xwalker
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I guess @jday has somehow influenced me. I started typing and end up with another very wordy post. At least this is only a micro-manifesto as compared to my previous thread.
Oddly, this one is from a full keyboard; whereas the manifesto was all Samsung Galaxy where my fingers tend to be too big for the touchscreen keyboard.
I still miss a phone I had years ago with a slide out keyboard in landscape mode. Even the longer ago Blackberry was a good keypad for me as compared to any of the touchscreens.
I'll start with a question I've seen about how the secondary will play against the Falcons:
Just keep in mind that they still play the bend-don't-break style. They'll give up catches between the twenties but in games like against Philly they limit scoring.
They've played more Off-Zone in recent games. Early in the season they played more of the Seattle base defense.
The Seattle base defense (When Kris Richard and Richard Sherman were there, I have not studied them much this year) is a Cover-3 hybrid zone/man with the CBs playing Press but everyone else playing Zone. It's difficult to describe that defense exactly, but in simple terms the outside CBs play press but if the WR goes inside they drop into Zone. If the WR goes between the outside CB and the sideline, then they play man.
Their press style which I call the Richard Sherman style is somewhat unique. The CB stands in front of the WR and basically does not budge. The WR is forced to go inside or outside. In standard press the CB tends to jab the WR and then back-peddle (Richard Sherman call that a soft shoe style with Revis as his example). It's difficult for CBs to adapt to this style because they are flat-footed initially.. They must get contact with the WR and transition to running with the WR while making that contact; otherwise, the WR is going to run by them because the WR already has the forward momentum. They call the transition the Kick-Step.
Byron Jones appeared to be playing the Richard Sherman style early in training camp. Jones is physically the prototype for this style with his length and speed. In past years his style when covering TEs in man had similarities to the Richard Sherman style.
Awuzie is not really playing the Richard Sherman style. His press looks more like the tradition press style (Revis for example).
I've seen Brown as the Nickle CB play it both ways and sometimes the Nickel CB plays off-zone when the outside CBs are playing the press style..
They do play some pure man coverage also where the CBs stay with that WR even on in-breaking routes.
Seattle did play some Off-Zone. All NFL defenses mix up coverage.
Richard is calling the defensive plays but I'm certain Marinelli is involved in what coverage they play.
Oddly, I've seen something similar to Tampa-2 coverage this season; whereas, in the past couple of years Marinelli rarely used that coverage despite some media still claiming that was the Cowboys base coverage.
The LBs and Safeties have key roles in the Cowboys coverage scheme. Xavier Woods CB type skills allowed them to make some plays that would be difficult with many Safeties. Philly tried crossing WRs/TEs with the idea of causing a match-up problem for the Safety (Woods) but he handled it quite well. I'm not certain how good he (Woods) is overall as a Safety, but his skill-set has some situational match-up advantages.
They also end up with Heath in some difficult situations for a Safety. While Heath has both some FS and SS abilities, he is not a guy that could ever play slot CB like Woods did last season. Obviously Heath will never be an Earl Thomas type FS or Kam Chancellor type SS, but he has been a very solid player and has outplayed both his UDFA status and his sub 2M per contract. I definitely prefer Heath on the roster over Barry Church. While Church was above average against the run and decent in short area Zone, he was often a liability in coverage and significantly limited the coverage schemes that they could run. Offenses would try to force Church into coverage against pass receiver type TEs because he was very limited in that area.
Last season the Cowboys insanely played Byron Jones at SS. He was originally at FS to start the season but at some point he and Heath switched. I was better for their coverage scheme because it allowed Jones to cover TEs from the standard formation; whereas in the past when he covered TEs he was really in a CB role with 2 other Safeties on the field. The very obvious and expected problem was in run defense. In the final 3rd of the season they started playing Kavon Frazier at SS when they expected a run. Jones/Frazier then split SS snaps at about 70/30.
It really says something about the 2 previous secondary coaches that Byron Jones was playing Safety at all and then playing SS in 2017; although, I don't know that he would have been nearly as good at CB in that coverage scheme with those coaches. When Jones gets a big contract, he should give some of it to Kris Richard.
The CB Brown has also benefited from Kris Richard's coaching as well as from better LB coverage. Last season when Brown was starting, they most often had him playing outside leverage which means that he is dependent on other defenders when it's an in-breaking route. He was repeatedly hung-out-to-dry because the inside defender was either late or non-existent more times than not. That was often Jaylon who was overwhelmed last season. While Jaylon didn't play his 1st season, last year was his 2nd season on the team and in meetings. He was not where close mentally in 2017 to what we are seeing from the rookie Vander Esch. In fact Vander Esch appears to be mentally more advanced than Jaylon this season. That's not really a criticism of Jaylon but a testament to how quickly Vander Esch has acclimated to the NFL. Sean Lee says that Vander Esch is the only player he has seen that had the entire playbook memorize before training camp started; although, I'm certain Lee himself probably did so as well.
Having said all of the above, if the pass rush is not good, then any back 7 will get exploited and especially by an offense like Atlanta's.d
While some will dog on Taco, if he is out again, that puts Crawford in that role of playing a lot of the 1st/2nd down snaps at RDE and limits his snaps at DT where he is a good pass inside pass rusher.
Gregory is better against the run than most would expect, but Marinelli has said he wants to limit his snaps against the run to keep from wearing him down.
Against Philly, Irving, Taco and Ross were all out. Collins experienced an injury issue in the 2nd half and Woods missed all week of practice with a concussion.
Apparently they don't completely trust DE Armstrong as he only played 15% of the snaps against Philly.
DLaw played 90% and Crawford played 77% of the defensive snaps.
Oddly, this one is from a full keyboard; whereas the manifesto was all Samsung Galaxy where my fingers tend to be too big for the touchscreen keyboard.
I still miss a phone I had years ago with a slide out keyboard in landscape mode. Even the longer ago Blackberry was a good keypad for me as compared to any of the touchscreens.
I'll start with a question I've seen about how the secondary will play against the Falcons:
Just keep in mind that they still play the bend-don't-break style. They'll give up catches between the twenties but in games like against Philly they limit scoring.
They've played more Off-Zone in recent games. Early in the season they played more of the Seattle base defense.
The Seattle base defense (When Kris Richard and Richard Sherman were there, I have not studied them much this year) is a Cover-3 hybrid zone/man with the CBs playing Press but everyone else playing Zone. It's difficult to describe that defense exactly, but in simple terms the outside CBs play press but if the WR goes inside they drop into Zone. If the WR goes between the outside CB and the sideline, then they play man.
Their press style which I call the Richard Sherman style is somewhat unique. The CB stands in front of the WR and basically does not budge. The WR is forced to go inside or outside. In standard press the CB tends to jab the WR and then back-peddle (Richard Sherman call that a soft shoe style with Revis as his example). It's difficult for CBs to adapt to this style because they are flat-footed initially.. They must get contact with the WR and transition to running with the WR while making that contact; otherwise, the WR is going to run by them because the WR already has the forward momentum. They call the transition the Kick-Step.
Byron Jones appeared to be playing the Richard Sherman style early in training camp. Jones is physically the prototype for this style with his length and speed. In past years his style when covering TEs in man had similarities to the Richard Sherman style.
Awuzie is not really playing the Richard Sherman style. His press looks more like the tradition press style (Revis for example).
I've seen Brown as the Nickle CB play it both ways and sometimes the Nickel CB plays off-zone when the outside CBs are playing the press style..
They do play some pure man coverage also where the CBs stay with that WR even on in-breaking routes.
Seattle did play some Off-Zone. All NFL defenses mix up coverage.
Richard is calling the defensive plays but I'm certain Marinelli is involved in what coverage they play.
Oddly, I've seen something similar to Tampa-2 coverage this season; whereas, in the past couple of years Marinelli rarely used that coverage despite some media still claiming that was the Cowboys base coverage.
The LBs and Safeties have key roles in the Cowboys coverage scheme. Xavier Woods CB type skills allowed them to make some plays that would be difficult with many Safeties. Philly tried crossing WRs/TEs with the idea of causing a match-up problem for the Safety (Woods) but he handled it quite well. I'm not certain how good he (Woods) is overall as a Safety, but his skill-set has some situational match-up advantages.
They also end up with Heath in some difficult situations for a Safety. While Heath has both some FS and SS abilities, he is not a guy that could ever play slot CB like Woods did last season. Obviously Heath will never be an Earl Thomas type FS or Kam Chancellor type SS, but he has been a very solid player and has outplayed both his UDFA status and his sub 2M per contract. I definitely prefer Heath on the roster over Barry Church. While Church was above average against the run and decent in short area Zone, he was often a liability in coverage and significantly limited the coverage schemes that they could run. Offenses would try to force Church into coverage against pass receiver type TEs because he was very limited in that area.
Last season the Cowboys insanely played Byron Jones at SS. He was originally at FS to start the season but at some point he and Heath switched. I was better for their coverage scheme because it allowed Jones to cover TEs from the standard formation; whereas in the past when he covered TEs he was really in a CB role with 2 other Safeties on the field. The very obvious and expected problem was in run defense. In the final 3rd of the season they started playing Kavon Frazier at SS when they expected a run. Jones/Frazier then split SS snaps at about 70/30.
It really says something about the 2 previous secondary coaches that Byron Jones was playing Safety at all and then playing SS in 2017; although, I don't know that he would have been nearly as good at CB in that coverage scheme with those coaches. When Jones gets a big contract, he should give some of it to Kris Richard.
The CB Brown has also benefited from Kris Richard's coaching as well as from better LB coverage. Last season when Brown was starting, they most often had him playing outside leverage which means that he is dependent on other defenders when it's an in-breaking route. He was repeatedly hung-out-to-dry because the inside defender was either late or non-existent more times than not. That was often Jaylon who was overwhelmed last season. While Jaylon didn't play his 1st season, last year was his 2nd season on the team and in meetings. He was not where close mentally in 2017 to what we are seeing from the rookie Vander Esch. In fact Vander Esch appears to be mentally more advanced than Jaylon this season. That's not really a criticism of Jaylon but a testament to how quickly Vander Esch has acclimated to the NFL. Sean Lee says that Vander Esch is the only player he has seen that had the entire playbook memorize before training camp started; although, I'm certain Lee himself probably did so as well.
Having said all of the above, if the pass rush is not good, then any back 7 will get exploited and especially by an offense like Atlanta's.d
While some will dog on Taco, if he is out again, that puts Crawford in that role of playing a lot of the 1st/2nd down snaps at RDE and limits his snaps at DT where he is a good pass inside pass rusher.
Gregory is better against the run than most would expect, but Marinelli has said he wants to limit his snaps against the run to keep from wearing him down.
Against Philly, Irving, Taco and Ross were all out. Collins experienced an injury issue in the 2nd half and Woods missed all week of practice with a concussion.
Apparently they don't completely trust DE Armstrong as he only played 15% of the snaps against Philly.
DLaw played 90% and Crawford played 77% of the defensive snaps.
