Admitting I've been Dead Wrong - Doug Free

[big dog cowboy]

A little birdie told me that Free was suffering from depression the last few seasons because of his balding.

Now that he's at peace with his baldness he's back to pro bowl form.

I'll admit this makes me speechless.

But I agree with the OP that Free deserves many kudos..

 

[starfrombirth]

Yep! Very pleasantly surprised with Free's progress/development/competency? This year. Honestly, who thought we had even a remote chance of our line being this good this year? Not, this guy. Now if we can just fix our dline.... superbowl!

 

[BoysFan4ever]

Agree with consensus on here. He's playing really well.

 

[burmafrd]

He is not playing great. He is playing very well. But he is also getting help and scheme changes to make his job easier as has been described.

I still do not trust him. since we still do not know why he fell off a cliff starting in 2011 you have to keep in mind he might fall again.

 

[burmafrd]

The only year Doug Free "sucked," as you put it, was last season. Prior to that he had been a solid-to-very-good player for us. I blame the organization for inappropriately moving him from right-to-left tackle (and then back again) and really interrupting his progress at the position he had shown such promise at...

He stank it up in both 2011 and most of 2012- only getting better after basically being forced to fight for his job.

 

[Nightman]

I wanted to give Free a second chance but it was mainly because of his contract and salary cap implications. There was a lot of talk about switching sides and changing schemes as the reason for his fall off and it's seems like that was correct. I just hope he keeps it up and Parnell keeps getting better. If the OL is solid they can concentrate on DT and DE next year.

 

[CT Dal Fan]

I think we also need to give a shout out to the Cowboys' front office for getting this one right and sticking with Free. They obviously knew whatever was wrong with him the past couple of years was a correctable problem. If they cut Free like everybody (including myself) wanted and signed Tyson Clabo or Eric Winston, they'd really regret it right now.

 

[Deep_South]

If Free goes to the Pro Bowl this year it is really going to complicate things.

 

[CT Dal Fan]

If Free goes to the Pro Bowl this year it is really going to complicate things.

The Cowboys could just re-negotiate his contract back to the way it was. I don't think they'll be held hostage by the salary cap next offseason; though I could be wrong.

 

[Clove]

He's a clear example of a player turning things around. He did absolutely suck the last couple of years, but for some reason, he's been a stud. So I wan't wrong about him, it's just that he turned his bad play around. I was wrong about getting rid of him too soon.

 

[CyberB0b]

Gotta give him credit. He took his pay cut and stepped up like a man.

 

[Bleu Star]

I lambasted Doug Free the player, the fact the Cowboys were stupid enough even to bother resigning him, and everything about the guy over the past two years. Quite frankly, I thought he sucked. I still think he sucked.... not sure if it was technique, injury, or something else but I most definitely thought he sucked.

Where I was DEAD WRONG is I openly questioned the decision by the front-office to bring him back this year. I didn't think he was worth bringing back EVEN with the reduced salary.

It is VERY rare for a player, especially one essentially in the mid of his career, to turn himself around from sucking for multiple years and then turn himself into a serviceable (dare I say above average) player.

The front office got this one right. They made the right call. As it pertains to bringing Doug Free back this season my hat is off to Jerry and the gang.

Also kudos to Doug Free. Whether it was you, the coaching staff, or both - you are impressing me me big time this year --- steady as a rock.

I was dead right from day one. Then I fell victim to everyone that said he was done.. Then I found my mojo again. Darn. It feels good to be right.

 

[BAT]

Maybe Cowboys need to reduce a few more players' salaries.

 

[percyhoward]

They have changed things in the scheme to make it easier for Free...The results of the scheme changes are that the jobs of Leary and Smith are more difficult than normal...Free has improved his technique, but they definitely help him with the scheme. It's like having a shutdown CB on one side of a defense allows the scheme to roll the Safety coverage over to the other side.

Great post, and I wish more people understood this.

 

[lane]

Doug has been playing very well indeed..

 

[DuceizBak]

I remember him and smith were single handedly making us one of the most penalized teams in the league...I'm glad they're showing up this year.

 

[xwalker]

After the KC games, I decided to try to develop a grading system for players on a play-by-play basis. I started with T. Smith and then started grading Free. Once I started grading Free, I realized that I needed to add degree-of-difficultly to the analysis. I was using simple grades of succeed, fail or undetermined/neutral. I realized that Free was getting many succeed grades but the degree-of-difficulty on most blocks was far below the degree-of-difficultly on most blocks by T. Smith.

I'm still working on the grading system. I wanted something that is more obvious and meaningful than the PFF crap. Play-by-play grading is the best, but it is very time consuming. I've heard that PFF does not even review the entire game when creating their grades.

 

[Ren]

If you said he sucked last year you where not wrong, he did. He's been really good this year though

 

[burmafrd]

After the KC games, I decided to try to develop a grading system for players on a play-by-play basis. I started with T. Smith and then started grading Free. Once I started grading Free, I realized that I needed to add degree-of-difficultly to the analysis. I was using simple grades of succeed, fail or undetermined/neutral. I realized that Free was getting many succeed grades but the degree-of-difficulty on most blocks was far below the degree-of-difficultly on most blocks by T. Smith.

I'm still working on the grading system. I wanted something that is more obvious and meaningful than the PFF crap. Play-by-play grading is the best, but it is very time consuming. I've heard that PFF does not even review the entire game when creating their grades.

PFF is garbage. If you can do better look at marketing it. Apparently PFF makes serious money with their crap and if you can do better you could get rich.

 

[Future]

PFF is garbage. If you can do better look at marketing it. Apparently PFF makes serious money with their crap and if you can do better you could get rich.

Doesn't matter if its good or not if you can market it lol

Average Joe football fan won't know the difference anyways.