Dink & Dunk Debunked -- Prescott and Average Depth of Completion

[PA Cowboy Fan]

Winning isn't enough.

It's a new world. Stats are everything anymore. lol

 

[percyhoward]

That is still not a good %.

I agree that a rushing TD is as valuable as a passing one. OTOH, relying on your QB to run is a recipe for disaster and it's the running attack which I'm concerned about defenses taking away schematically. It's simply not sustainable and can only be used judiciously.

I've always conceded that Daks running ability is a strength as it is. My point is that you have to weigh that against Romo's ability in the RZ and with the deep ball.

Going forward I don't know that I would take anyone over Dak however to this point in the year no one has been slinging the rock better than Ryan. His YPA is a staggering 10.4 and he leads the league in big plays and passing TD.

Overall I think we are in accord. Healthy Romo is a better passer than Dak is right now. Whether he is healthy is the issue.

And I'd take Ryan if we're talking about the whole field, but as you said, you've got no problem with Dak's ability to take the team down the field. My point is that you can't judge a red zone QB performance on completion rate alone. The QB as a rushing threat in the red zone is sustainable to the point that Newton had 10 rushing TD last year and 14 as a rookie. And even if you completely ignore rushing TD, among the 22 QB with at least 20 red zone pass attempts, Prescott's 110.5 red zone passer rating ranks 4th.

 

[percyhoward]

It's a new world. Stats are everything anymore. lol

The stats are just a way to inform opinions on a topic that everybody has an opinion about anyway.

 

[Doomsay]

2:11


1:19

Dak definitely has the strength, it's more a question of deep accuracy IMO, especially hitting receivers in stride on fly routes. I think that he's been noticeably more accurate on intermediate slant patterns over the past couple of weeks, so hopefully the deeper stuff will develop as well.

 

[Dave_in-NC]

4-1 that is all

 

[khiladi]

Check-downs are different than short passes.. the former is taking what the offense gives you, the latter is running run routes by design to get a guy like Beasley in space..

 

[Mr Cowboy]

Wow, a four game winning streak is not enough because there wasn't enough passes over 20 yards? I was not aware you get special style points for passes over 20 yards.

The difference my expert eyes sees, is that Dak uses the whole field, the middle of the field in particular. Romo's biggest flaw was throwing most everything outside the numbers. Sure he had more 20+ yard plays, but he also had more interceptions when he tried throwing in the middle of the field.

As for Dak, who is he suppose to throw deep too? Is he suppose to throw the 50-50 ball to Dez just because, or is he alright throwing the ball to another receiver who is open in the middle of the field to extend the drive? I would hope that on the opening drive Dak unleashes one deep to Lucky for a TD, just to see what the next complain will be about Dak.

If we win at GB today, there will be as many people on this board upset that we won, as there will be fans happy that we won. All because Dak won another game, making it less likely that Tony will be back after the bye!

 

[Tenkamenin]

2 weeks ago I mentioned that Wentz is dinking and dunking his way to victories and folks were on my case saying contrary.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

And I'd take Ryan if we're talking about the whole field, but as you said, you've got no problem with Dak's ability to take the team down the field. My point is that you can't judge a red zone QB performance on completion rate alone. The QB as a rushing threat in the red zone is sustainable to the point that Newton had 10 rushing TD last year and 14 as a rookie. And even if you completely ignore rushing TD, among the 22 QB with at least 20 red zone pass attempts, Prescott's 110.5 red zone passer rating ranks 4th.

Sure you can when your concern is what happens when they take the run game away. I'm predicting that it they take the run game away , we are going to struggle to score.

 

[percyhoward]

Sure you can when your concern is what happens when they take the run game away. I'm predicting that it they take the run game away , we are going to struggle to score.

Judging a red zone QB performance by completion rate alone doesn't make sense, and doesn't start to make sense just because your run game isn't working. I agree on the totally separate issue that we'll struggle to sustain drives (anywhere on the field) if defenses can stop the run though, and that with the 2014 version of Romo, we'd struggle less.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Judging a red zone QB performance by completion rate alone doesn't make sense, and doesn't start to make sense just because your run game isn't working. I agree on the totally separate issue that we'll struggle to sustain drives (anywhere on the field) if defenses can stop the run though, and that with the 2014 version of Romo, we'd struggle less.

it may be incomplete but its hardly meaningless. Showing statistically that Dak struggles to find open receivers in the RZ is hardly meaningless. if the running game is taken away and 2/3 of our RZ scores are taken away you start to get the complete picture.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

One of the most prolific offenses in recent history was the 2002 Raiders. They were very much a dink-n-dunk team. While I think some of the dink and dunk is overblown because Dez hasn't quite been a factor, yet...I don't judge an offense by how far we throw the ball. I judge it by scoring points and its ability to efficiently score points.

We are 2nd in points per drive. We are 4th in TD's per drive and we are 6th in points per game. The only reason we don't score more points per game is that our defense isn't all that good and has not been able to get us off the field. All the meanwhile our QB has given up 1 turnover. That's an incredibly efficient offense.

Many will credit the running game and give no credit to Dak for the running game. But, they aren't paying attention. The O-Line has had limited availability of Tyron Smith and La'el Collins got hurt and is still learning. Doug Free got off to a little bit of a slow start. And we still have a rookie RB that is learning how to run in a zone scheme. So, how are we running the ball so well?

It's because we can stretch the field horizontally with Dak. We can run outside zone plays with EE while having Dak on the bootlegs which stretches out the defense from east to west. And this is why we are the #1 ranked rushing offense on runs up the middle according to FootballOutsiders.com. We are so good going east-to-west that it effectively opens up the middle proving huge gaping holes when the defense either over-commits to the outside zone run or the bootleg.

So yes, EE is a large part of our running success. That's obvious. But Dak is playing a role in that as well and is playing a role in our overall offensive efficiency.

Statistically, there is a weak correlation between Red Zone efficiency and scoring. That's what most people don't realize and they completely overvalue Red Zone efficiency. But, this isn't a team with a Red Zone problem under Dak. We just happen to score points thru running the ball because Dak is a running and bootleg threat.

This is a high scoring offense that is more run focused. I'm not into low scoring offenses even if they run the ball incredibly well. But a high scoring offense that runs it great and is very run focused? That makes for a dangerous team because they can control the clock and score quickly and often. They can score on a high percentage of their drives and run time off the clock...putting the opposing offense in a precarious position and keeping their defense on the field for a longer time. And that's winning football.




YR

 

[TwoDeep3]

it may be incomplete but its hardly meaningless. Showing statistically that Dak struggles to find open receivers in the RZ is hardly meaningless. if the running game is taken away and 2/3 of our RZ scores are taken away you start to get the complete picture.

Or, perhaps what it shows is he is more cautious with the ball and doesn't try to throw into small windows.

 

[Craig]

4-1 that is all

Yep. They probably should stop practicing altogether. Nothing to improve on.

 

[percyhoward]

it may be incomplete but its hardly meaningless. Showing statistically that Dak struggles to find open receivers in the RZ is hardly meaningless. if the running game is taken away and 2/3 of our RZ scores are taken away you start to get the complete picture.

Most of the picture remains unseen for reasons already discussed, but you could say that you start to get the picture of Prescott the passer, FWIW. So no, it isn't meaningless, and yes, it's incomplete.

 

[percyhoward]

Average depth of completion is a weird metric.

Yeah, I've never seen it anywhere. But I can't think of a better way to find out which teams rely on short passes to move the ball and which ones don't.

For $1,000 you can access PFF's "Average Depth of Target" metric. That would tell you the average depth of aimed passes, assuming you don't care whether they were actually caught or not.

 

[jobberone]

It's a new world. Stats are everything anymore. lol

Stats verify what our eyes see and at times points us in directions we wouldn't have normally gone.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

Stats verify what our eyes see and at times points us in directions we wouldn't have normally gone.

Trust but verify.