Bledsoe Admits We Played For The FG To Make It 13-0...

[LaTunaNostra]

Do you EVER recall him being this conservative? It's as if he's become a caricature of himself these past two seasons.

In some ways he seems like the same old, same old. Control freak.

But imo there has been much less trust here of his staff, and that plays itself out down to the players.

The extent of the straight jacketing of quarterbacks has surprised me. In the past he seemed more willing to take the bad if the good offset it. It's always a balancing act, but in Dallas it's always felt to me like too much distrust..and I lay that on Bill's relations with his staff more than anything. It's way early to say for sure, but it seems to me Tuna trusted a Dan Henning to do a whole lot more with a Ray Lucas than he seems to trust a Sean Payton to do with a Drew Bledsoe.

Sure, it makes much sense you would straight jacket a Quincy Carter because impulse decisions were his Waterloo, and we all know what Drew's flaws are by now. But I am getting the same feeling this year I had in 03, and that was that by trying to ensure a QB would not lose you a game, you managed to let him lose one.

But then again, Bill's mistrust is continually renewed..in the absence of Jones and then Glenn last year, trying to allow his QB to make something happen, Bill gave too long a leash to Vinny.

And look what he got for it. Mega mistakes.

It's all about Bill's comfort zone with his staff, I think, more than with his players, for whom it trickles down. He will never have the familiarity with this new staff he had with his old one. And that has increased the control, imo.

 

[Juke99]

LTN..fyi...

On the pass to Glenn.

The DB is 7 yards off..Glenn breaks into his cut after 2 yards...2 1/2 max...the DB was still a good 5 yards away and in a slight back pedal after the first step or two...

Crazy route.

 

[InmanRoshi]

Because on two plays the secondary blew their coverage, which is my whole point.

You wanna place blame, it goes squarely on the shoulders of the guy whose only job at that point in the game was not to let Santana Moss run by him, and he did it twice in the last 4 minutes of the game.

There's plenty of other blame to go around, but I don't think that 'opening up' a game plan and exposing said 'mistake prone' QB to, well, more mistakes was necessarily the answer, especially when the Commanders hadn't moved the ball worth a damn all night.

I can name you at least 6 makeable plays that should have been made that would have without a doubt iced the game. The team was in a position to win and failed to execute. Period. ANd when all is said and done, that is a coach's job. Put the team in a position to win.

The team was up by (almost) 2 touchdowns with 5 minutes to play. At that point it was about execution, not some mysteriously conservative game plan that included Terry Glenn getting 157 yards recieving, a 36:29 pass:run ratio, 7.3 YPA on passing, a flea-flicker (which somehow gets interpreted as a 'conservative' play around here) and a several missed plays and penalties that would have bumped the stats even further and put the game away.

The coaching staff, for the most part, did its job. The team was in a position to win. The players didn't execute.

But by all means keep spinning this as all Bill's fault. Because I'm just as sure that if we had followed your advice and Bill had opened the game up and Drew had been sacked multiple times, thrown INTs, fumbled, etc you would all be ripping Bill up for bringing Drew here in the first place. Its a nice no-lose argument for you guys.

THis isn't Drew's fault. Its not Payton fault (I doubt he called the run on 3rd down before the FG anyway), its somewhat Zimmer's fault, its somewhat Bill's fault. BUt the vast majority of the blame goes to the guys on the field who were put in a position to make plays and didn't do it.

Pretty much said all there needs to be said. The "architecture" that Parcells is using is a proven one. Its been proven over and over and over again. Its the same one the Steelers are currently using, and they look like the most dominating team in the NFL at this point in the early season.

Parcells put the players in position to win, and they choked it away. A few key players in particular who are too experienced and too well paid to be choking.

 

[Nors]

I really thought the gameplan was solid till the 4th. Then we got goofy trying to run clock out. Penalties hurt as well - particularly Oline.....

I thought fact Bledsoe had no sacks or Inters was excellent. We were +2 on turnovers. No way we should have lost that one.

Roy can't be in center field in prevent. We MUST address and spend $ on Safety depth.

 

[wileedog]

I like your LOTTO picks better.

We simply don't agree.

I see it as exactly the opposite.

I see a team that played a far too conservative game...

I see a coach playing for a 41 yd FG toward the end of the game...which is the exact distance Cortez missed from earlier in the game...

I see Thompson in the game at the 8 minute mark in the 4th quarter. I have no idea why. And what do we do with him? Run him inside on three plays. What's his strength? He's possibly the fastest guy on the team.

Etc etc etc...

My point is, the game was called SO close to the vest, that we should NEVER have been in the postion we were at the end.

Did we blow the coverage on those plays? You bet.

But it should never have come down to what it did.

Finally, my point is about constructing a game plan that is SO close to the vest that we could control the game for 55 minutes and lose on, essentially 3 big plays at the end.

When playing so conservatively, there's no margin for error. It's as if the game has to be played perfectly for a win. And btw, that includes the officials. And those two holding calls on Flozell, especially the last one, were awful.

Whatever...

I understand your point, which is well stated.

I simply don't agree.

Actually I thought the first Flozell call was worse, but now I'm just arguing with you for the sake of arguing with you

For the record I understand your points too, and as I've said if it were a better offensive team on the other side I would be with you on it all the way.

But hell, I didn't even think Brunell could throw that far anymore....

Neither did Roy probably.

 

[Juke99]

In some ways he seems like the same old, same old. Control freak.

But imo there has been much less trust here of his staff, and that plays itself out down to the players.

The extent of the straight jacketing of quarterbacks has surprised me. In the past he seemed more willing to take the bad if the good offset it. It's always a balancing act, but in Dallas it's always felt to me like too much distrust..and I lay that on Bill's relations with his staff more than anything. It's way early to say for sure, but it seems to me Tuna trusted a Dan Henning to do a whole lot more with a Ray Lucas than he seems to trust a Sean Payton to do with a Drew Bledsoe.

Sure, it makes much sense you would straight jacket a Quincy Carter because impulse decisions were his Waterloo, and we all know what Drew's flaws are by now. But I am getting the same feeling this year I had in 03, and that was that by trying to ensure a QB would not lose you a game, you managed to let him lose one.

But then again, Bill's mistrust is continually renewed..in the absence of Jones and then Glenn last year, trying to allow his QB to make something happen, Bill gave too long a leash to Vinny.

And look what he got for it. Mega mistakes.

It's all about Bill's comfort zone with his staff, I think, more than with his players, for whom it trickles down. He will never have the familiarity with this new staff he had with his old one. And that has increased the control, imo.

Well said Musie.

In fact, early in 2003, he was pretty creative with QC. I'm just surprised with what I'm seeing.

He's always been a bit of a gambler.

I was at the Monday night Giant game in 2003..I was with a die hard Giant fan, who commented "You are going to feel Parcells' presence in this game" and he was dead accurate about that. The play calling was tremendous that night.

 

[InmanRoshi]

I really thought the gameplan was solid till the 4th. Then we got goofy trying to run clock out. Penalties hurt as well - particularly Oline.....

I thought fact Bledsoe had no sacks or Inters was excellent. We were +2 on turnovers. No way we should have lost that one.

Roy can't be in center field in prevent. We MUST address and spend $ on Safety depth.

Roy wasn't in centerfield. He was playing a deep half of a 2 deep zone, which every safety in the NFL is askedto do. If he can't do that, then he needs to be moved to linebacker or removed from the field in nickel situations, because it really is the lowest common denominator for what teams need out of a safety in coverage.

 

[Juke99]

Actually I thought the first Flozell call was worse, but now I'm just arguing with you for the sake of arguing with you

For the record I understand your points too, and as I've said if it were a better offensive team on the other side I would be with you on it all the way.

But hell, I didn't even think Brunell could throw that far anymore....

Neither did Roy probably.

:

I was surprised, early in the game to see that he still had that kinda zip on his passes.

I don't know who he faked out on that run but he was moving about as slow as a turtle..one of the LB"s wiffed on him...that shocked me too.

The Flozell calls were pretty awful. But he's a penalty machine.

Time to move on to SF, I guess.

Thanks for an inspired debate...I usually don't get into these on the forum any more.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I really thought the gameplan was solid till the 4th. Then we got goofy trying to run clock out. Penalties hurt as well - particularly Oline.....

I thought fact Bledsoe had no sacks or Inters was excellent. We were +2 on turnovers. No way we should have lost that one.

Roy can't be in center field in prevent. We MUST address and spend $ on Safety depth.

Nors last night was the epitome of a "Drew Bledsoe" game that I've witnesses the last 3 years. Yes, it was a little "cleaner" but there we were exchanging FG's for TD's, which is vintage Bledsoe and when the chips were down and your man had the opportunity to become a "legend" in only his 2nd game as the starting QB for the Dallas Cowboys, he came up....



"small."

 

[Juke99]

Roy wasn't in centerfield. He was playing a deep half of a 2 deep zone, which every safety in the NFL is askedto do. If he can't do that, then he needs to be moved to linebacker or removed from the field in nickel situations, because it really is the lowest common denominator for what teams need out of a safety in coverage.

Yep...if you watch the replay...the aerial shot shows it best...he was in his backpedal from the snap, made his turn at around the right time...maybe a bit stiff in the hips...and Moss just blew right past him. IMO, he's always been an average guy in pass coverage.

 

[InmanRoshi]

Out of the 7 teams with 2-0 records, 5 of them have less pass attempts at this point than the Cowboys. Teams that are winning don't "open things up". Teams that are losing and have to catch up do. That isn't Bill Parcells, that's the NFL.

Sean Payton didn't call the game any differently than Jon Gruden did when he was leading Buffalo by 13 the 4th quarter on Sunday. Griese had less pass attempts than Bledsoe, and Cadillac had more rushes than Julius. Tampa's defense didn't choke two touchdowns late, so no one is complaing about Gruden playing too conservative.

 

[Juke99]

Ya know, sports is a funny thing.

Only in sports can we engage in conjecture about whether or not a game plan was too conservative...or whether or not a certain cricital play call was the correct one...when we have the results, right in front of us, in black and white which tells us if it was the right decision or not.

Gruden called a conservative game; they won. Right decision.

Payton called a conservative game; they lost. Wrong decision.

I'm writing this half kiddingly...but really, that's the ultimate barometer.

 

[silver]

we let them off the hook with those conservative calls. you play to win. that's all i know. that was a chicken chiet call on 3rd and 10. we also need another kicker. why we wouldn't kick a field goal at the half? we don't trust cortez that's why.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Good discussion here guys and gals. I've enjoyed this thread and all your input on what was truly a heart-rending loss for such a huge Monday night stage.

Going back a few pages to some of the comments about whether we were dominating the game, I'll use a Parcells boxing match metaphor...

I had the feeling all night we were ahead in the fight on all the cards. Out of the first 11 rounds we had it something like 8 rounds to 3, maybe 9 rounds to 2.
But, and this is a big one, no one had been knocked down and we needed to finish it off. Then we go into the 12th round overconfident that all we have to do is finish the fight and the Skins, not really known for being a knockout fighter, but knowing they need the knockout to win, start swinging for the knockout and BOOM! Two punches out of nowhere land flush on our chins and the Skins walk out of the ring with the belt.

Sickening, truly sickening!

 

[LPW]

Terry is known as one of the most intelligent route runners in the league, and he is also known for his canny adjustment on routes. I wouldn't be surprised if he ran that route exactly as designed, but something went amiss in the entire pattern or the coverage forced him shallower.

[/QUOTE]

On the radio locker room interview with Terry Glenn, he said that the play was designed to be "sort of pick play" and that the defenders didn't allow it to develop. The failure of this play was mainly due to good coverage by the defense rather than by poor route running.

 

[LPW]

That was not Bledsoe's decision, it came from the sidelines. I agree, I thought it was stupid to run on 3rd and forever. Especially with the horrific performance put in by Julius Jones. Not sure what's wrong with that boy but I say bench him if he can't contribute.

Julius Jones currently ranks third in rushing in the NFC with 152 yards despite facing two very good rushing defenses. Yea, let's bench him. I think THam is still available if we need an "upgrade".

 

[InmanRoshi]

Ya know, sports is a funny thing.

Only in sports can we engage in conjecture about whether or not a game plan was too conservative...or whether or not a certain cricital play call was the correct one...when we have the results, right in front of us, in black and white which tells us if it was the right decision or not.

Gruden called a conservative game; they won. Right decision.

Payton called a conservative game; they lost. Wrong decision.

I'm writing this half kiddingly...but really, that's the ultimate barometer.

We actually played more conservative against San Diego by any measure, but because Aaron Glenn made a play at the end of the game everyone swears we were attacking and aggressive. Aaron Glenn and Roy give up two big plays at the end of this game, and fans swear we were too conservative even though we were much more aggressive on both sides of the ball than we were the week before.

I've yet to see one a fan complain on a messageboard that their team was too aggressive in a loss. Its always too conservative. Even when the team is actually too aggressive and reckless for its own good, the fans will still swear up and down that the team was too conservative.

 

[Kilyin]

Aside from the Flea flicker I thought the offense was extremely conservative.

 

[Jimz31]

I've yet to see one a fan complain on a messageboard that their team was too aggressive in a loss. Its always too conservative. Even when the team is actually too aggressive and reckless for its own good, the fans will still swear up and down that the team was too conservative.

Been to a Rams board in the past couple of years?

 

[InmanRoshi]

The aside from the flea flicker, the longest conventional pass play of the night came 10:30 in the 4th quarter with the Cowboys up 10-0 when Bledsoe hit Glenn down the sideline for 45 yards.

No one ever seems to bring that up.


The Cowboys got another first down and had the ball at the 17 yard line when Larry Allen was called for holding. Ended the drive, had to settle for a field goal.

Another example of how the game could have been iced away if it weren't for a well paid, much hooplad, veteran player choking in the clutch. One example of about 20 where the coaches put the players in position to win, and the players choked it away. Some of our most veteran, well paid and much balleyhooed players at that.