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Five Downs With Football Outsiders: Other than Tony Romo, who have Cowboys missed the most?
12:56 AM Fri, Nov 07, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Tim MacMahon http://www.***BANNED-URL***/blogs/images/email-icon.jpg E-mail http://www.***BANNED-URL***/blogs/images/email-icon.jpg News tips
Bill Barnwell, a contributing editor at footballoutsiders.com and one of the minds behind the must-read Pro Football Prospectus, will answer five Cowboys questions each week of the season using the FO data and methodologies. Here's the Week 10 edition:
1. The Cowboys expect to get three key players other than Tony Romo back after the bye (CB Terence Newman, RB Felix Jones, LG Kyle Kosier). Of those three, which one have they missed the most?
This is a tough one. I'm going to rank them Newman, Kosier, Jones in order of importance. Jones is like the dry rub on a good steak -- useful, sure, but if it's a good steak, you don't need him.
Kosier is going to be a huge help to this team in pass blocking, and I say that as someone who thought of him as the weak point of the line. Last week against the Giants, Steve Spagnuolo's scheme virtually revolved around getting Tuck (who had one of the best games you'll see a defensive lineman have) matched up one-on-one against Cory Procter, mostly on stunts and twists where Procter would have to handle Tuck by himself with a head of steam. The result was not pretty. Procter was directly responsible for Tuck's first sack and a half, and if I remember correctly, he was the last guy to try and block Tuck before the nonsense Roughing the Passer penalty that Tuck took later on in the game. He's better in the running game, but he's an absolute liability in pass protection and the Giants took advantage of it. He doesn't have the footwork to be a guard.
Newman's gotta be the most important player they're bringing back, though -- just behind Romo. Because most of the heavy lifting at corner was being done by Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick last week, the Cowboys simply couldn't bring pressure, which meant that the Giants could send everyone out and use Steve Smith at will instead of keeping in Madison Hedgecock, Kevin Boss, or Michael Matthews to pass block.
If you break down Manning's 35 dropbacks (not including plays ending in penalties) by the number of blockers the Giants had to keep in to block, you can see how his performance differed:
*5 blockers: 13-of-17, 116 yards, 3 TD, 1 sack
*6 blockers: 3-of-9, 34 yards, 1 INT, 2 sacks
*7 blockers: 0-of-1, 0 yards, 1 sack
The biggest benefit to bringing Newman back is that the Cowboys will be able to leave their cornerbacks on an island and blitz more. Whether that'll be Greg Ellis or Anthony Spencer is up for debate; I know the Cowboys are planning on benching Ellis for Spencer, but I wasn't impressed with his work on Sunday, particularly a tackle attempt on Derrick Ward where gave him the ol' ole treatment on the corner and cost the Cowboys a first down long before Mike Jenkins gave up on tackling Ward. They'll also be able to send Keith Davis and the middle linebackers in on blitzes more, and DeMarcus Ware should have more time to get to the passer.
As for who Newman should replace? Well, just looking at the results from the Giants game, the secondary put up the following figures when they were the primary person in coverage:
-Alan Ball: 1-of-1, 5 yards
-Keith Davis: 0-of-1, 0 yards
-Mike Jenkins: 4-of-8, 45 yards, 2 (Giants) TD, 1 INT
-Orlando Scandrick: 1-of-4, 5 yards (all against Smith)
-Anthony Henry: 3-of-3, 25 yards
2. How does the Cowboys' strength of remaining schedule compare to other NFC wild-card contenders?
Not well. The good news is that the Giants have the most difficult remaining schedule in the league and the Eagles are third. The bad news is that the Cowboys have the second-most difficult time ahead of them. There's going to be a particularly heavy load on the offense, as the Cowboys will face the toughest slate of both pass defenses and run defenses of any team through Week 16.
Notable other teams would include Carolina (12th-most difficult schedule), Washington (11th), Tampa Bay (24th), Green Bay (18th), Atlanta (15th), New Orleans (17th), and Minnesota (5th).
3. Based on FO preseason projections, are the Cowboys the NFL's biggest disappointment so far this season?
Our projection for the Cowboys over the past two years has been pretty pessimistic relative to other pundits for a variety of reasons, primarily our expectations that they would see their team-wide injury rates regress to the league average after being incredibly low since the beginning of the Parcells era. In 2007, we were wrong -- they stayed very healthy after Week 1, and although we projected them for 6.4 wins, they won 13 games. We were absolutely wrong.
As with every year, we spend the offseason refining our metrics and data, isolating and testing more variables to improve our projection system's ability to predict performance.
Regardless of what we did, we still came out with a very pessimistic projection for the Cowboys, based upon what we saw as injury luck and a tough schedule. In the end, we projected them in Pro Football Prospectus for 8.1 wins. This was one of the essays I wrote for the book, and it finished with this paragraph:
"With nearly the entire starting lineup back, it seems absurd to suggest that the Cowboys may not be Super Bowl contenders again. The problem is that if the Dallas injury report ceases to be much smaller than the others in the league, the entire starting lineup won't be back. An injury to Romo, Owens, Adams, Ware, or Newman could turn the Cowboys overnight from a contender into a flawed team with a huge hole, and that's reflected in our pessimistic projection. It will take another season with an empty trainer's room for Dallas to live up to the standard of 2007."
We were wrong. An injury to Terrell Owens wouldn't hurt the Cowboys at all.
The team we're most wrong about would probably be Seattle, who we projected for 10.5 wins and have seen go down with an even worse rash of injuries than the Cowboys.
4. How has Marion Barber's production in his first season as a starter compared to last season's Pro Bowl/backup campaign?
I think Merril Hoge said it best on NFL Matchup: The Cowboys offense at the moment is Marion Barber breaking tackles. Statistically, he's not the same guy; his DVOA of 18.0% last year, fifth in the league, does not compare well to a -3.8% DVOA that places him 27th. His success rate -- the percentage of the time he's gained 45% of necessary yardage on first down, 60% on second down, or 100% on third or fourth down -- is down from 49% to 40%.
In reality, though, I think that Barber's playing almost as well as he did last year. As players' roles expand, they naturally see their performance slip some because they get placed in situations where they have to run plays and do things they don't as a part-time guy. Last year, the Cowboys could tailor their playbook and usage patterns to fit what worked best for Barber, leaving Julius Jones the rest. Now, Barber has to do everything, and the Cowboys cut out spaces for Felix Jones.
I think, as a runner, Barber's maybe 99% of as good as he was last year. I'd like to see him improve as a pass blocker, though, where he hasn't looked great this year.
5. Per the FO playoff odds, there's a 96.9 percent chance that the Cowboys will be playoff spectators. Do you see the Cowboys making the playoffs? Why or why not?
I honestly don't. I think their chances are better than that because of the guys they're getting back from injury, but there's no guarantees that Romo or Newman come back at 100 percent or that they don't get hurt again. They have an incredibly difficult second half schedule, all their subtle indicators of performance (fumble luck, third down performance) point to them already playing above their head...This team still has to face the Commanders, Steelers, and Eagles on the road. Should we expect them to win any of those games? One? If they go 1-2 there, then they have to run the table at home against San Francisco, Seattle, the Giants, and Baltimore to just make it to 10-6, where they'll likely only have a tiebreaker against the Eagles. Realistically, this team needs to go 6-1 the rest of the year to ensure themselves a playoff spot. I just can't see that happening.
12:56 AM Fri, Nov 07, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Tim MacMahon http://www.***BANNED-URL***/blogs/images/email-icon.jpg E-mail http://www.***BANNED-URL***/blogs/images/email-icon.jpg News tips
Bill Barnwell, a contributing editor at footballoutsiders.com and one of the minds behind the must-read Pro Football Prospectus, will answer five Cowboys questions each week of the season using the FO data and methodologies. Here's the Week 10 edition:
1. The Cowboys expect to get three key players other than Tony Romo back after the bye (CB Terence Newman, RB Felix Jones, LG Kyle Kosier). Of those three, which one have they missed the most?
This is a tough one. I'm going to rank them Newman, Kosier, Jones in order of importance. Jones is like the dry rub on a good steak -- useful, sure, but if it's a good steak, you don't need him.
Kosier is going to be a huge help to this team in pass blocking, and I say that as someone who thought of him as the weak point of the line. Last week against the Giants, Steve Spagnuolo's scheme virtually revolved around getting Tuck (who had one of the best games you'll see a defensive lineman have) matched up one-on-one against Cory Procter, mostly on stunts and twists where Procter would have to handle Tuck by himself with a head of steam. The result was not pretty. Procter was directly responsible for Tuck's first sack and a half, and if I remember correctly, he was the last guy to try and block Tuck before the nonsense Roughing the Passer penalty that Tuck took later on in the game. He's better in the running game, but he's an absolute liability in pass protection and the Giants took advantage of it. He doesn't have the footwork to be a guard.
Newman's gotta be the most important player they're bringing back, though -- just behind Romo. Because most of the heavy lifting at corner was being done by Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick last week, the Cowboys simply couldn't bring pressure, which meant that the Giants could send everyone out and use Steve Smith at will instead of keeping in Madison Hedgecock, Kevin Boss, or Michael Matthews to pass block.
If you break down Manning's 35 dropbacks (not including plays ending in penalties) by the number of blockers the Giants had to keep in to block, you can see how his performance differed:
*5 blockers: 13-of-17, 116 yards, 3 TD, 1 sack
*6 blockers: 3-of-9, 34 yards, 1 INT, 2 sacks
*7 blockers: 0-of-1, 0 yards, 1 sack
The biggest benefit to bringing Newman back is that the Cowboys will be able to leave their cornerbacks on an island and blitz more. Whether that'll be Greg Ellis or Anthony Spencer is up for debate; I know the Cowboys are planning on benching Ellis for Spencer, but I wasn't impressed with his work on Sunday, particularly a tackle attempt on Derrick Ward where gave him the ol' ole treatment on the corner and cost the Cowboys a first down long before Mike Jenkins gave up on tackling Ward. They'll also be able to send Keith Davis and the middle linebackers in on blitzes more, and DeMarcus Ware should have more time to get to the passer.
As for who Newman should replace? Well, just looking at the results from the Giants game, the secondary put up the following figures when they were the primary person in coverage:
-Alan Ball: 1-of-1, 5 yards
-Keith Davis: 0-of-1, 0 yards
-Mike Jenkins: 4-of-8, 45 yards, 2 (Giants) TD, 1 INT
-Orlando Scandrick: 1-of-4, 5 yards (all against Smith)
-Anthony Henry: 3-of-3, 25 yards
2. How does the Cowboys' strength of remaining schedule compare to other NFC wild-card contenders?
Not well. The good news is that the Giants have the most difficult remaining schedule in the league and the Eagles are third. The bad news is that the Cowboys have the second-most difficult time ahead of them. There's going to be a particularly heavy load on the offense, as the Cowboys will face the toughest slate of both pass defenses and run defenses of any team through Week 16.
Notable other teams would include Carolina (12th-most difficult schedule), Washington (11th), Tampa Bay (24th), Green Bay (18th), Atlanta (15th), New Orleans (17th), and Minnesota (5th).
3. Based on FO preseason projections, are the Cowboys the NFL's biggest disappointment so far this season?
Our projection for the Cowboys over the past two years has been pretty pessimistic relative to other pundits for a variety of reasons, primarily our expectations that they would see their team-wide injury rates regress to the league average after being incredibly low since the beginning of the Parcells era. In 2007, we were wrong -- they stayed very healthy after Week 1, and although we projected them for 6.4 wins, they won 13 games. We were absolutely wrong.
As with every year, we spend the offseason refining our metrics and data, isolating and testing more variables to improve our projection system's ability to predict performance.
Regardless of what we did, we still came out with a very pessimistic projection for the Cowboys, based upon what we saw as injury luck and a tough schedule. In the end, we projected them in Pro Football Prospectus for 8.1 wins. This was one of the essays I wrote for the book, and it finished with this paragraph:
"With nearly the entire starting lineup back, it seems absurd to suggest that the Cowboys may not be Super Bowl contenders again. The problem is that if the Dallas injury report ceases to be much smaller than the others in the league, the entire starting lineup won't be back. An injury to Romo, Owens, Adams, Ware, or Newman could turn the Cowboys overnight from a contender into a flawed team with a huge hole, and that's reflected in our pessimistic projection. It will take another season with an empty trainer's room for Dallas to live up to the standard of 2007."
We were wrong. An injury to Terrell Owens wouldn't hurt the Cowboys at all.
The team we're most wrong about would probably be Seattle, who we projected for 10.5 wins and have seen go down with an even worse rash of injuries than the Cowboys.
4. How has Marion Barber's production in his first season as a starter compared to last season's Pro Bowl/backup campaign?
I think Merril Hoge said it best on NFL Matchup: The Cowboys offense at the moment is Marion Barber breaking tackles. Statistically, he's not the same guy; his DVOA of 18.0% last year, fifth in the league, does not compare well to a -3.8% DVOA that places him 27th. His success rate -- the percentage of the time he's gained 45% of necessary yardage on first down, 60% on second down, or 100% on third or fourth down -- is down from 49% to 40%.
In reality, though, I think that Barber's playing almost as well as he did last year. As players' roles expand, they naturally see their performance slip some because they get placed in situations where they have to run plays and do things they don't as a part-time guy. Last year, the Cowboys could tailor their playbook and usage patterns to fit what worked best for Barber, leaving Julius Jones the rest. Now, Barber has to do everything, and the Cowboys cut out spaces for Felix Jones.
I think, as a runner, Barber's maybe 99% of as good as he was last year. I'd like to see him improve as a pass blocker, though, where he hasn't looked great this year.
5. Per the FO playoff odds, there's a 96.9 percent chance that the Cowboys will be playoff spectators. Do you see the Cowboys making the playoffs? Why or why not?
I honestly don't. I think their chances are better than that because of the guys they're getting back from injury, but there's no guarantees that Romo or Newman come back at 100 percent or that they don't get hurt again. They have an incredibly difficult second half schedule, all their subtle indicators of performance (fumble luck, third down performance) point to them already playing above their head...This team still has to face the Commanders, Steelers, and Eagles on the road. Should we expect them to win any of those games? One? If they go 1-2 there, then they have to run the table at home against San Francisco, Seattle, the Giants, and Baltimore to just make it to 10-6, where they'll likely only have a tiebreaker against the Eagles. Realistically, this team needs to go 6-1 the rest of the year to ensure themselves a playoff spot. I just can't see that happening.
