CFZ Eagle game thoughts

[Crazed Liotta Eyes]

I know it is late in the week and we should be talking about the Giants, but I just got a chance to watch the Eagles game last night. I recorded it so I could play rewind and rewatch certain plays in slo-mo.

I have a few thoughts.

First, everything that could go wrong went wrong for Dallas. I think I saw one break where Dallas got a call from the refs. It was the personal foul penalty called on Byard when it was started by Ferguson. Otherwise, all the other calls seemed to go against them. Nothing there. But also the fumbles that all bounced back to the Eagles. The strip sack by Sam Williams that Hurts recovered was shear luck. The ball was bouncing away from Hurts and Williams tipped it back to him. The last fumble by Swift was also a lot of luck for the Eagles.

The Cowboys dropped 4 passes that I saw. Gallup had one bad one, but so did CeeDee,, Pollard and Ferguson. Two of those drops would have been first downs. The one CeeDee dropped could have been a huge play for Dallas.

I watched the last sack which cost Dallas 11 yards and precious seconds at the end of the game about 15 times. Yeah, Steele got whipped badly again, but I also think Dak could have throw it out of the end zone to avoid the sack and stop the clock. If you watch the play Dak looks at the middle of the field, then attempts to spin out of the pocket. It appears he saw no one open and wanted to extend the play. That is a mistake at that point in the game. He has to throw it away from that position on the field throwing it out of the end zone should have been easy. But he cannot take the sack there. I am not saying it costs us the game but it was a mistake by Dak, IMO.

The penalties! Dallas really needs to work on those penalties. I saw Dallas line up offsides (hands over the blue LOS line) so many times. They were called only once. I have not seen another team that does that as much as the Cowboys. Seems to me this should be easy to correct.

The Cowboys run blocking is awful. But it seems to be one guy misses a block on every play. The 2nd play for the Cowboys was a run up the middle by Pollard behind Tyler Smith. There was a hole, but Pollard was tackled from behind by Reddick who was unblocked for a short gain. The thing is, on the play Tolbert was running across the field to Reddick's side. Instead of blocking Reddick or at least getting in his way, Tolbert moved out of his way to avoid contact. If he just delayed Reddick the play gains 5 or more yards and it is 3rd and short. I don't think the problem is Pollard. He looked teh best I have seen of him this season as far as quickness and speed goes.

If you want to know why the Tush Push works for the Eagles and not the Cowboys go back and watch the QB sneak by Dak in the 4th quarter. Watch what happens to Biadasz on the play. He gets stood up and pushed back into Dak. Dak makes the 1st down barely, with a second effort when he shifts a little to his right behind Martin. The guy snapping the ball should be under the pile moving forward, what is he doing standing up in he backfield? We need to look at upgrading the C position next year.

I think Tolbert has game. Not a big sample size but he made some nice moves to get open Sunday.

It is good to be aggressive but maybe sometimes it is better to be smart. The Cowboys had a 4th down and 1 with 11:55 to go in the game. The score was 28-17. Why not kick the FG there and make it a 1 score game. As it turned out the Cowboys turned it over on downs when Schoonmaker came up a few inches short of the goal line.
Of course we have no idea what would have happened had they made it 28-20. The defense seemed to get things under control again by then.

This may be nothing, or it may be something to watch, but the Eagles did not move the football at all after Goedert got hurt. I think losing him is a very big deal for the Eagles offense.

Nice breakdown. The lining up offsides thing with the defense got to a point where I was cringing before the snap, expecting the flag. I swear they did it like 6-7 times in a row at one point.

 

[john van brocklin]

I know it is late in the week and we should be talking about the Giants, but I just got a chance to watch the Eagles game last night. I recorded it so I could play rewind and rewatch certain plays in slo-mo.

I have a few thoughts.

First, everything that could go wrong went wrong for Dallas. I think I saw one break where Dallas got a call from the refs. It was the personal foul penalty called on Byard when it was started by Ferguson. Otherwise, all the other calls seemed to go against them. Nothing there. But also the fumbles that all bounced back to the Eagles. The strip sack by Sam Williams that Hurts recovered was shear luck. The ball was bouncing away from Hurts and Williams tipped it back to him. The last fumble by Swift was also a lot of luck for the Eagles.

The Cowboys dropped 4 passes that I saw. Gallup had one bad one, but so did CeeDee,, Pollard and Ferguson. Two of those drops would have been first downs. The one CeeDee dropped could have been a huge play for Dallas.

I watched the last sack which cost Dallas 11 yards and precious seconds at the end of the game about 15 times. Yeah, Steele got whipped badly again, but I also think Dak could have throw it out of the end zone to avoid the sack and stop the clock. If you watch the play Dak looks at the middle of the field, then attempts to spin out of the pocket. It appears he saw no one open and wanted to extend the play. That is a mistake at that point in the game. He has to throw it away from that position on the field throwing it out of the end zone should have been easy. But he cannot take the sack there. I am not saying it costs us the game but it was a mistake by Dak, IMO.

The penalties! Dallas really needs to work on those penalties. I saw Dallas line up offsides (hands over the blue LOS line) so many times. They were called only once. I have not seen another team that does that as much as the Cowboys. Seems to me this should be easy to correct.

The Cowboys run blocking is awful. But it seems to be one guy misses a block on every play. The 2nd play for the Cowboys was a run up the middle by Pollard behind Tyler Smith. There was a hole, but Pollard was tackled from behind by Reddick who was unblocked for a short gain. The thing is, on the play Tolbert was running across the field to Reddick's side. Instead of blocking Reddick or at least getting in his way, Tolbert moved out of his way to avoid contact. If he just delayed Reddick the play gains 5 or more yards and it is 3rd and short. I don't think the problem is Pollard. He looked teh best I have seen of him this season as far as quickness and speed goes.

If you want to know why the Tush Push works for the Eagles and not the Cowboys go back and watch the QB sneak by Dak in the 4th quarter. Watch what happens to Biadasz on the play. He gets stood up and pushed back into Dak. Dak makes the 1st down barely, with a second effort when he shifts a little to his right behind Martin. The guy snapping the ball should be under the pile moving forward, what is he doing standing up in he backfield? We need to look at upgrading the C position next year.

I think Tolbert has game. Not a big sample size but he made some nice moves to get open Sunday.

It is good to be aggressive but maybe sometimes it is better to be smart. The Cowboys had a 4th down and 1 with 11:55 to go in the game. The score was 28-17. Why not kick the FG there and make it a 1 score game. As it turned out the Cowboys turned it over on downs when Schoonmaker came up a few inches short of the goal line.
Of course we have no idea what would have happened had they made it 28-20. The defense seemed to get things under control again by then.

This may be nothing, or it may be something to watch, but the Eagles did not move the football at all after Goedert got hurt. I think losing him is a very big deal for the Eagles offense.

Thanks for the insights.
This team is frustrating to follow because of all the mental errors they make.
Championship caliber teams don't do that, so you know we aren't going anywhere in the postseason.

 

[ElGatoGrande]

.

If you want to know why the Tush Push works for the Eagles and not the Cowboys go back and watch the QB sneak by Dak in the 4th quarter. Watch what happens to Biadasz on the play. He gets stood up and pushed back into Dak. Dak makes the 1st down barely, with a second effort when he shifts a little to his right behind Martin. The guy snapping the ball should be under the pile moving forward, what is he doing standing up in he backfield? We need to look at upgrading the C position next year.

I

Having an under-powered center is definitely a liability but hey, close enough, that's how the cowboys front office thinks, their goal for the OL is "serviceable".

 

[Captain43Crash]

An 8 point difference is considered 1 score. Just like a 7 point difference is 1 score. They assume the conversion.

You have to assume with almost 12 minutes left in the game that you will get the ball back at least 2 more times. Even if you don't get the 2 pt convesrion on the TD you still are within a FG on the next possession. As it turned out the Cowboys got the ball back 3 more times.

The point is 12 minutes is still a lot of time. They were down 11 points. They needed at least a TD, 2pt conversion and a FG to tie the game. It doesn;t matter which order you get the FG and TD.

No one should assume a 2 point conversion which is basically a 50 50 chance of scoring. Your assuming to much if your assuming a 2 point conversion will be successful.

They say being behind by 8 is a one score game, because you have an opportunity to tie the game with 1 TD and the 2 point conversion. You at least have te opportunity to tie the game.

 

[KJJ]

I don’t believe we’ve won a game this season where we didn’t have at least one break. We’re not going to beat a team like Philly unless we have at least something go our way and we take advantage of it.

 

[JD_KaPow]

I don’t believe we’ve won a game this season where we didn’t have at least one break. We’re not going to beat a team like Philly unless we have at least something go our way and we take advantage of it.

And we certainly won't when there are breaks to be had but they all go the other way.
The Eagles fumbled three times and recovered all of them. Fair bit of luck there.
Missing the TD by inches and the 2-pointer by a toe, Gallup dropping the easiest pass ever. You can call those mistakes but they're also flukes, things that could easily have just fallen the other way without the players doing much of anything different.
The terrible spot on Hurts's scramble, which you can't challenge (well, you can, but it's a guaranteed loss of a challenge).
I can't think of a single thing that broke the Cowboys' way. Of course, I'm a homer, but I really can't.
It's the kind of game, in a world where we didn't lose to the Cardinals and/or the Eagles dropped one of their close games, where you throw up your hands and say, "welp, tough loss, what're you gonna do, we'll get 'em next time, long way to go." But it feels worse because of the teams' records.