Does anyone think JJ Wilcox will get benched?

[CowboyGil]

They both suck. Meanwhile Philly upgrades in one offseason with Malcolm Jenkins.

Oh yeah, he's part of that lock down Philly defense that's given up 17 to Jax, 27 to Indy and 34 to the 'Skins.

 

[ConstantReboot]

This has always befuddled me. Dallas seems to be the only team in the league that can't get right at S. Other teams shuffle players in and out all the time and get solid results. Whether it's a vet signing or a draft pick. It's been a decade since Woody retired. I can only recall 2-3 seasons of good play from either S position. Roy gave us 2 good years and Hamlin his first year was solid. It's largely been a disaster outside of those 3 seasons

There is a lot of things that the Cowboys can't get right. Thus I refer to it mostly as coaching. It could also mean that they just don't think that they Safety position is that important. Thus we have nothing more than projects and UDFA filling in that void. I wanted us to draft Barron and finally never have to worry about Safety. I was never sold on Mo from the beginning.

 

[Mr Cowboy]

The next great Cowboy safety has not been born yet!

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

Oh yeah, he's part of that lock down Philly defense that's given up 17 to Jax, 27 to Indy and 34 to the 'Skins.

Exactly. But this is CZ. Cowboys do everything bad but every other team does everything well. That EAgirls defense is TERRIBLE lol.

 

[jobberone]

The next great Cowboy safety has not been born yet!

Oh goodness. I hope you're wrong even though I know that was tongue in cheek.

 

[Idgit]

Still waiting for people to mention specific plays.

They aren't going to, because it will expose what they understand about a Safety play. Safer to complain generally.

Great job on your Fuzzy Thoughts this week, by the way. Speaking of putting an educated opinion out there to be debated.

 

[big dog cowboy]

Does anyone think JJ Wilcox will get benched?

Does anyone see him being benched in favor of Heath at some point this season? Or is that just trading one poison for another?

I'm still waiting for #28 to come out of retirement. He couldn't be worse.

 

[mmohican29]

There is a lot of things that the Cowboys can't get right. Thus I refer to it mostly as coaching. It could also mean that they just don't think that they Safety position is that important. Thus we have nothing more than projects and UDFA filling in that void. I wanted us to draft Barron and finally never have to worry about Safety. I was never sold on Mo from the beginning.

The S issue is confounding. No other team has a problem picking up someone else's hand me down vet safety or corners for that matter... We shy away from the Champ Bailey's, Darren Sharper's, Duke Ihinacho's of the world like we know better because we have JJ Wilcox in our starting line-up, and we like how Jeff Heath looks signing autographs at TC.

 

[mmohican29]

I'm still waiting for #28 to come out of retirement. He couldn't be worse.

I will say this: of the two: JJ or Jeff, I think Heath has a better chance to make plays because he is assignment sound. I also feel like we as a fanbase are going to take a few bad moments in big games where Jeff wasn't able to finish a play and forever hold those over his head.

Tony Dixon started in Dallas for how many years? That guy stunk like a rancid cat corpse.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Outside of man coverage underneath with no help, I am curious as to exactly what plays people are referring to in their criticism of his play.

I see people call him FS when he is the guy getting the TE in man coverage and having to defend breaks both ways. He hasn't let anything behind him but outs and ins do sometimes get separation. He is a 4.5 guy and doesn't have that elite recovery speed to make up for separation. That being said, he doesn't get beat every time in man. I am going to make it a point when I go back and look and focus on Wilcox play.

I will say that I know he played very well in cover 3 as the intermediate zone. He saved Claiborne's biscuit when he blew his jam a couple times and his buzz underneath took away inside routes to that side of the field. He allowed short throws into the flat which were tackled immediately after catch. He tackled better than the LBers who were whiffing at the poa and constantly on the chase in the first half in the run game. The play got to him or Church and then stopped. There were a lot of runs that got into the secondary yet none went farther than 16 yards.

Is there something other than man under calls that he is allowing completions on? Did he bust any assignments or miss any tackles that I am not considering?

 

[Zman5]

Still waiting for people to mention specific plays.

I'll give you a few.

First drive. He comes running in to tackle Stacy after a short completion. He over runs the play by good 4 yards and then turns around to chase after him.

Same drive. Run play to Stacy. He gets completely pancaked by Cook. Cook is standing over him while Wilcox is on his hands and knees on the turf. Cook took him to school, prison style.

Rams Second Drive. It looks like they are playing Cover 2. It's a play action, only the LBS and Wilcox bite on it but Wilcox bites on it the hardest and is slow to recover. Good thing the pass was over thrown because Britt has two steps on Carr with no safety help on that side due to Wilcox biting so hard on the play action.


This is all on just two drives. Once the coaches film comes out, I'm sure I'll find more.

 

[Bullflop]

I wouldn't be adverse to the team replacing Wilcox with Sterling Moore, at least until such time as he learns to exercise better technique with regards to his atrocious pass coverage. Moore has played that position for New England in the past and as I understand it, he did a commendable job of it. As it is now, Wilcox simply isn't.

 

[Cumart21]

Wilcox rated as a pretty good draft pick at the time with pundits saying they got their "safety of the future" etc.... Its not time to give up on him but they need to get other guys on the field and I agree it should be Moore. Doing this would require the front office to admit they could be wrong on Wilcox and they would NEVER do that. Herein lies the problem.

 

[MissouriCowboy]

Moore also should be the nickel back. I will say Church has stepped up this year.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I'll give you a few.

First drive. He comes running in to tackle Stacy after a short completion. He over runs the play by good 4 yards and then turns around to chase after him.

Same drive. Run play to Stacy. He gets completely pancaked by Cook. Cook is standing over him while Wilcox is on his hands and knees on the turf. Cook took him to school, prison style.

Rams Second Drive. It looks like they are playing Cover 2. It's a play action, only the LBS and Wilcox bite on it but Wilcox bites on it the hardest and is slow to recover. Good thing the pass was over thrown because Britt has two steps on Carr with no safety help on that side due to Wilcox biting so hard on the play action.


This is all on just two drives. Once the coaches film comes out, I'm sure I'll find more.

On the first, where you claim an overrun, Carter was inside. Wilcox's angle forced Britt back inside where Carter brainfarted and missed the tackle. That is precisely what I was referring to in my writeup about bad Bruce showing up early this game

Cook outweighs Wilcox by 40 lbs. If your take away from a play where a TE is on a S is to blame the S it makes me wonder what the front 7 are doing and how one of them is not free to the ball carrier seeing that the TE blocked a S. We went to a good amount of 12 personnel in the second half and you can watch Escobar dominate some S he has a similar weight advantage on.

The last play, I am quite certain that it was not cover 2. You can see Church drop to the middle of the field before he runs over to the sideline and Claiborne is ontop of Quick on the far side of the field. I don't know what the underneath coverage was but I am fairly confident that Wilcox was not over the top. Looked like cover 3. Carr got caught peaking and got beaten cleanly off the line.

 

[waving monkey]

It hasn't been seriously addressed in over a decade. What makes you think that it will happen 'soon?'

because I don't think that thinking is permanent
obviously Jones is changing a lot of his philosphy
you can see it manifest through Garrett's management
and decisions

 

[ConstantReboot]

The S issue is confounding. No other team has a problem picking up someone else's hand me down vet safety or corners for that matter... We shy away from the Champ Bailey's, Darren Sharper's, Duke Ihinacho's of the world like we know better because we have JJ Wilcox in our starting line-up, and we like how Jeff Heath looks signing autographs at TC.

BTW Im not saying that we should have drafted this player or that player to prove that Im a Mr. Know-it-all.

I just find it baffling that when I see the same videos on him I wasn't impressed and saw BUST written all over it. He just didn't have that burst of speed and instincts of a true NFL corner. I just don't understand how our drafting dept. could not see those qualities? You have to take those into account when you trade up for a player.

On the other hand, Barron had the same combine numbers as Mo. But he was a much more complete player and that he was physical, can tackle and hits hard, and has natural cover instincts which Mo didn't. Barron plays like Roy but with better cover skills I thought. So we really messed up on our drafting once again.

 

[xwalker]

Does anyone see him being benched in favor of Heath at some point this season? Or is that just trading one poison for another?

I see people calling him out but I don't see examples of poor play mentioned. If you want to complain about him getting beaten when he is in man coverage and without help then I suggest you consider what you think a good success rate given those circumstances should be. If you think he should win that even half the time I recommend a look at league completion percentages and reconsider. He does win a fair bit of the man calls he gets.

Yes, Wilcox is one of the last guys I expected fans to be calling out in this game. He made a lot of good plays.

 

[jobberone]

I'll give you a few.

First drive. He comes running in to tackle Stacy after a short completion. He over runs the play by good 4 yards and then turns around to chase after him.

Same drive. Run play to Stacy. He gets completely pancaked by Cook. Cook is standing over him while Wilcox is on his hands and knees on the turf. Cook took him to school, prison style.

Rams Second Drive. It looks like they are playing Cover 2. It's a play action, only the LBS and Wilcox bite on it but Wilcox bites on it the hardest and is slow to recover. Good thing the pass was over thrown because Britt has two steps on Carr with no safety help on that side due to Wilcox biting so hard on the play action.


This is all on just two drives. Once the coaches film comes out, I'm sure I'll find more.

I'm certain you will find plays less than flattering on every player on both teams. That's football. Rarely if ever does even the brightest star play error free football.

The game has changed. Passing attempts, yardage, passing TDs, YPC, YAC, YPA, and A/YPA are all up significantly up in the last decade. Despite fewer attempts YPC and total run yardage are up. That's on every defense and defensive player in the league. Granted some players and more importantly some teams are better at limiting all that. As an aside I predict, which I don't normally do, that the brand of football Seattle's DBs and LBers play will be toned down some while the rest of the league plays catch up with schemes, style, and type of players.

Having said that, which is to mitigate some of the high expectations, we all see we've got a ways to go at safety and CB as well as getting settle at LB. In fact the entire defense is in catch up mode. There are only, at best, a few players on the team (active, PUP, or IR) who are talented enough to start on a contender. Lee, Durant, Carter, Church, Melton, Spencer, Ro and probably a few others TBD. There are enough more including those who are average to field a team that with a good offense can contend for the East; IMO. Beyond that we'll see what we'll see.

 

[tm1119]

Still waiting for people to mention specific plays.

I did it really quick so the math probably isn't exact, but so far through 3 games the D has given up something like 23 catches for 360 yards and 4 td's to TE's and RB's only. Is that all Wilcox's fault? Of course not, but it's hard to argue he's not a big contributing factor given that he plays FS. That's the 1 position out of the 3 LB spots and 2 safety spots that you need a guy who can cover and Wilcox just just doesn't appear to be that guy so far.

Now, if you want to argue that Wilcox is playing out of position and being asked to do things he's not capable of that's one thing. But let's not pretend like he's playing the FS position well right now because he's not.