According to Polian, he learned this defense from Dungy who created it with Monte Kiffin

[Common Sense]

Ridiculous to call it poor drafting. Ware, Spencer, Rat, and Hatcher are all draft picks here. Crawford as well. Ware is a 7 time probowl player, Spencer made a probowl and was our best defender last year. Ratliff .. 4 times in the probowl. Hatcher never made one but if he continues to play at his current level he'll be there this year. Crawford was very promising. We've lost ALL of those guys to injury at some point this year. Rat, Spencer, and Crawford missing basically the entire season. Ware missed several games and Hatcher one.

You cannot say "bad drafting" when we had the players to make this work and through a remarkable and improbably stretch, we lost them all.

That's the funny thing about the Cowboys' draft history. They went from being absolutely atrocious during the Campo years, to okay-but-inconsistent during the Parcells years, somehow managing to string together some of the best defensive draft picks in the last two decades, then back to atrocious under Wade, and now middle-of-the-pack-until-proven-otherwise under Garrett.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Hatcher says a lot of things. That means nothing. If Ben Bass played for the Commanders and their fans were blaming his loss for their defensive woes, we would never let it go.

Nobody is saying that losing Ben Bass is the reason for our defensive woes, so you're just using hyperbole as a last grasp to back up your illogical statements.

Instead, those that cite the injuries show that the D-Line was hardly 'ignored.' Bass was a nice piece to the puzzle. Had he not gotten injured, we could have put him at DT or LDE and fill in a lot better than Nick Hayden.

But the real point is we've had a massive amount of injuries on the defense as a whole. And THAT was Polian's point. We lost key players like Spencer, Crawford (a 3rd round pick), Ratliff, and Ware has been hurt. I can't even recall what the number of different linemen we've brought to the team. And our starting free safety was undrafted and playing at Saginaw Valley last year.

Blame the trainers. Blame bad luck. Blame the coaches for having a lax attitude to sitting for injuries. But ignoring the injuries so it suits your point doesn't mean that you're right.






YR

 

[Common Sense]

Nobody is saying that losing Ben Bass is the reason for our defensive woes, so you're just using hyperbole as a last grasp to back up your illogical statements.

Instead, those that cite the injuries show that the D-Line was hardly 'ignored.' Bass was a nice piece to the puzzle. Had he not gotten injured, we could have put him at DT or LDE and fill in a lot better than Nick Hayden.

But the real point is we've had a massive amount of injuries on the defense as a whole. And THAT was Polian's point. We lost key players like Spencer, Crawford (a 3rd round pick), Ratliff, and Ware has been hurt. I can't even recall what the number of different linemen we've brought to the team. And our starting free safety was undrafted and playing at Saginaw Valley last year.

Blame the trainers. Blame bad luck. Blame the coaches for having a lax attitude to sitting for injuries. But ignoring the injuries so it suits your point doesn't mean that you're right.






YR

Please. You are using Ben Bass as one of the reasons for our defensive woes, then turning around saying you're not using Ben Bass as one of the reasons for our defensive woes. Which is it?

Ware is a nice piece to the puzzle. Hatcher is a nice piece to the puzzle. Crawford COULD be, but who knows? Bass? You mean the practice-squad eligible undrafted free agent who has something like a half tackle in the only two NFL games he's been active? Put down the Kool-Aid.

All teams have injuries, but some of them have depth, too.

 

[AmishCowboy]

Never saw why Lissemore did'nt fit as a ""5"

 

[silver]

Failure to address the position and failure to evaluate your own talent is what did this defensive line in. It ain't rocket science. We were counting on Ratliff to be the savior. He hardly played last year after years of wear and tear as an undersized nose tackle.

 

[17yearsandcounting]

Who would have guessed that a bunch of 30+ year old defensive linemen with injury issues would have injury issues?

 

[theSHOW]

The Cowboys made HOF DT Bob Lilly the 1st ever pick for this franchise. He led a powerful D line and retired after the 1974 season. The 1st pick in 1975 was HOF DT Randy White.

 

[T-RO]

Wait up boys! I heard that Gandalf riding on Shadowfax will arrive to save the defense and the season.

 

[big dog cowboy]

The front office ignored the d-line for the future (lots of old players with expiring contracts), but the problems with the d-line THIS year had nothing to do with Jerry or Kiffin. It was just bad luck.

Impossible. I've read otherwise hundreds of times in here so far this year.

 

[gimmesix]

The front office ignored the d-line for the future (lots of old players with expiring contracts), but the problems with the d-line THIS year had nothing to do with Jerry or Kiffin. It was just bad luck. Here is our expected D-line going into the season in order of ability in this scheme:

1. Demarcus Ware (missed 3 games, half the game he was injured in, and was extremely gimpy the game he came back for)
2. Spencer (played half a game, season ending IR)
3. Ratliff (zero snaps played due to injury/unknown conflict)
4. Hatcher (missed 1 game)
5. Crawford (zero snaps, season ending IR)
6. Brent (zero snaps, retired)
7. Bass (zero snaps, season ending IR)
8. Wilber (healthy)
9. Lissemore (traded, not a scheme fit)

When 5 of your best 7 linemen don't play a single full game among them, and your best overall lineman misses a significant chunk of time, it's very hard to have a good defense.

And the Saints game? Ware was a shell of himself, and we were missing basically everyone else. Our D-line was replacement level quality. We were playing street free agents against one of the best offenses in the HISTORY of the NFL. What exactly do people expect to happen? Not to mention we lost Sean Lee, Durant, Claiborne, etc. Given how poorly Carter has adjusted to this scheme, you could say that our entire defensive line, linebacker corps, and safeties were not much better than replacement level quality.

The issue is with injuries, which are predominantly random occurrences...

Yes, and it's virtually impossible to implement this scheme when that happens because it's predicated on pressure from the front four.

 

[Beast_from_East]

If this team is serious about implementing a Tampa-esque 4-3, it should try to figure out a way to bring on Dungy as a consultant.

Exactly.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Wow, what a revelation by Polian.

The Tampa 2 does not work if your defensive line is JV talent level.........................shocking revelation..............LOL

 

[Idgit]

Wait up boys! I heard that Gandalf riding on Shadowfax will arrive to save the defense and the season.

Quoting this rib-tickler, in case anybody missed it.

 

[XxTDxX]

I respect what Polian accomplished in Indianapolis but have you heard his draft analyst lately? He gets A LOT wrong lol..

Here goes a list of Polian's last 5 draft classes

2007
1 Anthony Gonzalez
2 Tony Ugoh
3 Dante Hughes
3 Quinn Pitock
4 Brannon Condren
4 Clint Session
5 Roy Hall
5 Michael Coe
7 Kenyunta Dawson

2008
2 Mike Pollak
3 Phillip Wheeler
4 Jacob Tamme
5 Marcus Howard
6 Tom Santi
6 Steve Justice
6 Mike Hart
6 Pierre Garcon
7 Jamey Richard



2009
1 Donald Brown
2 Fili Moala
3 Jerraud Powers
4 Austin Collie
4 Terrance Taylor
6 Curtis Painter
7 Pat McAfee
7 Jaimie Thomas

2010
1 Jerry Hughes
2 Pat Angerer
3 Kevin Thomas
4 Jacques McClendon
5 Brody Eldridge
7 Ricardo Mathews
7 Kavell Conner
7 Ray Fisher

2011
1 Anthony Constanzo
2 Ben Ijalana
3 Drake Nevis
4 Delone Carter
6 Chris Rucker

Out of about 40 picks I count less than 10 guys that are even worth noting.

I think a lot of people around here who only pay attention to the Cowboys failures don't realize what goes on around the league and hear names like Polian and think they are football gods.. Peyton Manning makes a lot of people look good.. Even executives

Polian has lost some pulse of the NFL in my opinion.. some of the things I hear him say on TV sound ridiculous