jday
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Last week, as I looked into my crystal ball, it told me to expect the worse against the Raider’s and it was pretty accurate. This week, my crystal ball is telling me to look for marked improvement, and not just because the starter’s will be playing the majority of the game; though that is a part of it.
The other part, and I realize I’m setting myself up for some serious mud slinging in my direction, I really don’t think the Titan’s are as good as everyone seem’s to think. Granted, it’s just the preseason, and given the likely vanilla approach to play calling, the Cowboy’s very well may lose, as far as the scoreboard is concerned. When I say the Cowboy’s should do better tonight, I’m not talking about the final score. I’m talking about the match ups; the individual battles like Martellus Bennett and Jason Witten against their Safeties who give up quite a bit in height both being 6′0″ and LB’s who likely give up quite a bit in speed. The Titan’s on their DL will be short Albert Haynesworth and did little to refortify that position against a team who has four running back’s all capable of running it between the tackles effectively (I include Keon Lattimore in this assessment based off of his performance last week). Cortland Finnegan received quite a bit of praise for his 5 picks last year, but if Romo is insync with Roy William’s, Roy’s 6′3″ height should create some serious issues for 5′10″ Cortland.
In other word’s, if the Cowboy’s play their game, the Titan’s shouldn’t get too many opportunities to field punt’s. You read that right: If the Cowboy’s actually wanted to win the 1st half, I honestly believe the Titan’s would not be able to stop the Cowboy’s from, at least, getting a field goal on every opportunity the Cowboy’s offense has with the ball. And you may have noticed I said in an earlier post that the Titan’s identity was established through defense in 08; but then I looked at their competition, and I got a better idea of how their success story came about in 2008.
The Titan’s placed 27th in the league in passing and placed 7th in the league in rushing. Where is the Titan’s offensive identity? The run game. How did their opposition fair as whole a in both aspects of the game? See the below table
The first thing that stand’s out is that the Titan’s only beat 5 team’s with winning record’s. The next thing that stand’s out is the Titan’s strength’s versus their opposition’s weaknesses. For instance, when looking at the 5 win’s against opponent’s that had winning records only (highlighted in blue), since the other 8 win’s where game’s the Titan’s should have won, note how they ranked in the league and compare to where the Titan’s ranked. Also consider the point margin’s that they won by, which is also important. From these number’s I’ll let you draw your own conclusion (because truthfully I just don’t have the time to spell it out), but in my opinion, the Titan’s are not the complete package that they are being touted as. They are a run first team, which may give the Cowboy’s trouble, but passing the ball might be pretty difficult against the Cowboy’s with the secondary at full strength tonight. On the other side of the ball, the Cowboy’s are strong at rushing and passing. But since the Titan’s in 08 rarely faced team’s that were good at doing both, I am predicting they will find it much more difficult to identify what the Cowboy’s are going to do presnap. This should play heavily in the Cowboy’s favor.
If this was a regular season game, I’d predict an upset by a large margin in the Cowboy’s favor 35 – 13. But since it a preseason game and the Cowboy’s primary weakness is depth, I’ll say the Cowboy’s will put up some serious point’s of about 24, limiting the Titan’s to 9 in the 1st half, but likely will lose ground in the 2nd half putting up maybe 6 more point’s and giving up 17 for a final score of Cowboy’s 30 Titan’s 26.
