Cleanup on aisle two: The Cowboys need to clean up the penalties

You live and die with what you can handle. We just look at the penalties like the Jones boys, neither is going away soon. Just gotta hope we dont shoot ourselves to bad.
 
Bobhaze said:
The Cowboys have had penalty problems for a long time. As enjoyable as that win in Cleveland was Sunday, there is certainly lots of room for improvement, including cleaning up the penalty issues again this year. Hidden in the excitement of a great win against the brownies was the ugly stat of 11 penalties for 85 yards.

Last year in the 2023 season, the Cowboys finished the regular season with 115 enforced penalties, which was tied for second with the Browns (who also had a ton of penalties last Sunday) and behind only the jets who had the most penalties last year at 124. Including the bad playoff loss to GB last year, the Cowboys gave up 1,012 yards in penalty yardage last year! And in 2022, the Cowboys had 104 enforced penalties. It’s not a new problem.

In my book there are two types of penalty categories:

1. Mental penalties that are just stupid lack of focus or awareness penalties. These are all very avoidable penalties. They include:
  • Pre-snap penalties like a false start or delay of game or even lining up off sides.
  • Misunderstanding the rules or lack of awareness. Like an illegal formation penalty, too many men on the field, even the 12th man and the huddle rule which bit us a few years back.
  • Some personal foul penalties are stupid mental mistakes like retaliation after a cheap shot the refs missed. Or a frustration penalty where a player throws an opponent down after the whistle. Just a mental lapse.
2. Physical penalties are the hardest to avoid because are done at full speed unlike pre-snap penalties.
  • Offensive holding, defensive holding, illegal block in the back. These are harder to avoid although teams can work on hand placement, where the head is when blocking on STs, etc.
  • Defensive Pass interference is usually a judgement call on a bang-band play and hard to work on in practice as far as avoidance.
  • Roughing the QB in my opinion is the hardest to avoid. It is the most completely judgmental call.
So what can be done? I put a lot of this on the coaches as something to work on in practice. Pre-snap penalties are easily something that should be worked on a lot in practice. Having 11 penalties in a game is at some point going to cost you a game.

I mention this now because one thing Mike McCarthy could do improve this team a ton is reducing these penalties. It needs to start tightening up before it becomes a bigger and on-going problem this season.
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So frustrating. Pre snap penalties to me is just a lack of mental awareness
 
conner01 said:
So frustrating. Pre snap penalties to me is just a lack of mental awareness
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mental awareness and discipline. Lining up in the neutral zone to me is without a doubt the dumbest of all. You can SEE where it starts.
 
Risen Star said:
Quit accusing this team of being dumb.
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any player that keeps making the same mistake is dumb; or unable to discipline himself.
either way if he cannot fix it then he needs to go
Championship teams cannot afford that
 
Iago33 said:
I’m shook, I admit. I expect the pass to be dropped (Crayton), the catch to be called incomplete (Dez), the running back breaking free to fumble (Murray), the quarterback to be shell-shocked (Dak), the star pass rusher to be gassed (Micah), the kick holder to drop a slick ball (Romo), the defensive line to be pushed back (Quinn D), the penalty to be called—all at the worst possible time. I can’t enjoy a punt return for a touchdown because I’m expecting a penalty flag. Are we supposed to ignore 3 decades of history? What do you expect?
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You realize there are other mindsets?

Sports are all games of mistakes. Fixating on them is a choice or you're traumatized and cannot help but think about it which just seems extremely weak-minded .

Anyhow this is after a win. Here, we are looking the gift horse in the mouth as opposed to worrying during the game.
 
Bobhaze said:
Well in my book, all the pre-snap penalties are fixable. Even the little bit I played football as a young man, we worked on avoiding pre-snap penalties. Coaches would set up situations to test your ability to not jump the snap, work on getting plays in on time, etc.

A lot of this is fixable.
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The pre-snap penalties are mental and are fixable but yet year after year, squad after squad commits them in spades. In my limited playing on the line I committed more than my fair share and felt dumber than a rock each time because I knew the snap count yet I moved early. In practice we did pushups or ran sprints after practice for such offenses in both games and practices to get our mental floss intact. Blocking in the back, hands to the face, getting caught with your hands in the wrong place, illegal use of hands, holding, the list goes on. I believe the pre-snap can be dealt with but the others have to be taught repetitiously and I'm not sure in season allows for that time devotion through the prep these teams endure weekly. I'm a fan but all I know is it has been a yearly thing in Dallas for a long time and a problem.
 
gtb1943 said:
Anyone that does not homer for the boys you attack.
That is what you do
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Another simplistic dualism. Sigh.

Still do not want to discuss what I wrote and you feel attacked. I was not writing about you so you must identify with what I was writing about.

Scared is as scared does.
 
I have faith Zimm will clean up stupid mistakes on defense. Right guy you want to counter DQ’s deficiencies the previous year.

McCarthy and offense however….? Especially with a young offensive line, well… might be some growing pains.

Hard to tell in week one though. As Belichick said in his take on Cowboys, officials were over-calling on purpose to set tone for new season and new rules.
 
Mac_MaloneV1 said:
Physical penalties are just whether the refs call it or not. Every team is basically the same in this regard
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The penalty stats history does not agree with you at all.

History shows that there are favored teams (Green bay & Pittsburgh), and there are teams that are not favored (Detroit & Dallas). The disparity is far too great to be able to say "every team is basically the same in this regard". It's not even remotely close to being the case.

You can check this out for yourself at various stats sites that have the data going back decades.
 
Cowboys5217 said:
The penalty stats history does not agree with you at all.

History shows that there are favored teams (Green bay & Pittsburgh), and there are teams that are not favored (Detroit & Dallas). The disparity is far too great to be able to say "every team is basically the same in this regard". It's not even remotely close to being the case.

You can check this out for yourself at various stats sites that have the data going back decades.
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I said that they commit the same number of penalties like holding. What the refs call is the variance.

The adage of "there's holding on every play" is true, to the letter of the law, so there's very little difference from team to team in that regard.
 
The difference between us being one of the most penalized team and the team with the least penalties was about 2 penalties a game averaged out over the entire season. Sure it'd be great to have less but it's not like there is a huge gap between the teams.
 
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