Anyone watch halftime

[playmakers]

When Dungy was reviewing a Moss catch. I know the defense played awesome but the only time we gave up chunk yards was when we were in this D with Newman covering. Newman, who I thought had a horrible game until I rewatched the game, started as if he was playing man to man defense at the 14 yard line and before the snap moved all the way to the 25 yard line with absolutley no help at all. Moss had the whole field to manuever ran as if he was running across the field and stopped on a dime. Newman had absolutley no chance at defending these passes with the speed of Moss. I don't want to whine but can someone explian to me how that is effective? I know I don't have the game tape but every time Moss caught a pass on TNew he was nowhere in the picture at the start of the snap. To me, every time Newman plays man up bump n run coverage is when he's at his best. When he plays off and has to play zone, like the Sidney Rice play last year, he frankly struggles imo. I'm not whining either. I just see a flaw in a dominant defense. Opinions

 

[mmohican29]

I agree entirely with this post. The Cowboys gameday strategy, especially with Jenkins manning the opposite corner... should be press coverage, with TNew doggedly hounding the top WR on the other side, a la Steve Smith who he OWNS.

If you want to play zone from time to time that's ok- but the Cowboys tip their hat they are defending vs the Run or deep ball 1st and foremost.

More man to man would prevent the maddening 3rd and 6, 7, and 8 conversions with the pass rush we have IMO

 

[dbair1967]

The entire game plan (offense and defense) was too conservative IMO.

I understand why on offense, they were worried about Romo getting pasted by blitzes.

Defensively I think there's either 1 of 2 issues:

1) They really didnt know what to expect from Washington's new offense

or

2) They really felt like Washington was so bad offensively, that the only thing they had to do was prevent cheap easy scores.

They called alot of blitzes, but most of them looked like the same blitz and Washington was prepared for it. I think next time we play them we'll see vastly different game plans on both sides of the ball.

 

[burmafrd]

I keep hearing how good Wade is as a DC. Frankly he is not even top 10 in the league. With the kind of talent he has here this D should be another Doomsday and its not.

 

[TheGoat73]

Lots of the completions against Tnew come w/ the receiver in front of him on intermediate routes. Seen that for years now. His cushion invites the quick pass out to the WR - thankfully he is very good at closing and putting a stout tackle on the guy almost always.

 

[couchscout]

Dbair nailed it with his second suggestion. We just didn't want to give up easy scores. I think the coaching staff knew they would struggle to score with the replacements playing on the o-line. So we just played it close to the vest on defense, knowing they didn't have any real shot at scoring TDs.

And burmfard has no clue what he's talking about. Wade is an excellent DC, its one of his few real strengths and now people wanna take that away from him too. One of my favorite things about Wade the DC, is he understands the defense has to be run as part of the entire team strategy and adjusts his playcalling accordlingly. I'll pretty much guarantee you right now that once Kosier and Colombo are back, you'll see Newman in that press-bail technique almost all game and this defense will be more dominant than it was Sunday.