Bill Simmons Predictions

[BaybeeJay]

When our offense is putting up 35 points and opposing offenses are forced to abandon the run in the 3rd and 4th quarter and play high risk football, I think we can pin our ears back and rush the passer pretty well. I think most teams do, which is why I always thought the wins/sacks link was always more about correlation than causation. When the game is closer and we have to respect a balanced attack and play one on one matchup football, we're pretty pedestrian.

Kind of how I see it.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I think not being able to get off the field in the first half of the playoff game against the Giants is all anyone needs thus far.

That may be true, but it wasn't due to a lack of a pass rush. During the regular season last year, the Giants only gave up 27 sacks at an average of 1 sack allowed per 19.6 pass attempts. In the playoff game the Cowboys had 3 sacks in Eli's 18 attempts (or 1 sack per 6 pass attempts).

In fact, in the 3 games Dallas played against the Giants last year they had 9 sacks in 93 pass attempts. So thinking Dallas can't rush the passer based on the Giants games is incorrect.





YAKUZA

 

[Yakuza Rich]

He left out the most important part: We can't rush the passer against ELITE O.Lines: like the shatty blue team that got hot from our division and won the super bowl last year. Other than that, we can get after the QB's of subpar, and avg. teams quite well IMO.

Not exactly.

Dallas faced 4 teams in the NFL last year that were in the top 16 in sacks allowed per pass attempt:

Green Bay - 3rd
New England - 5th
NYG - 11th
Washington - 12th


Here's how their regular season pass attempts per sack allowed versus their pass attempt per sack allowed against the Cowboys:


TEAM....................REG. SEASON..............VS. DALLAS

GB..........................30.42...........................13.3
NE..........................27.90...........................15.3
NYG........................19.60...........................10.3
WAS.......................18.10...........................21.8


So out of those teams, only one of them was the pass rush worse for Dallas versus the league average...and that was Washington, the team that ranked lowest of the bunch in pass attempts per sack allowed.






YAKUZA

 

[percyhoward]

When our offense is putting up 35 points and opposing offenses are forced to abandon the run in the 3rd and 4th quarter and play high risk football, I think we can pin our ears back and rush the passer pretty well. When the game is closer and we have to respect a balanced attack and play one on one matchup football, we're pretty pedestrian.

I looked up the sack splits at si.com, and some of the player info is missing, but I did find out that what you said is true--but it's only true for Greg Ellis.

The splits of 3 players (Ratliff, Tank, N. Jones) are missing, but those three only combined for 6 sacks total. Of our other 40 sacks last year, 15.5 came in the first half, and 24.5 in the second half of games. Sounds about normal. But consider that Ellis had 10.5 sacks in the second half of games.

The really interesting part is when you break down the sacks according to the score at the moment the sack happened.

when losing by 8 or more points: 6
when up or down by 7 points or less: 18.5
when winning by 8 or more points: 15.5

James 0/2/1
Ware 2/9/3
Canty 1/1/1.5
Ellis 1/3/8.5
Hatcher 2/0/0
Ratliff (3 total sacks, no splits available)
Spencer 0/2/1
Spears 0/1.5/.5
Tank (2 total sacks, no splits available)
N. Jones (1 sack, no splits on it)

Of Ware's 14 total sacks last year, 9 came when the game was close. Ellis was the one guy who really took advantage of garbage time, with 8.5 of his 12.5 sacks all coming when we were up by more than a TD.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Great job, Percy.

What a non-issue anyway. Obviously a team can't get sacks when they're getting shellacked and the other team doesn't even have to throw the ball.

And everyone knows that you want to stop the run first to make the other team throw... Which is what we did. Funny how some want to penalize us for that.

 

[percyhoward]

It's interesting to look beyond the basic list of sack leaders, and see just which guys owe their success to their own offense.

Besides Ellis--Vrabel, Kerney, and KGB were big garbage guys. Most of their sacks came with leads of a TD or more late in games.

Then you have guys like Ware, Allen, Merriman, and Mario Williams who got to the QB all game long, no matter what the situation. Nothing "pedestrian" about #94, that's for sure.

 

[ThreeSportStar80]

Speaking of rushing the passer, how is Spencer coming along... I needs to pick it up this year.

 

[BaybeeJay]

That may be true, but it wasn't due to a lack of a pass rush. During the regular season last year, the Giants only gave up 27 sacks at an average of 1 sack allowed per 19.6 pass attempts. In the playoff game the Cowboys had 3 sacks in Eli's 18 attempts (or 1 sack per 6 pass attempts).

In fact, in the 3 games Dallas played against the Giants last year they had 9 sacks in 93 pass attempts. So thinking Dallas can't rush the passer based on the Giants games is incorrect.





YAKUZA

I think you are missing my point. Generating sacks is not as important as generating sacks at critical moments in the game (end of halves, and end of games when the score is close). Also, I would like to see the number of sacks generated when sending only four guys and how it compares to the rest of the league. I believe we were sub-par (not necessarily below average, but sub-par relative to the requirements necessary to win a chip). I have not done any statistical analysis, just going on memory.

 

[CrazyCowboy]

gotta give us the mojo

 

[SkinsSuck09]

We'll see how much we "cant rush the passer" soon wont we. We will get pressure, and we will get sacks, and picks, EVERY game, write it down fellas!!

 

[Tass]

'On the bright side, "taking the Browns to the Super Bowl" remains my favorite euphemism for making a doody.'


:laugh2:

 

[FCBarca]

'On the bright side, "taking the Browns to the Super Bowl" remains my favorite euphemism for making a doody.'


:laugh2:

Great line