passer rating of 99.9 in this stadium is enough to concede that he is plenty good to deal with this particular defense regardless of how he does the other weeks of the year. And the most stunning statistic on his ledger? In those 3 trips to the new stadium in Arlington, Eli Manning has been sacked 1 time. Once. DeMarcus Ware got him in 2010. Otherwise, the other 120 times he dropped back to pass, he did so without a whole lot of resistance from the Cowboys pass rush. Being sacked once every 121 pass attempts is certainly not going to get it done.

Down 12, Manning drove his team right down the field. Rob Ryan would rush as few as 3 defenders or as many as 7. Manning seemed fine with either option as he would either enjoy all day to throw or find tasty coverage opportunities down the field. He was impossible to rattle, yet again. And cashed in on a 3rd and 1 when the Cowboys sent 7 as he lofted a pass to Victor Cruz for 23 yards down the right side. Later, the Cowboys sent just 4 and he fired a rocket to Hakeem Nicks for 24 yards down to the 8 yard line. 2 plays later, against a 3 man rush, Manning finds his tight end posting up Sean Lee for a TD and the lead is now 34-29 with a bit over 3 minutes to play.

Now, the Cowboys take the ball at their own 20 yard line and are a play or two away from making sure the Giants never see the ball again. 3rd and 5 from the 25 yard line with 2:25 to play and the Giants only having one timeout left is the game that will properly receive massive amounts of discussion this week. The Cowboys need one play to likely salt away the contest. And Perry Fewell, the Giants defensive coordinator, decides to send everyone. It is a "Cover 0" blitz which is the riskiest coverage in football, and the Cowboys get an opportunity to show why as Miles Austin runs right by Aaron Ross and has a substantial gap with nothing between him and the endzone. Unfortunately, between Romo's throw which was a tad long and Austin's admission that he lost the ball in the lights, the ball falls incomplete, the clock stops, and the punt team comes on to the field. It was simply a play that has to be converted, and if it is, the division title is quite possibly presented to the Cowboys right then and there. It was not, and now the onus will fall on the defense to preserve a 5-point lead with only one chance left for the Giants.

After a poor punt from Mat McBriar, the Cowboys had to protect 58 yards. A field goal would not hurt them, and they simply had to keep the Giants out of the endzone. Again, it is unfortunate to mix a poor pass rush with poor pass coverage, but the Cowboys seemed to have no ability to get a stop.

First, an easy dump down to Jake Ballard turns into a 22-yard gain as Anthony Spencer is trailing the undrafted Tight End down the field. Then, on the 1st play inside the 2-minute warning, an errant snap and a huge loss for New York is nullified as Ware is offsides at exactly the wrong time and for the second time in as many drives. A 2nd and long turns into a 1st and 5. 9 yards to Victor Cruz moves the chains again to at the Dallas 24. On the very next play, a 3 man rush leaves Eli to pick his spot and he drops a beautiful pass into the endzone on Mario Manningham's hands. Manningham had run by Terence Newman and was open for the go-ahead touchdown, but the pass fell off his hands. A drop gave the Cowboys a reprieve.

Trouble was, it was a short-lived reprieve. A near sack is taken off the board because of a defensive holding play. With 1:21 to play, again, the Cowboys cannot cover Ballard as they rush 2 (it appeared Spencer was not aware of his assignment as he covered the same RB (Bradshaw) out of the backfield that Sean Lee was already on) and Manning finds Ballard down to the 1-yard line as he eludes Danny McCray. Two snaps later, Brandon Jacobs is celebrating yet again, a 2-pt conversion is also good, and with :46 left, the Giants take a 37-34 lead.

No timeouts, 80 yards to go, and the Cowboys only had :46 to play. Romo and Miles Austin practically get it all back in 2 plays and have the team down to the Giants 29 yard line with 6 ticks left on the clock. And when Dan Bailey attempts the game-tying kick, Jason Pierre Paul does what he has done all night - dominates the play and blocks the kick. Game Over. Giants win.

A series of unfortunate events again conspire to give the Cowboys another gutting loss. In their 1st 50 years of football, the Cowboys had lost 11 point+ 4th Quarter leads just twice (Nov 28, 1965 at Washington and Oct 23, 1988 at Philadelphia). Then, in 2011, they have done it 3 times. Remarkable and maddening altogether. They are surrendering big leads and doing it quite often when the opponent has to go a long way to get to the end zone.

Very few timely sacks and too many confused and over-run coverage situations. Sometimes, it is Tom Brady or Eli Manning. Other times it has been Rex Grossman and Kevin Kolb who have done the deed late in the game against the Cowboys. They cannot seem to get there without a blitz, and when they do blitz, their coverage is hopelessly compromised.

It would be impossible to find a sole offender for this loss. As is often the case, it is a total team effort that wins and loses in the NFL. Coaches and players all share in the spoils. And again, in a home game against their hated rivals, the Cowboys played well enough to win, but leave with a loss due to too many mistakes at high leverage moments.

It is an episode we are all getting used to seeing in the new stadium. And now, they are backed up against the wall yet again.

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X's and O's Breakdown - The OT Screen

In the words of the late, great Michael Hutchence, "Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked."

Blitzing, and more specifically, fire zone blitzing is a staple of the Rob Ryan defense. We have discussed this at some length in past entries, but usually it is when it works to perfection - such as the study we did when he had Buffalo all confused a few weeks ago.

But, of course, sometimes when you blitz, the other team has figured you out from their film study or they just lucked into a perfect call at a perfect moment. Regardless of how the Cardinals walked the Cowboys right into a trap on the final play of Sunday's game, the truth is on the film for all to see.

Larod Stephens-Howling is known as the "hyphen" in Arizona, and surely is one of those water-bug types that if they can get into the open field, the opponent is going to have a hard time containing him and bringing him down. Another note worth considering is that the Cardinals have a notoriously difficult time executing screen plays. Perhaps that is why the Cowboys felt that this was not going to be a major issue entering the action on Sunday.

The Cardinals are on the 1st Drive of OT, and are facing a 1st and 15 after a penalty. The Cowboys scheme for fire zones vary, but just know that it means the Cowboys are overloading their blitz to one side of the field, while the weakside edge LB will drop into a zone instead of rushing. In this case, that LB is DeMarcus Ware, and the normal genius of such a concept is that the opponent has 2 guys assigned to block #94. So, the premise is simple: Blitz more guys from one side than can be blocked, and rush almost nobody from the other-side which leaves the LT and sometimes LG just standing there with nobody to block.

From the Cardinals standpoint, if they can somehow have a play on that attacks the blitz side, it can go for miles (which it did). If they call the screen to the opposite side, Ware will be standing there and ready to devour the play as he will be unblocked.

Look at the diagram of how the Cowboys defense is to deploy in this situation:



And here is how it looked in presnap from the same view from the coaches film:



The Cowboys are trying to drop 2 LBs (94 and 56) into the shallow zones on either side. Of course, Bradie James is highlighted in green on the diagram (and is standing on the Cardinals logo on the film) because it is rather clear that he busts on this play and gets "caught up in the wash" as he tries to get out wide to the side that the play is about to go. Let's credit #70-Rex Hadnot for getting a very impressive hold on James that keeps Bradie from getting to where he is supposed to go on this play. Also, we should perhaps blame Bradie for attempting to get too cute as he tries to give the impression that he is blitzing for a split second too long. The concept is for Bradie to occupy a blocker with his first step or two, but he has to bail before anyone can get their mitts on him because he has that entire half of the field on the defensive left. It is going to be a long run with no contact, but once Hadnot touches him, this play is doomed. With Sensabaugh and Newman in man coverage, they will have their backs to the play for most of the play, so this is Bradie's play or likely nobody.

We can certainly question the Cowboys thinking their slowest LB could beat the "hyphen" to the edge, but they tried it and the picture below will attest to the fact that the result was ugly:



Sean Lee is a very fast inside LB, but at 4.6, he is no match for a 4.35 guy like Stephens-Howling. Lee diagnoses the play and peels off as fast as he can (and is actually quicker to get there than James), but he will not be able to run him down from behind.

The Cardinals do not even attempt to block Anthony Spencer which is either a horrible decision if Spencer can grab Kevin Kolb or a brilliant one if Kolb can slip past 93 long enough to dump the ball off to hyphen in space. It works like a charm. This demonstrates why mobility for a QB has almost nothing to do with "straight-line" speed and more to do with understanding how a side step can buy you another few tenths of a second.

From the time of the catch, the play is doomed. The Cowboys only real hope is that Terence Newman can get around Andre Roberts to bring down Stephens-Howling near the 45. Once Newman is dealt with quite easily, it becomes a comedy of missed tackles and less-than-inspired efforts to bring him down inside the 20 which speaks to the knowledge that the game is already lost once the play goes deep inside FG range.

Is it a horrible call from Rob Ryan? This is the nature of all of football. Call a blitz on 1st Down when few would expect it is a great idea when it works (a sack is a drive ender if the Cardinals are looking at a 2nd and 22)- and a horrible plan when it fails. Asking Bradie James to get to the flank in time against Stephens-Howling sounds like a very poor plan, unless you are playing the odds that the Cardinals hadn't used him hardly all day long. One does wonder how a speedy inside LB like Bruce Carter would do in the same situation, but that clearly isn't close to happening as Carter has not exactly forced his way onto the field yet (11 snaps against Seattle, 13 against Buffalo, 0 at Washington, 0 vs Miami, 0 at Arizona).

So, perfect call against your blitz or reckless play call from Rob Ryan? It is a results-based business, so in this case, Ryan was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and his players were unable to bail him out.

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X's and O's Breakdown - Fire Zone Blitzing

Rob Ryan has a bit of a reputation for having a high-risk, high-reward defense. There are many versions of the 3-4 defense and to compare and contrast Wade Phillips' 3-4 to Rob Ryan's 3-4 would take quite a while. They utilize the same personnel in the base defense, but there are an infinite number of ways to apply that defense. And make no mistake, Ryan does it differently than Phillips.

The object of the game for the defense is 2-fold. 1) don't allow points (this is rather obvious) and 2) to cause game-changing plays (takeaways, sacks, and the occasional big hit). Both are important and just about all championship caliber defenses can excel in both categories.

As we look at the first year under Rob Ryan (and maybe the only year), we see the Cowboys are allowing 20.2 points per game rather than the 27.3 they allowed in 2010. We also see that after years of not generating takeaways, the Cowboys already have 19 which rank them only 2 takeaways short of the league lead. In 2008 and 2009, the Cowboys had but 22 and 21 takeaways for the entire season.

Is the Cowboys defense elite? That would be a stretch given the clinic they were taught in Philadelphia a few weeks back. But the defense has more takeaways, more sacks, fewer explosives against, and are allowing fewer points than last year's edition. Of course, last year's defense was so bad that improvement was imperative. But, given much of the same personnel, Rob Ryan has put his stamp on how things are done around here. And as each week grows into the next, the confidence of the unit seems to grow and they pull more tricks out of their sleeves.

There may be a misperception about how Rob's blitzes work. In the 1970's and 1980's, blitzes were simply an effort to throw more numbers at an offense than they could block. If they are using 6 to protect, you send 7. They move to 7, you send 8. This became impractical when QBs started feasting on an exposed secondary. When both safeties would blitz, then the QB and WR knew that they had to beat just one man - the corner in front of them - and they were off to the races. It became more and more routine to find the hot route and chase the blitz away. And that is when coaches had to go back to the drawing board.

The evolution has brought us to the aggressive 3-4's of today's game. What Dick LeBeau in Pittsburgh, Dom Capers in Green Bay, and Rex Ryan in New York all employ are variations of 3-4's based in deception utilizing fire zone blitz concepts and techniques.

What this generally means is that they will seldom ever bring more than 5 pass rushers on a given play (On Sunday, Rob Ryan sent 6 rushers twice in 37 pass situations), but you will never fully grasp which 4 or 5 defenders are coming until the play is under way.
Bringing 5 on a blitz looks chaotic, and yet, it allows 6 players behind it to retreat into a relatively sound 3-3 zone defense.

Pass Rushers Against Buffalo - 37 pass rush situations:

Pass Rushers	Times
3	6
4	20
5	9
6	2

HTML Tables

Clearly, these principles present the best of both worlds when it is run properly - pass rush effectiveness without giving up coverage behind it.

Wade Phillips is no slouch himself when it comes to designing defenses. However, Wade had no interest in the last couple years engaging in the fire zones like those other 3-4s. Also, Wade Phillips would almost never blitz a defensive back. We see every Sunday that some of the most successful blitz situations in the NFL culminate in a QB being blindsided by a untouched safety or cornerback. But, Wade - for reasons that can only be speculated upon - would almost never send a DB as coach of the Cowboys.

In 2008, the Cowboys blitzed a DB (according to our friends at www.profootballfocus.com) just 37 of 602 pass situations (6%). In 2009, it was 29 occasions on 707 pass plays (4%). And in 2010, the Cowboys defense actually did more when Phillips was fired, but for the year, 50 DB blitzes in 584 pass plays (8%).

But, we know that those other pressure defenses believe in making the QB believe that with 11 defenders, you better believe that at some point, they are going to send every single one of them at you. Not often, but often enough that they think when the time is right they will spring the ambush and change the game.

In 2011, the Cowboys have blitzed defensive backs 81 times in 335 pass plays. 24%! In other words, Ryan has blitzed more DBs in 9 games than the Cowboys had in the previous 2 seasons combined. That is enough to confuse and confound when applied properly. Now, let's look at how they are doing it.



Here is the 3rd snap for Buffalo in Sunday's game. Bills bring out shotgun with 4 WRs and force the Cowboys into a dime package with 6 DBs. It is 3rd and 14, and the numbers we tabulate indicate Ryan doesn't like to blitz much on 3rd and long. Rather, he enjoys playing coverage and blitzing when you least suspect it.

But here, the Cowboys are bringing a fire-zone from Ryan Fitzpatrick's blindside. Look at the picture at presnap and try to decide which 5 Cowboys are about to rush. I don't think that is an easy task.

If you guessed 2 corners, the LDE, NT, and Ware, you win. Ware - playing inside LB, Walker and Scandrick - the two corners, and Hatcher and Ratliff from the DL. Meanwhile Spencer, who sure looks like he is lined up over RT - ready to rush - drops out of the play into the hook/curl area on the right. Sean Lee must go all the way across the field to get the hook/curl on the left in that zone. Abe Elam takes shallow middle and now you see the 3-3 alignment behind the blitz. Check the diagram below.



Now for the blitz. When considering pass protection, offenses try to cut the pass rush in half. In fact, the center and running back are always in communication to make sure they understand each other about which is going to help which side. If the center is going right to help the RG, then the RB must pick up from the left. But, in presnap, the RT and RB are looking at Elam and Spencer as possible blitz targets. This deception is what makes it work. They are occupied until the snap, and then when their men don't rush, they are too late to redeploy elsewhere in time.

And thus is the concept of the fire zone blitz. The defense is not trying to outnumber you. They are trying to get you to pick up the wrong men. 5 can beat 6 if the 6 don't know which 5 are coming until it is too late. Then, in the blink of an eye, your QB is getting blindsided. Check the video of play #1 here.



You can really see the problems that are caused for Bills' LT 67-Andy Levitre as he is trying to block 3 guys at the same time. Finally, Walker goes by him and almost caused another takeaway. Meanwhile, the RT 79-Erik Pears has nobody to block so he joins the C and RG in blocking the same guy, Ratliff.

Let's look at another snap with a similar concept. 3rd Quarter, 2nd Down and 8 to go.



This time, you can tell that Fitzpatrick is nervous about what Ryan is doing in presnap. Trying to sort through so many possible blitzers to find the right combination is not fun - especially when you go to 4 WR and "scat" protection. Scat protection means simply 5-man protection, no help from RB or TE. But, the way the Cowboys align is causing great distress to the presnap reads for the Bills.

To understand why, look at 94-Ware and 90-Ratliff. Ratliff is over the center again and the RG was likely assigned to help. With Ware out wide the RT is locked on one of the most ferocious pass rushers in the sport. So, where does that leave 25-Frank Walker who is standing between them? What an odd place for a corner. The Bills are trying to sort this out. Then the snap happens and Walker and Ware are not rushing at all. Instead, another 4 man blitz against 3 men on the left side. Hatcher, Ratliff, Spencer, all occupy the OL, so around the corner again comes an untouched DB, Orlando Scandrick.

Watch video of play #2 by clicking here.


Again, neither play changed this game. But, it shows what can happen and it shows the opponent what they better be thinking about before they line up against the Cowboys. Corners, safeties, and linebackers. Anyone on the field might be blitzing.

They had better be ready.

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X's And O's Breakdown - The Eagles Counter Trap

Our mission on Wednesday is to pick a vital moment or moments from the game and discuss the strategy and execution of a given play from the standpoint of both teams. Of course, in a blowout of this magnitude, it would be stretching the truth to call any one scenario "vital", but for the Eagles demolition from this past Sunday, let's take a hard look at the play that made the Cowboys' run defense look silly.

For lack of a better term, we will call it the Philadelphia Counter Trap. We will call it that because it is both a counter and a trap. And the Cowboys defense fell for it on pretty much every occasion it was used. In fact, LeSean McCoy now has 2 of the 3 biggest runs against the Cowboys this season, both on the same night, both on the same exact play. The Cowboys will see this play in their sleep.

The entire idea of the play is to test the anchor of the Cowboys defensive ends and to test the patience of the outside line backers. Again, as we saw on DeMarco Murray's 91-yard Touchdown run last week, so much of running the football is not blocking 11 players. Rather, it is blocking a handful and letting the rest take themselves out of the play with over-pursuit or simply getting caught up in traffic. When it works as well as it did for Philadelphia, the defense is offering little to no resistance. And that is what will really disappoint Dallas after seeing this play run several times. I counted 3 different occasions, with the sum total of 65 yards. 21.7 yards per carry is a rather successful average, right?



So, look at the concept on the chalk board. The offensive line tries to move the defensive front to the right with slant blocks. The key will be the left tackle (71-Peters) and his attempts to run the right defensive end for the Cowboys (97-Hatcher) out of the rushing lane. Then, 94-Ware is unaccounted for - or so he believes - until the Tight End (87-Celek) comes all the way across the formation to put a trap block on Ware. If he gets the block, the play is sprung into the secondary. If he misses it, Ware has a wide open shot at the ball carrier behind the line of scrimmage.

One point of context that might help here is to remind people what we know from data on Rob Ryan in his previous stops. Ryan loves to blitz, but he does not love to blitz when the book says to blitz. He has never been a big 3rd and long blitz guy. Percentages say that his defenses blitz as much as almost anyone (except maybe his brother), but while the entire NFL will blitz you on 3rd and 12, he likes to rush 3 or 4 and drop into coverage. Conversely, when the rest of the NFL enjoys playing straight defense on 1st and 2nd downs, Rob loves to send the blitz in hopes of destroying your early down call. But, this is widely known amongst NFL coaches (as they study way more tape than we do) and sometimes they try to kill Rob with his own poison.

This play in the 1st Quarter is the perfect storm. It is 1st and 10 at the Cowboys 36. The Eagles have "11" personnel in the game, so with 3 WRs, the Cowboys counter with a run-nickel defense (5 DBs). This means that the front of the Cowboys is a run front (because it is 1st Down), but they have 1 less MLB in the game and are running a (3-3). Ryan has countless variations and on pass downs will usually roll with a (2-4) where he has two defensive linemen and 4 linebackers as Ware and Spencer can serve as hybrids or jokers (players that can either be rushing or dropping and the QB has to guess at the snap).

Ryan dials up a big blitz. He is sending just about everyone. Elam is blitzing. Brooking is blitzing from the middle. Scandrick is blitzing. It is a classic "send the kitchen sink" blitz from Ryan. In many scenarios, he will get either a sack or a play behind the line of scrimmage because there are so many bodies flying at the line. But, if the Eagles are able to find a hole, there is nobody behind the line to sweep up the mess. And that is exactly what happens here.

When you watch the video here focus in on the left edge of the Eagles' line. Here, we see Jason Peters push Jason Hatcher all over the field. Hatcher's rap at this point of his career is that he cannot play against the run. The last coaching staff seldom let him prove why he has that rap, but Rob Ryan is trusting him to prove his critics wrong. Well, here we see why Hatcher is likey a run-down "5" technique. He cannot hold his anchor and despite starting the play as the right-most DL, he ends the play furthest on the left. That is never good. He has to stand his ground better. A caved in defensive end combined with the blitz means that any play to that side is going to go for a long gain.

Next, we have to focus on Ware vs Celek. DeMarcus Ware is one of the best in the business, but on this play, he has to do better. Elam is on the blitz and has outside contain, so that means when the trap block comes from Celek, Ware has to win to the inside and fill that gaping hole. It is debatable what happens if he gets there, but if he doesn't get to that gap, McCoy is going to run untouched down the middle of the field. Ware cannot let Celek get the seal. But he did. 34 yard gain for the Eagles.



Look at the hole McCoy gets. Any reader would have gained at least 10 here.

In the 3rd Quarter, the Eagles came back to the play again. The Eagles are going with a "12" personnel look (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR) and will stack both tight ends outside Peters at Left Tackle.



The down and distance (2nd and 18) puts the Cowboys in their "pass nickel" with 2 DL (Ratliff and Spears) and 4 LBs (Ware, James, Brooking, and Spencer). Keep in mind, that this play that you can see here, is the exact same concept but flipped to the other side.

Now we need to focus on the Eagles RT, 79-Herremans and watch his work. We also see 26-Elam lined up in pre-snap like he is ready to gobble this play up, but he bails at the last second into the "Cover 2" that the Cowboys ran all night with both safeties really deep in the center to prevent big passes over the top - as Philadelphia loves to do.

Herremans, unlike Peters in the 1st Quarter, has no DE to cave in, so when he slants left with the rest of his line, he goes to the 2nd level and gets Bradie James. If you watch the replay a few times, you will see that Keith Brooking does not get blocked. The Eagles have him unaccounted for, but he is too far to his right (as he is respecting the double TEs formation and sitting on a run left; then the entire OL slants left and he is sure that he is right). And that is the genius of a counter play. Everyone takes a step to the wrong side and a player with the quickness of McCoy is gone to daylight.

Again, the block that makes the play is the trap from the TE coming across the formation. This time, 82-Harbour is going to go get 93-Spencer and cut him out of the play. I believe the Cowboys will be disappointed in Spencer not winning that block to the inside again, but beyond that, you see a rather lethargic group of pursuers who clearly want to get out of town down 27-0 to their bitter rivals.

Two snaps later, the Eagles run a variation of the counter trap a 3rd time for 9 more yards.

As we said when we started this piece, this will be talked about at Valley Ranch by Ryan and his staff, but as the NFL works, when opposing coaches see the ease that the Eagles ran the ball down the Cowboys throat, they will design their own plays that both catch the Cowboys in early down blitzes and also test the over-pursuit of the Cowboys' edge rushers like Ware and Spencer. You can believe the Cowboys will see more of this play.

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