YR's My Meaningless Thoughts on the Defense...

[jjktkk]

Originally Posted by burmafrd

It was DUMB to get rid of Gurode who at least had an excuse due to late surgery, and even DUMBER to think Costa could play.

[Hostile]

Originally Posted by WoodysGirl

I've been off and on the last few days, but I don't think Scandrick is on IR. I think he's out for awhile clearly, but I don't think they moved him, unless I missed a post somewhere.

You are correct.

[cowboysooner]

Originally Posted by Hostile

The Defense started well, and has been great at times. I am disappointed that we are allowing more points than last year on average per game despite the DB Upgrades. I think that has only happened since Lee and Carter got hurt, but I still wanted to improve.

Part of the reason we are allowing more points is the offense can't sustain anything with the running game and help out the defense with some possession.

This defense, with premium corners, premium outside linebacker and good coverage inside backers that can play the ball was built to play with leads. We don't build leads in the first half on offense so the defense never got to be turned loose. Now, it is too beat up to even be used in the same manner.

[Cowboy06]

Originally Posted by Yakuza Rich

Yesterday I did a post giving my thoughts on the offense after watching a bunch of All-22 games.

http://cowboyszone.com/forums/dallas...s.php?t=247959

First, I’ve went back and forth on Rob Ryan as the D-Coordinator. I have concluded that at this moment he is a ‘good coach.’ That does not guarantee that he gets better or even remains a ‘good coach.’ Sometimes good coaches have a ‘blind spot’ that prevents them from getting better. Or they may have their defense exposed by the league and struggle to adjust to it.

[View Full Quote]But from what I see on All-22 is a defense that is advanced schematically, that adjusts well to its personnel and to the opponents and that new players can pick up fairly quickly. I sometimes question his initial gameplan, but given the injuries and the offense having turned the ball over so much, I do not know if that is really an issue we have to consider in the future.

I see 3 issues with this defense this year:

1. Safety Play
2. Defensive End
3. Injuries

I have always been a bit lukewarm on Sensabaugh. Couchscout mentioned his problems in zone coverage and All-22 exposes that. However, he is quite good in man-to-man coverage. So I can see why he appeals to coaches, he plays man-to-man better than most safeties. But, it’s part of the recurring theme with this team…a poor job of meshing skill sets. I liked what I saw out of Barry Church, but I thought he had some issues on deeper zone coverage. Short and intermediate zone coverage, I liked what I saw. IMO, you would want somebody like Sensy paired with a good deep zone coverage safety so Sensy could take away short-to-intermediate pass patterns in man coverage.

I thought McCray looked good early on, but teams caught on quickly to him being a liability in coverage. I can see why Rob Ryan is not afraid to move Brandon Carr to safety. I haven’t seen enough of Peprah and company. But, I think Ryan lost confidence in McCray in the Redskins game when he botched his assignment on the long pass to Robinson. I think Rob could live with getting beat athletically, but getting beat mentally is unacceptable.

Even if Church was still playing, I think the safety play would still not be where it needs to be. And personally, I’m more interested in athletic, good tackling safeties who play zone coverage well versus athletic safeties who play man coverage well. We have to remember that we will face RG3 and Mike Vick in 25% of our games for the year and their scrambling ability means much more zone play and requires the DB’s to help out in tackling them. Plus, my gripes against the lack of INT’s from the safeties are justified when you watch them play zone coverage in All-22. Lastly, I think the zone play of the safeties becomes even more important given Rob’s scheme. He likes to have the ILB’s and Safeties run north and south. We have ILB’s in Carter and Lee that can do that, but we don’t quite have that at safety. If Matt Johnson ever gets healthy and is nearly as good as advertised, expect to see a big north and south style running defender.

Because the safety play is poor, that has Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne playing less press coverage. Mo can handle it. I think the kid is really impressive to watch. He may end up being our version of Revis. Revis plays more with his upper body strength, Mo plays more with his long arms and athleticism. Furthermore, he’s really starting to play better and better in zone coverage. And while his tackling could be better, it has improved and is actually better than I expected it to be.

Carr has really lost his confidence. He’s not allowed to play press coverage enough because Rob can’t trust the safeties if the WR gets a break off press coverage. And then they have Carr playing safety. I actually think all things considered, Carr has put an admirable effort. But unless we get safeties behind him and get him playing to his strengths, we’ll just have wasted his time here.

Oh and Scandrick has been downright excellent in coverage for almost the entire year. This really surprised me how well he’s played. Unfortunately, he botched 2 crucial plays against Atlanta and had a stupid roughing the passer penalty. Then he went on I-R.

Where we did a great job of meshing skill sets is in the LB corp. We could use Lee and Carter in a variety of ways. We could give Carter deeper zone responsibilities and deeper man-to-man responsibilities. We could give Lee more short responsibilities and take on blockers. It also helps that both are smart football players as well. And we can switch up the responsibilities from time-to-time to throw off the opposing offense.

I’ve flip flopped on Spencer, but All-22 exposes the problems better. Spencer is a really good player. He can rush the passer, is really good against the run and sometimes elite against it. And he’s capable in pass coverage. The problems we have had are at safety and Defensive End. Unless we were able to get another elite pass rusher like an Aldon Smith, there’s just no reason to let Spencer go unless he’s asking for way too much. And good luck finding another Aldon Smith in the draft.

Lastly, we get to the DE’s. I recommend people focus on Jason Hatcher in the All-22. You may be surprised how great he has played this year. He’s thoroughly impressive out there and is a top-5 player on the team right now. I think our scouting on defense has been very good, we just don’t go after safeties or DE’s that much. Guys like Hatcher give me hope that somebody like Crawford is the real deal and perhaps the same with Matt Johnson.

But, what’s disappointing is that the team seems to be afraid to send a message to a player in the middle of the season. I thought they did a nice job of sending a message last year when the released Gurode and company. This year, there is just no way that Marcus Spears should be starting. And the only thing that would prevent me from releasing him is the injuries. In fact, if Lissemore comes back and Ben Bass shows some desire, I would then release Spears. There is no way he deserves to start over Tyrone Crawford.

I will say this, there is some real hope for this defense in 2013 if they can stay healthy and make an upgrade at safety. Yes, they need to be better on the D-Line, but I think that moving Crawford to starter and getting Lissemore as a passing down rusher and getting another year out of Ratliff will make for a very good D-Line. And if we get some real safeties, we can get Carr back to playing more press coverage, a very underrated Scandrick in the slot and hopefully Mo just gets better with another year of experience and becomes ‘Revis-esque.’

For right now, we are just seeing a sad replica of the defense with all of the injuries. Sims is pretty good in space, but stands no chance if blockers get on him. He does put up an admirable fight. Connor has gotten better, but is still limited. I’ve already gone over McCray.

But, whoever is the head coach here next season, I think it’s an imperative to keep Rob Ryan on the team. And I did not quite feel this way a little while ago.


YR

Meaningless?? I don't think so at all, I have mostly the same thoughts about the Safety position and I would love to see a pass rush from the DL and someone other than DeMarcus Ware. They have to finally get past him being a pass rush threat, teams have been able to scheme past him, nor do you want to count on a nose guard that can be blocked merely based upon his position on the field with the opposing offensive guards and center.

I just don't believe you can be advanced if you haven't mastered the basics. You have to be able to excel at being a vanilla defense before you start adding sprinkles, nuts, sauce and cream... if the base isn't good, nothing you do to mask it will make a difference.

[IrishAnto]

Originally Posted by Hostile

I'm not calling them great. I said great at times. There's a big difference in the two.

True, but I still find it hard to call them great at any time, Descent yes, Good maybe, but great?

[Yakuza Rich]

Originally Posted by IrishAnto

YR nice post and I agree with what you say up to a point.

To me the single biggest thing a defense needs to do, it to generate turnovers as turnover ratio have the biggest single impact on the outcome of the game.

Now it seems to be an orthodoxy around here that in order to generate we need better pass rush/safety play.

Now while I don’t say that this isn’t true I also don’t think that one automatically follows the other.

And the reason I say this…

Back in 2010 just after Wade Philips got canned, Paul Pasqualoni took over the defense and in eight games generated 20 turnovers, a rate that hasn’t been seen in these part for many a long year.

Who were Pasqualoni’s starting safeties?

Gerald Sensabaugh and Alan Ball.

Starting DEs?

Marcus Spears and Igor Olshansky.

ILBs

Bray James and Keith Brooking

[View Full Quote]As you can see hardly a who’s who of Ring of Honour Candidates.

The point I’m making which is the one you made yesterday in your post on the offense is that you need to run a scheme that makes the best use of your available talent and clearly Pasqualoni could.

So far Roy Ryan hasn’t.

There is no All-22 for the 2010 season.

But, IIRC, we changed the scheme vastly and got away from man-to-man coverage and went to zone coverage. I also remember Spencer being AWFUL under Wade that year. He would jump out of his gap responsibility under Wade to make the big play. Teams saw this coming and would run the ball right at him. There was one play against Green Bay on 3rd and short where the Packers knew Spencer would do that and they ran right at him for a huge game because Spencer left a gigantic hole open.

Too many players, like Spencer, didn't respect Wade's authority. That's why Wade works as a D-Coordinator. He's a good D-Coordinator and if a player acts up, they have to deal with Kubiak who commands respect.

Anyway, when Garrett took over, Spencer got right in line.

For the most part teams don't make wide sweeping changes/adjustments in their scheme and what they are trying to do in the season.

One of the things I've always been curious about is Andy Reid's great record after bye weeks. From what I have gathered, the reason for that is Reid installs an entirely new set of plays on offense during the bye week. That way the opponent is completely unprepared for what they will throw at them.

My guess is that is essentially what happened in 2010.

I completely agree with you, the defense has to make turnovers, particularly INT's. I have been preaching that for a while now and from a statistical standpoint, it's extremely clear that the lack of INT's on defense has a dramatic impact on this team.

But, I have 100% confident that we would not have seen anything different had Pasqualoni stayed on for 2011. And I don't think Garrett was seriously considering him either.

I think that since the DB coverage scheme changed so drastically since Garrett realized you can't get any worse on defense, Spencer changed the way he played and we started playing Sean Lee, that's why we generated turnovers.

And in the end, the defense still stunk in 2010 under Pasqualoni. It just went from by far the worst defense in Cowboys history to still giving up 26 points a game.

I still have some hope for Garrett if he gives the offense over to a real Offensive Coordinator. But even then, I still worry about how tough this team is mentally. Too many guys being out with injuries. Something tells me that this wouldn't happen under Parcells, who would let it be known that you 'can't make the club in the tub.'

I don't think any D-Coordinator can make a great defense with this many injuries.







YR

[IrishAnto]

Originally Posted by Yakuza Rich

There is no All-22 for the 2010 season.

But, IIRC, we changed the scheme vastly and got away from man-to-man coverage and went to zone coverage. I also remember Spencer being AWFUL under Wade that year. He would jump out of his gap responsibility under Wade to make the big play. Teams saw this coming and would run the ball right at him. There was one play against Green Bay on 3rd and short where the Packers knew Spencer would do that and they ran right at him for a huge game because Spencer left a gigantic hole open.

Too many players, like Spencer, didn't respect Wade's authority. That's why Wade works as a D-Coordinator. He's a good D-Coordinator and if a player acts up, they have to deal with Kubiak who commands respect.

Anyway, when Garrett took over, Spencer got right in line.

For the most part teams don't make wide sweeping changes/adjustments in their scheme and what they are trying to do in the season.
[View Full Quote]
One of the things I've always been curious about is Andy Reid's great record after bye weeks. From what I have gathered, the reason for that is Reid installs an entirely new set of plays on offense during the bye week. That way the opponent is completely unprepared for what they will throw at them.

My guess is that is essentially what happened in 2010.

I completely agree with you, the defense has to make turnovers, particularly INT's. I have been preaching that for a while now and from a statistical standpoint, it's extremely clear that the lack of INT's on defense has a dramatic impact on this team.

But, I have 100% confident that we would not have seen anything different had Pasqualoni stayed on for 2011. And I don't think Garrett was seriously considering him either.

I think that since the DB coverage scheme changed so drastically since Garrett realized you can't get any worse on defense, Spencer changed the way he played and we started playing Sean Lee, that's why we generated turnovers.

And in the end, the defense still stunk in 2010 under Pasqualoni. It just went from by far the worst defense in Cowboys history to still giving up 26 points a game.

I still have some hope for Garrett if he gives the offense over to a real Offensive Coordinator. But even then, I still worry about how tough this team is mentally. Too many guys being out with injuries. Something tells me that this wouldn't happen under Parcells, who would let it be known that you 'can't make the club in the tub.'

I don't think any D-Coordinator can make a great defense with this many injuries.







YR

Agreed they’re not going to be great with all the injuries but let’s be real here they weren’t generating much in the way of turnover before the injuries.

As for Pasqualoni’s defense their turnovers were a very big part on why we won 5 of eight games (and were competitive in the three we lost)

We may have given up 26 point per game but we were winning the majority of our games under Pasqualoni weren’t we?

We exactly have a stellar offense under Kitna, but it was good at not turning the ball over, combine that with out (brief) ability to generate turnovers and you had a winning team.

So why are you 100% confident that Pasqualoni couldn’t have managed something similar in 2011?

[Hostile]

Originally Posted by IrishAnto

True, but I still find it hard to call them great at any time, Descent yes, Good maybe, but great?

That's you. I have no issue with that. Allow me the same.

[Idgit]

Originally Posted by IrishAnto

Agreed they’re not going to be great with all the injuries but let’s be real here they weren’t generating much in the way of turnover before the injuries.

As for Pasqualoni’s defense their turnovers were a very big part on why we won 5 of eight games (and were competitive in the three we lost)

We may have given up 26 point per game but we were winning the majority of our games under Pasqualoni weren’t we?

We exactly have a stellar offense under Kitna, but it was good at not turning the ball over, combine that with out (brief) ability to generate turnovers and you had a winning team.

So why are you 100% confident that Pasqualoni couldn’t have managed something similar in 2011?

Yeah, YR. Maybe it's Pasqualoni that's been missing from this defense, all along.

Irish, for the record, I agree with you on the defensive turnovers (interceptions, really). Our lack of them is a mystery, and I don't think it's just the S play that explains it. Unfortunately. Coming into this season, that was one factor I thought for sure would change. Mostly through improved LB coverage in the flats and depth on the intermediate stuff, better CB play, and more inside blitzing. It never really developed, and I can't put it all on the loss of Barry Church (though I was very impressed with his early play). Losing Lee hurt the underneath picks, to be sure. But we're still missing plays from the secondary. If it's not scheme, I don't know what it can be, honestly.

[starfrombirth]

Originally Posted by Yakuza Rich

Yesterday I did a post giving my thoughts on the offense after watching a bunch of All-22 games.

http://cowboyszone.com/forums/dallas...s.php?t=247959

First, I’ve went back and forth on Rob Ryan as the D-Coordinator.



YR

.....so.... you're saying next year..

[Bluestang]

Rob Ryan is sending 4 rushers or fewer about 76% of the time and is blitzing 24% of the time.

This is a really big contrast from what he did last year.

Rob has really gotten very conservative because of the injuries of Church and Lee.

Danny McCray - he is not a deep safety at all and can't be relied to cover a deep half of the field. He is good in the nickel LB/S role in Rob's hybrid dime defense but that means playing Carr out of position at S.

Ernie Sims - is not a good run defender whatsoever and we are starting to see why Detroit gave up on him and why the Eagles did too. Drafted as a 4-3 WOLB he lacks instincts to play the LB position period. I can't really fault him for playing in a new defense and trying to learn but I don't see any natural instincts from him when he plays.

Marcus Spears - the very definition of JAG

Jay Ratliff - his injuries that caused him to miss time have been his problem. When he's in he offers a good push of the interior of the pocket.

[IrishAnto]

Originally Posted by Idgit

Yeah, YR. Maybe it's Pasqualoni that's been missing from this defense, all along.

Irish, for the record, I agree with you on the defensive turnovers (interceptions, really). Our lack of them is a mystery, and I don't think it's just the S play that explains it. Unfortunately. Coming into this season, that was one factor I thought for sure would change. Mostly through improved LB coverage in the flats and depth on the intermediate stuff, better CB play, and more inside blitzing. It never really developed, and I can't put it all on the loss of Barry Church (though I was very impressed with his early play). Losing Lee hurt the underneath picks, to be sure. But we're still missing plays from the secondary. If it's not scheme, I don't know what it can be, honestly.

I just don't think they know how best to use the talent they do possess.

The reason for my original reply to YR's post was to highlight the fact that you don't necessarily need a great pass rush or great safeties to do a much better job that anyone not called Pasqualoni has done with our defense in a long, long while despite spending the majority of our high end draft picks and expensive free agents on the defense over these last 17 years.

I've no confidence that even if we get a Safety and or DL with our first/second round picks, that much will change.

[Idgit]

Originally Posted by IrishAnto

I just don't think they know how best to use the talent they do possess.

The reason for my original reply to YR's post was to highlight the fact that you don't necessarily need a great pass rush or great safeties to do a much better job that anyone not called Pasqualoni has done with our defense in a long, long while despite spending the majority of our high end draft picks and expensive free agents on the defense over these last 17 years.

I've no confidence that even if we get a Safety and or DL with our first/second round picks, that much will change.

I know, and I agree with you. Or they don't want to use the talent that way for other reasons. But the turnovers have to come from someplace.

I was pot-stirring earlier because Paul Pasqualoni is a persona-non-grata in YR threads, so I thought we might get some fireworks. But, sadly, no dice, though.

[Crown Royal]

An excellent post and I couldn't agree more. It won't be popular among the pass rush crowd but everything that is wrong with our defense, to me, starts with safety play. Our first game we came out and did a pretty good job in playing the way Ryan wants to play: tight man coverage, with a single high safety and a rover in the seam, blitzing from where he feels like it play to play. He has two corners who have the ability to get a press, which makes the pass rush that much better.

Unfortunately, Sensabaugh is crap unless he is covering a man, McCray is NOT a coverage safety at all, and it has led to us playing more and more zone coverage without blitzing. I would say that our safety play was the predominant reason we lost the Atlanta game; we just couldn't play to the player's strengths because of this one position.

Frankly that is NOT what our defense is setup to do. I see a high premium being put on getting not only a safety, but safety depth next offseason.

Also I agree with you very much on Hatcher. I love watching the guy play, his pass rush is very underrated and he is doing a very good job at disruption.

[Yakuza Rich]

Originally Posted by IrishAnto

So why are you 100% confident that Pasqualoni couldn’t have managed something similar in 2011?

Giving up 26 points a game is terrible. Better than we were doing, but crediting the defense for going 5-3 is terribly misguided. We went 5-3 because the special teams play was much better and our offense improved as well. The defense improved, but was still lousy. You don't hear people saying that all of the games Drew Brees and Peyton Manning won were due to the defense. There's a reason for it.

Meanwhile, I watched Pasqualoni's coaching for 13 straight years at Syracuse. He then came to Dallas to coach TE's for a year, and that was one of Witten's worst years blocking. Granted, Pasqualoni is not a TE coach by nature. So they move him to LB coach in 2006 and what KILLED us in 2006? The LB's being clueless when it came to defending RB's or even FB's out of the backfield. Either that or Mike Karney is the greatest pass receiving back in the history of the game.

He went to the Dolphins where he lucked out with one of the easiest schedules and the defense played alright for them. But the following year he was fired by his friend who hired him, Tony Sparano. We then hired him back, when nobody else was interested in hiring him (and when he was fired at SU, no college team wanted him either at that time).

And how good was our DE play under Pasqualoni?

And I don't think it's a coincidence that Hatcher is suddenly a great player when he didn't do jack under Pasqualoni.

Now he's coaching UConn. The Huskies went 16-10 in the 2 years prior to Pasqualoni. In the year before, they made it to a BCS game. In just 2 seasons, the Huskies have gone 10-13 in the lighter scheduled Big East and have not been bowl eligible either year.

He has never shown me anything on the pro level to suggest he's a good coach, much less a good coordinator. And his best years as a coach were from him catching a tan off of Dick MacPherson's sunshine.

I understand that some coaches are great Coordinators and/or position coaches, but are incompetent as head coaches. I always thought Wade was a much better coordinator than a head coach. The same with Norv. But Pasqualoni has never showed that to me and nobody has ever made a legitimate case for him that would make me think otherwise.






YR