News: BTB: Cowboys Offensive Line Will Be Tested In 2015

[CCBoy]

Cowboys Offensive Line Will Be Tested In 2015
By Dave Halprin
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2015/6/21/8821361/cowboys-offensive-line-will-be-tested-in-2015



The Dallas Cowboys offensive line is getting plenty of respect around the league, despite what Jason Peters has to say. They are generally recognized as the best group around, or at minimum one of the top three. They have become one of the identifying aspects of the Cowboys, something that is talked about as much as Tony Romo, Dez Bryant or a defense that is under the microscope. This year, they will be tested.

In 2015 the Cowboys play the NFC South and the AFC East. Among the NFC South teams, only the Panthers appear to have an imposing front four on defense. The Saints have a pair of good pass rushers, but Junior Gallette could end up on the wrong side of the league's suspension list. The Bucs do have Gerald McCoy. Also, let's not forget the Cowboys have the Seahawks on their schedule, always a tough defense. But...

The AFC East has a host of good defensive lines. This topic was highlighted by Todd Archer in a recent mailbag.

@toddarcher: The Cowboys' offensive line will be tested. The Miami Dolphins added Ndamukong Suh to a strong line that included Cameron Wake. The Buffalo Bills had a good defense without Rex Ryan. The New York Jets have plenty of talent up front. I'm never going to underestimate the New England Patriots even if they don't have Vince Wilfork to lead that line group. Last season the Cowboys went 4-0 against the AFC South, which played a big part in their 12-4 finish. Will they go undefeated against the AFC East? I wouldn't bank on it. We have called the Cowboys' line the best in the NFL. They certainly will have to prove it, and going against the AFC East will be a pretty decent gauntlet.

Indeed, a look at the lines for the AFC East shows the Cowboys offensive line will have some very big tests this year. (Starting lineups via Ourlads.com)

Bills - Mario Williams, Marcell Dareus, Kyle Williams, Jerry Hughes
Dolphins- Cameron Wake, Earl Mitchell, Ndamukong Suh, Olivier Vernon
Patriots - Rob Ninkovich, Alan Branch, Sealver Siliga, Chandler Jones
Jets - Muhammad Wilkerson, Damon Harrison, Sheldon Richardson (Rookie Leonard Williams)

The Bills and the Jets boasts defensive lines about as good as any in the NFL. The Patriots have a couple of very good ends and the Dolphins add Ndamukong Suh to Cameron Wake.


@toddarcher: The Cowboys' offensive line will be tested. The Miami Dolphins added Ndamukong Suh to a strong line that included Cameron Wake. The Buffalo Bills had a good defense without Rex Ryan. The New York Jets have plenty of talent up front. I'm never going to underestimate the New England Patriots even if they don't have Vince Wilfork to lead that line group. Last season the Cowboys went 4-0 against the AFC South, which played a big part in their 12-4 finish. Will they go undefeated against the AFC East? I wouldn't bank on it. We have called the Cowboys' line the best in the NFL. They certainly will have to prove it, and going against the AFC East will be a pretty decent gauntlet.

Indeed, a look at the lines for the AFC East shows the Cowboys offensive line will have some very big tests this year. (Starting lineups via Ourlads.com)

Bills - Mario Williams, Marcell Dareus, Kyle Williams, Jerry Hughes
Dolphins- Cameron Wake, Earl Mitchell, Ndamukong Suh, Olivier Vernon
Patriots - Rob Ninkovich, Alan Branch, Sealver Siliga, Chandler Jones
Jets - Muhammad Wilkerson, Damon Harrison, Sheldon Richardson (Rookie Leonard Williams)

The Bills and the Jets boasts defensive lines about as good as any in the NFL. The Patriots have a couple of very good ends and the Dolphins add Ndamukong Suh to Cameron Wake.

 

[DandyDon52]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's.
Then there is the rushing total from last year, but in part that was due to calling more run plays than any other NFL team over 400.

I have watched the games over and looked at the blocking both for pass and runs and did not seen anything great.
Run blocking was average, with TE's doing much of the key blocking.
pass blocking is usually good to very good, but they cant handle stunts or blitz's at all.
How many times did we see guys come in free to sack tony, including the one that hurt his back in wash game.

So they have a whole line of #1's and they do have something to prove.
The media loves to go on about the # 1 picks and best line , and all that , but all that does is fire up the next team DL they play.
This year they will be tested with the backs we have, I am curious to see what happens with the run game.

 

[CF74]

Spread em out and throw quick ins and outs to back them up.. Then hit them with the run game.. 1-2 Combination, then hit em deep when they stack the box...

Body Blow - Body Blow

 

[CCBoy]

No problem with facing quality defensive lines, and them being 'fired' up. That is what forges a top quality group over time. As to offensive line quality, it takes familiarity and time to handle all situations, strongly. It takes youth and time...and this group of linemen have both.

 

[Sportsbabe]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's.
Then there is the rushing total from last year, but in part that was due to calling more run plays than any other NFL team over 400.

I have watched the games over and looked at the blocking both for pass and runs and did not seen anything great.
Run blocking was average, with TE's doing much of the key blocking.
pass blocking is usually good to very good, but they cant handle stunts or blitz's at all.
How many times did we see guys come in free to sack tony, including the one that hurt his back in wash game.

So they have a whole line of #1's and they do have something to prove.
The media loves to go on about the # 1 picks and best line , and all that , but all that does is fire up the next team DL they play.
This year they will be tested with the backs we have, I am curious to see what happens with the run game.

I thought this was Fathers Day not April Fools day.
All I can say is bring it on ... That's why they play the game.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's.
Then there is the rushing total from last year, but in part that was due to calling more run plays than any other NFL team over 400.

I have watched the games over and looked at the blocking both for pass and runs and did not seen anything great.
Run blocking was average, with TE's doing much of the key blocking.
pass blocking is usually good to very good, but they cant handle stunts or blitz's at all.
How many times did we see guys come in free to sack tony, including the one that hurt his back in wash game.

So they have a whole line of #1's and they do have something to prove.
The media loves to go on about the # 1 picks and best line , and all that , but all that does is fire up the next team DL they play.
This year they will be tested with the backs we have, I am curious to see what happens with the run game.

Did you say our line was average at run blocking and it was Hanna and Witten leading the way to our historic rushing season?

Yikes.

 

[xwalker]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's.
Then there is the rushing total from last year, but in part that was due to calling more run plays than any other NFL team over 400.

I have watched the games over and looked at the blocking both for pass and runs and did not seen anything great.
Run blocking was average, with TE's doing much of the key blocking.
pass blocking is usually good to very good, but they cant handle stunts or blitz's at all.
How many times did we see guys come in free to sack tony, including the one that hurt his back in wash game.

So they have a whole line of #1's and they do have something to prove.
The media loves to go on about the # 1 picks and best line , and all that , but all that does is fire up the next team DL they play.
This year they will be tested with the backs we have, I am curious to see what happens with the run game.

I have watched each offensive snap from 2014 on the All-22. I watch each snap at least 5 times. I will focus on 1 OLineman, then rewind and focus on the next Olineman, such that I see exactly what each OLineman did on each snap.

The Cowboys OLIne was very good. There were 30 regular season sacks; however, when the sacks that were the fault of TEs and RBs are removed and the sacks were Romo held the ball too longer are removed, then number of sacks that were really the fault of the OL becomes a fairly small number.

What does not show up in any stats is the larger number of plays where Romo held the ball way too long but still didn't get sacked or even hit.

The run blocking was also very good. They made several DLinemen look silly. I felt sorry for guys like Paea of the Bears because the Cowboys OL punished him. They tended to use the Zone Blocking Scheme to setup defenses. They would have several Zone runs to one side that only hard marginal success but would then come back the other way and gash the defense with a power run. If you just casually watch the games, it is not obvious how they were setting up the defenses and it might appear that they had a number of runs that didn't do much; however, many of the runs with small gains were part of a plan to setup the defenses. Defenses will start to cheat when they are expecting certain types of runs. The Cowboys plan was to entice them to cheat in one direction and then come back with something different and gash them.

I expanded on the Zone and their plan to setup defenses because it is different than the early nineties power run blocking. Those teams intended to overpower defenses on each run and it was probably more impressive for the casual viewer to watch that style. That power style was great back when the Cowboys OL's average weight was over 320 and the average DT was about 280. In the present day, there a many DL like Suh, Poe, etc.. that are as big a the OLinemen. The Zone scheme forces the DLinemen to stay in their lanes and forces them to decide quickly off the snap which way to flow. If defenses anticipate correctly they can have good success defense Zone runs; therefore, the Zone scheme requires a commitment to the running game even when a few runs in a row are not big gains.

 

[USMarineVet]

No doubt they will be tested.

Just as every team will be geared up to play last year's Super Bowl winner. Dez was recently pronounced the best WR in the NFL so naturally every corner who faces him next season is gonna step up their game. Same goes for our OLine. Defensive fronts are going to do everything in their power to prove that theory wrong. And so it goes.

I'm comfortable that our OLine can handle the test though. They're humble and hungry to do more. They have an unquestionable work ethic and the skills and brawn to back it up. That always translates to success on the field.

 

[noshame]

I look forward to this group forming into a totally cohesive unit with a attitude. God help DL's

 

[DandyDon52]

I have watched each offensive snap from 2014 on the All-22. I watch each snap at least 5 times. I will focus on 1 OLineman, then rewind and focus on the next Olineman, such that I see exactly what each OLineman did on each snap.

The Cowboys OLIne was very good. There were 30 regular season sacks; however, when the sacks that were the fault of TEs and RBs are removed and the sacks were Romo held the ball too longer are removed, then number of sacks that were really the fault of the OL becomes a fairly small number.

What does not show up in any stats is the larger number of plays where Romo held the ball way too long but still didn't get sacked or even hit.

The run blocking was also very good. They made several DLinemen look silly. I felt sorry for guys like Paea of the Bears because the Cowboys OL punished him. They tended to use the Zone Blocking Scheme to setup defenses. They would have several Zone runs to one side that only hard marginal success but would then come back the other way and gash the defense with a power run. If you just casually watch the games, it is not obvious how they were setting up the defenses and it might appear that they had a number of runs that didn't do much; however, many of the runs with small gains were part of a plan to setup the defenses. Defenses will start to cheat when they are expecting certain types of runs. The Cowboys plan was to entice them to cheat in one direction and then come back with something different and gash them.

I expanded on the Zone and their plan to setup defenses because it is different than the early nineties power run blocking. Those teams intended to overpower defenses on each run and it was probably more impressive for the casual viewer to watch that style. That power style was great back when the Cowboys OL's average weight was over 320 and the average DT was about 280. In the present day, there a many DL like Suh, Poe, etc.. that are as big a the OLinemen. The Zone scheme forces the DLinemen to stay in their lanes and forces them to decide quickly off the snap which way to flow. If defenses anticipate correctly they can have good success defense Zone runs; therefore, the Zone scheme requires a commitment to the running game even when a few runs in a row are not big gains.

good post, and let me say I was not saying they are not good, just maybe not great/dominate as some seem to think.
What I saw was they tend to block their guy to one side or the other and in different combinations to open gaps.
But so many times nothing opened up, and when they went jumbo and tried to power forward they did not go forward much if at all.
I also noticed murray most often had narrow cracks to run into , not big gaping holes.
He had some of those, but all backs have some of those.

Many times Murray chose the right spot to hit, and that is where we have to see if our current backs can hit the right spots consistently.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's.
Then there is the rushing total from last year, but in part that was due to calling more run plays than any other NFL team over 400.

I have watched the games over and looked at the blocking both for pass and runs and did not seen anything great.
Run blocking was average, with TE's doing much of the key blocking.
pass blocking is usually good to very good, but they cant handle stunts or blitz's at all.
How many times did we see guys come in free to sack tony, including the one that hurt his back in wash game.

So they have a whole line of #1's and they do have something to prove.
The media loves to go on about the # 1 picks and best line , and all that , but all that does is fire up the next team DL they play.
This year they will be tested with the backs we have, I am curious to see what happens with the run game.

We had 3 interior OL and a LT who could iso at the poa and they can give as good as they get against the best of the league. We have watched Tyron abuse rush ends for several years now. Leary, Fred, and Martin single blocked the likes of Suh, Watt, and Ngata just fine. They dominated fronts who would throw smoke and mirrors stunting and shifting to get away from them.

Now the DL line games did work to varying degrees of success but that was the first year that OL had under Linehan's system. Callahan was replaced by Loney and the braintrust has film of probably 600 snaps of stunts, zone dogs, blitzes, shifts and the like. DC's threw everything at us all year. I think the squad will improve here. I really hope they figure out how to run playaction fakes without tipping the defense so badly. With a QB that thinks there is a play to be made on every down that poor execution/design has been a recipe for disaster.

 

[erod]

What's great about this is what it does for Tony Romo.

If you want to load up to prove yourself to the offensive line, Romo will destroy you. If you want to back off and play honest, Romo will destroy you differently.

The brilliance of Romo is magnified when he has such a good offensive line at his disposal.

 

[LatinMind]

zzzzzzzzzzzz..........

They werent tested last yr.

 

[reddyuta]

We also were remarkably healthy last season,thankfully our depth has improved on paper.

 

[LatinMind]

Dallas seemed to destroy two of the better defenses in the nfl last yr in Houston and Seattle.

 

[dallasdave]

The test will be the Dallas OL running over other teams DL's and LB's.

 

[ElGatoGrande]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's..

I hear ya,,, the media tends to exaggerate and having multiple top picks on OL certainly pushed them in that direction. Even though this OL played well, and compares favorably to most of the other teams, they are not great,,, yet! With a little luck at right tackle I expect them to become "great" soon.

 

[Irvin88_4life]

The main reason media and fans say the cowboys line is great or the best is because they have 3 # 1 picks on it, and now with lael, sort of 4 # 1's.
Then there is the rushing total from last year, but in part that was due to calling more run plays than any other NFL team over 400.

I have watched the games over and looked at the blocking both for pass and runs and did not seen anything great.
Run blocking was average, with TE's doing much of the key blocking.
pass blocking is usually good to very good, but they cant handle stunts or blitz's at all.
How many times did we see guys come in free to sack tony, including the one that hurt his back in wash game.

So they have a whole line of #1's and they do have something to prove.
The media loves to go on about the # 1 picks and best line , and all that , but all that does is fire up the next team DL they play.
This year they will be tested with the backs we have, I am curious to see what happens with the run game.

Not sure what you was watching but our OL knocked lines off the ball and created huge lanes for Murray to run through. There was times Romo had 10 plus seconds in the pocket. I thought Romo held the ball to long on most sacks. Granted I'm not saying they were perfect cause they made some mistakes. ...for example the Eagles game but they were special and that was with a rookie and 1st year guy. They are young and will get much better

 

[Hardline]

Every offensive line gets tested in every game.

 

[DandyDon52]

Not sure what you was watching but our OL knocked lines off the ball and created huge lanes for Murray to run through. There was times Romo had 10 plus seconds in the pocket. I thought Romo held the ball to long on most sacks. Granted I'm not saying they were perfect cause they made some mistakes. ...for example the Eagles game but they were special and that was with a rookie and 1st year guy. They are young and will get much better

I said they were good at pass blocking , and sure they will get better each year, but I did not see the run blocking as all that good last year.
Not sure how many , but many many runs where no hole at all and stopped for no gain, or like 1 yard.