BBQ101;1831421 said:
O geeze that formatted all to hell...sorry
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BBQ
The best player on the Cowboys was offside by a mile.
Those last three words are scribbled in the notebook I took with me to Dallas two weeks ago for the Texas-sized matchup with the Packers. On the fourth snap of the game, linebacker
DeMarcus Ware blurred past left tackle Chad Clifton's outside shoulder into the backfield and stripped the ball from Brett Favre. Alas, flags flew from both sides of the field. No play.
But in the fourth quarter, with the Packers trailing, 27-24, and facing a third-and-5 at their own 40-yard line, Ware did it again -- this time to the satisfaction of the stripes.
He exploded off the ball, passed Clifton before the poor guy could turn his hips and leveled Favre's backup, Aaron Rodgers, for a 9-yard sack. Clifton gestured to the officials for an offside call, to no avail. The Cowboys got the ball back and scored a touchdown, ending a 14-point Packers run and taking a giant step toward securing home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs.
Afterward, as
Tony Romo was mobbed at his locker and
Terrell Owens gave a press conference in a side room, Ware dressed in near solitude. We chatted awhile, and the 6-4, 252-pound third-year pro mentioned something about not having been offside on that first quarter play.
Whatever, dude, just tell me about the one that counted. The conversation ended when mountainous veteran left tackle
Flozell Adams strode over, engulfed Ware with a hug and said, "You did it, man."
"I did?" Ware asked, smiling like a child.
"Yeah, D-Ware. You changed the momentum."
Indeed he did. And has. Ware's 10th sack gave the Cowboys 33 on the season -- one more than they had in 2003, when the great defensive coach Bill Parcells led the unit to the NFL's No. 1 ranking in his first season in Big D.
In the three years that followed, the Cowboys had an average rank of 13th in defense and 20th in sacks. This season -- Wade Phillips' first at the helm -- they are eighth and fourth, respectively. Phillips, whose unit attacks more than Parcells' did out of the same 3-4 alignment, deserves much of the credit. But Ware has been the catalyst.
Access: Valley Ranch
"I can show you the tape," Ware says six days after the Packers game, at the Cowboys' training facility. "I wasn't offside. I'm positive. I can't help it if nobody else is moving."
All right already.
The next morning, Cowboys defensive coordinator Brian Stewart and I are in a "film room" (why do they call it that?) watching "tape" (it's a DVD, for crying out loud) of all of Ware's sacks this season. And an extra play has been recorded. Sure enough, it appears Ware may have gotten to Favre legally. I have to see it again: The ball twitches just as Ware tears out of his stance. Again, in slow motion: Ball, Ware and, an eternity later, the other 21 guys on the field.
There is no doubt -- no doubt -- the refs blew it.
"DeMarcus is like Bruce Smith in that way," Stewart says. "They're quicker than everybody. It just looks like they're offside."
Back to the DVD, on which Ware, who lines up on the right side of the defense perhaps 75 percent of the time, makes mincemeat of Eagles left tackle William Thomas and Commanders left tackle Chris Samuels -- six Pro Bowls between them -- among others:
At Philly in Week 9, Ware runs through a chip block by tight end Matt Schobel, drives into the 335-pound Thomas' sternum, knocking him off his heels, and plows into Donovan McNabb, who fumbles on the play. "Now that's power," Stewart says. "So that's one of the elements DeMarcus has."
Lining up on the left side in the same game, Ware puts an outside rush on Eagles right tackle Jon Runyan -- also a former Pro Bowl player -- lets Runyan's momentum carry him up the field and angles underneath him for a straight line to McNabb. "He saw the tackle oversetting," explains Stewart. "How did he know? The tackle was trying to beat him up the field. So his countermove was to stutter his feet, stop the other guy's feet and then just be relentless."
Against Samuels in Week 11, Ware explodes off the right side, lowers his torso and puts his right hand on the turf just as Samuels nears him 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, makes an incredible 90-degree turn toward quarterback Jason Campbell and finishes the play with a dive and an ankle tackle. This is a product of what Stewart calls the pick-up-the-towel drill. "You have to have the speed, and then you have to know when to be high and when to be low," Stewart says. "If you're high, the tackle can carry you out of the play. DeMarcus is going to use his speed and then come in low on the edge, pick up the towel and make him say uncle."
When Stewart was secondary coach under then-coordinator Phillips in San Diego, Chargers defensive players -- even the DBs -- literally picked up a towel to help them learn to get low against tackles who couldn't bend that far and maintain any power in their arms. In Dallas, the Cowboys use little orange cones. Same difference. Ware has picked up the towel against Samuels, Thomas and the Bears' John Tait this season, making all three look oafishly slow and silly.
The Chargers led the NFL in sacks in 2006 with 61, fully realizing the Phillips brand of pass rushing: "First, you have to have the good get-off," Stewart says. "The next thing is you have to get your hips turned toward the quarterback before the blocker turns his hips. The other thing is you have to be determined: Move, move and countermove if necessary.
"The better ones all have get-off, and it condenses down to guys who have good hips, and then it condenses down to determination. We had Shawne Merriman and Shaun Phillips who could do those things. But the best I've been around? DeMarcus."
Who is DeMarcus Ware?
He is a student. Ware spends more time with Adams -- his No. 1 practice foe -- during games than he does with the Cowboys' defensive coaches. "He watches me every play, and I watch him," Ware says. "He'll tell me, 'Ware, don't go so far up the field --
get him.' He's been around a long time (10 years); he knows all the little tricks and gimmicks. He's probably one of the best tackles in the league. He's a great teacher."
Ware also spends extra hours at Valley Ranch and on the road with fellow outside linebacker
Greg Ellis, a 10th-year pro who is enjoying his best season -- thanks largely to the extra attention opponents give Ware. Ellis is better than Ware at using his hands as a countermove and learned much of his handwork from the same private coach who worked with Cowboys Hall of Famer Randy White.
"I've been working with him for eight years," Ellis says.
"DeMarcus has been working with him for a year or so. He wants to get better. He wants to be the best."
He is a teacher. Adams, a 6-7, 343-pounder who came into the league as a power blocker, has honed a kick-step with his left foot that enables him to get outside in pass protection more quickly than most players his size. "I am better because of going against DeMarcus every day," he says. "He moves with the ball so fast. You have to have that kick-step at left tackle nowadays because you go against guys like him."
He is, in his own words, 'an ol' country boy from Alabama.' Ware played in college at Troy and in high school in Auburn, Ala., with Giants star defensive end Osi Umenyiora, who is a year older than Ware. "We called him 'Boot,' " Umenyiora says of the kid who also played four years of baseball (pitcher, right fielder) and ran four years of track (100 meters, 400 meters, high jump). "That's what his family called him. He was just Boot. He's always been a really, really good guy. He was raised the right way.
"He came on the scene in ninth grade. He was real small back then. DeMarcus wasn't tall or anything. He played receiver, and he really wasn't that good. He was just lanky and awkward."
He is Weasy but not wheezy. "They call me 'Weasy,' " Ware says of his Cowboys teammates. "It's from my rookie year because I didn't say much. (Inside linebacker)
Bradie James said I was like a little weasel."
Dictionary.com defines a weasel as having a "long, slender body" and being "cunning and sneaky." Ware is all those things. "If I weighed more, I would get too tired," he says. "There's nothing in football that wears you out more than rushing the passer play after play."
Great point. The top 14 sackers in the NFL through Week 13 weighed 274 pounds or less.
He is the Cowboys' best player
Oh, you caught that at the top of the story? Before you get your silver star underwear in a bunch, ask yourself -- honestly -- if there is any logical reason to automatically bestow that distinction on Tony Romo or Terrell Owens. Wouldn't the Cowboys have the best offense in the NFC with, say, Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback? Wouldn't they still be extremely explosive if they relied less on T.O. and more on Pro Bowl tight end
Jason Witten and the two-headed running back monster of
Julius Jones and
Marion Barber? The Dallas offense is silver star-studded, to say the least.
But the Cowboys' ever-improving defense starts with Ware -- who will be in the running for NFL defensive player of the year -- and flows from there. "He is a star," Stewart says. "Ray Lewis had great players all around him. DeMarcus is a bigger chunk, just to use one example, of why this team is successful."
It's a little late in this story to point out that Ware, unlike the few players above him in sacks this season, routinely drops back in pass coverage, using the skills Parcells taught him his first two seasons in the league. "He taught me how to play guys man-to-man, how to reroute guys in the slot, how to carry guys, how to mirror them," Ware says. "He taught me to think like an offensive guy."
Ware has more tackles this season than anybody else in the top 14 in sacks because he plays the entire field. You thought he was just a pass rusher?
Please.
He merely is the
best young pass rusher in the game. When he rushes the passer, that is.
He also happens to be a sculpted man with the face of a matinee idol -- the face of a franchise. If he isn't a better football player than Romo or Owens, he is every bit as good and every bit as marketable. A Super Bowl appearance is all that stands between Ware and superstardom.
"Everyone in this league knows," says the Giants' Michael Strahan, the career leader among active players in sacks, "that when you play the Dallas Cowboys, in order to win you have to find a way to shut down DeMarcus Ware." It's just not happening.
