DMN Blog: Field position hindered Cowboys' offense

[WoodysGirl]

9:03 AM Thu, Feb 18, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Gerry Fraley/Reporter E-mail | News tips

As Todd Archer pointed out earlier this month, the Dallas Cowboys' coaching staff is considering ways to get more points out of yardage. The defense should be included in the discussion.

The Cowboys' offense last season suffered from terrible field position. The average starting point was the 27.6, third-lowest in the league. Minnesota had the best average starting point, the 32.5.

The Cowboys' offense also rarely worked with a short field. The Cowboys had only 13 possessions that began in opponents' territory, fewest in the league. Green Bay had the most, with 31. Super Bowl champion New Orleans had 22 possessions that began in opponents' territory, and the Saints also scored seven defensive touchdowns.

The Cowboys' defense did well in terms of limiting points, the top goal. The next step for the defense is to make more plays that help the offense. That increases the possibility of taking a play-making safety high in the draft, if not in the first round.

 

[jobberone]

Take aways would go a long ways into making up the nearly 150 points more we should have scored last year.

 

[ThreeSportStar80]

They definitely need to create more turnovers on defense! Improved inside LBer and Safety play will help!

 

[Chocolate Lab]

When you get a ton of yards but stuggle in the red zone, that suggests that starting a eight yards closer wouldn't really help that much.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

9:03 AM Thu, Feb 18, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Gerry Fraley/Reporter E-mail | News tips

As Todd Archer pointed out earlier this month, the Dallas Cowboys' coaching staff is considering ways to get more points out of yardage. The defense should be included in the discussion.

The Cowboys' offense last season suffered from terrible field position. The average starting point was the 27.6, third-lowest in the league. Minnesota had the best average starting point, the 32.5.

The Cowboys' offense also rarely worked with a short field. The Cowboys had only 13 possessions that began in opponents' territory, fewest in the league. Green Bay had the most, with 31. Super Bowl champion New Orleans had 22 possessions that began in opponents' territory, and the Saints also scored seven defensive touchdowns.

The Cowboys' defense did well in terms of limiting points, the top goal. The next step for the defense is to make more plays that help the offense. That increases the possibility of taking a play-making safety high in the draft, if not in the first round.

the only play making DB was jenkins. Newmann isn't, never was an Int type DB, so we need to rely on our safties to take advantage, yet hamlin and sensi failed in that. I like to see if we can get sharper for a year or two and get rid of hamlin and draft a FS.

 

[JohnnyHopkins]

This nails it on the head. Exactly why the real top priority should be replacing Hamlin with a Safety that can make some plays, followed by a good return man and o-line.

 

[HoosierCowboy]

it's only a 5 yard difference from where we started to where the best started--it's a game of inches but that does not seem significant

 

[Idgit]

it's only a 5 yard difference from where we started to where the best started--it's a game of inches but that does not seem significant

It's an average, meaning there were a number of series where the #1 team had to make fewer conversions in order to put points on the board.

If just one series like that ends up being the difference maker in a game like the Denver or either of the Giants games, we would have had home field advantage v. MIN in the playoffs this year.

 

[lkelly]

it's only a 5 yard difference from where we started to where the best started--it's a game of inches but that does not seem significant

Also, think about how many drives bog down around midfield or even the opposition 40. Those drives can turn into 4th down conversion attempts (statistically the right thing to do most of the time, but coaches play not to lose) or long FG attempts. This assumes that we have a kicker who can make a kick over 40 yards.

On the plus side, I expect that our opponents didn't have great average starting field position either. We have a decent punter and a kickoff specialist who was tops in the league.

 

[NextGenBoys]

Which is the MAIN reason why many of us are preaching on the defense creating more turnovers.

It was obvious this past season how bad it was hurting us.

 

[big dog cowboy]

I've been saying all post season - playmaking safety.

With our pass rush, if we get that playmaking safety, turnovers will happen.

 

[NextGenBoys]

I've been saying all post season - playmaking safety.

With our pass rush, if we get that playmaking safety, turnovers will happen.

Right there with ya bro.

And it will help tighten up our underneath coverage, which will help our sacks as well as QB's are holding the ball longer.

 

[MegaMagick]

We've had to drive from the 10-20 so many times this season, part of that obviously due to the defense not being able to turn the ball over and get us great field position.

Also since we didn't have a proper FG kicker, that made it even harder since we had to always go for the TD instead of having the luxury of a guy who can hit a 40-50 yarder.

 

[Idgit]

Wade's defenses don't traditionally get a lot of picks. A rangier safety might help if he's solid everywhere else with his game. Even more fumbles from our down lineman would be helpful, too.

 

[HoosierCowboy]

bur still, we're talking 5 yards--I don't think field position is the significant stat--takeaways and turnovers is more relevant (and I know it translates into field position but we are looking a primary causes with TOs and secondary with FP)

 

[jterrell]

sigh....

This is one of the lamest things I've read.

Dallas wasn't hurt by field position. We were 2nd in yardage gained so clearly moved the ball just fine.

We were hurt by:
- failing on short yardage, 4th down % ranked 28th in the league
- penalties, where we gave up the 5th most penalty yards on offense.
- field goal kicking where we were awful.

 

[HanD]

sigh....

This is one of the lamest things I've read.

Dallas wasn't hurt by field position. We were 2nd in yardage gained so clearly moved the ball just fine.

We were hurt by:
- failing on short yardage, 4th down % ranked 28th in the league
- penalties, where we gave up the 5th most penalty yards on offense.
- field goal kicking where we were awful.

wasn't there an article last week that said basically the same thing?

http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177749

 

[AdamJT13]

sigh....

This is one of the lamest things I've read.

Dallas wasn't hurt by field position. We were 2nd in yardage gained so clearly moved the ball just fine.

Field position doesn't help you move the ball. In fact, bad field position means you have more yards you can gain. Bad field position means you have to move the ball more in order to score, and our poor field position was one reason why we didn't score as many points as we should have.

We were hurt by:
- failing on short yardage, 4th down % ranked 28th in the league

Fourth-down percentage is relatively meaningless because it involves so few plays, and many of those come when the game is hopelessly out of reach.

- penalties, where we gave up the 5th most penalty yards on offense.

That's total penalty yards, not offensive penalty yards.

field goal kicking where we were awful.

Even with great field goal kicking, we wouldn't have scored that many more points. Making 27-of-31 would have put us with the fifth-best percentage, but that's only 1.3 more points per game than we scored. So instead of being 14th in points scored, we would have been 11th -- still not enough for how successful our offense was at moving the ball.

The biggest factor that would have helped, as the article mentioned, is better field position. Specifically, more possessions with a shorter field, whether from turnovers, punt returns or kickoff returns.

 

[burmafrd]

The lack of takeaways hurt, but you really cannot fault a D that held opponents to under 17 pts a game.

And those penalties at really bad times.

 

[theogt]

We had one of the best defenses in terms of points scored.

We had one of the worst offenses in terms of redzone scoring.

The idea that the defense somehow prohibited the offense from doing its job is absurd.