ESPN Scouts: Cowboys vs Giants 10 observations

[WoodysGirl]

By Gary Horton
Scouts Inc.

QB RB WR OL DL LB DB ST Coach


1. The Giants need to play games up front defensively: The Cowboys are not a very good pass protection group and, one-on-one, they're not very athletic blockers. They also will get penalized excessively -- with all the talent on this team, that's a big reason why they're losing.

2. Consider max protection schemes: The Giants' line, especially David Diehl, struggles with quick, explosive pass-rushers. DeMarcus Ware is one of those, and so is Anthony Spencer.

3. Watch the outside: They have been using some three safety sets with Deon Grant, Antrel Rolle and Kenny Phillips. That's good, and they can sneak up one of the safeties to act almost like a linebacker. The problem is, New York's CBs aren't good enough to be on an island with the Dallas WRs.

4. The Giants need to keep playing good run defense: Most of the publicity for New York's defense is on its pass rush, but the Giants do a good job against lead backs.

5. The turnover battle: These two squads have combined for 26 fumbles and INTs so far.

6. The Cowboys' run identity: Last year, the Cowboys were a much better rushing team.

7. What is up with the Dallas wideouts? Who's the most productive pass catcher on the Cowboys? Jones. That's not good, considering Miles Austin, Roy E. Williams and Dez Bryant are all out there running routes.

8. Use your talent, Dallas: The Minnesota Vikings were completely depleted in the secondary last weekend. So, instead of exploiting them deep, 24 of Dallas' 32 passes went for five yards or less. That's bad game planning.

9. Enough is enough with the penalties: Excessive celebration? Costly interceptions? This will obviously not get you to the Super Bowl in your home stadium.

10. Matchup to watch: Giants RB Ahmad Bradshaw vs. Dallas ILBs Bradie James and Keith Brooking: Bradshaw is now the bell cow for this run offense and he is putting up excellent numbers each week.

Prediction[URL="http://a.espncdn.com/i/teamlogos/nfl/med/trans/dal.gif"]
[/URL]New York 13
Dallas 21

Read more on Insider link: http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/scouting?gameId=301025006

 

[NextGenBoys]

Wow, Kenny Phillips is back playing again?

Good for him.

Bad for us though.

 

[Doomsday]

8. Use your talent, Dallas: The Minnesota Vikings were completely depleted in the secondary last weekend. So, instead of exploiting them deep, 24 of Dallas' 32 passes went for five yards or less. That's bad game planning.

This is the one that is really hard to grasp. The Vikings front 7 is by far the biggest strength on their team and one of the best in the NFL.

Why on earth would you come into the game with the idea that you are going to go 1 WR, 2 TEs and a full back? Isnt that just playing into the strength of the monster? I understand that the offensive line was going to have its hands full and needed some help but this game plan was one of the worse I have seen from JG.

 

[ABQcowboyJR]

Didn't exploit their secondary......really..

 

[TheCount]

This is the one that is really hard to grasp. The Vikings front 7 is by far the biggest strength on their team and one of the best in the NFL.

Why on earth would you come into the game with the idea that you are going to go 1 WR, 2 TEs and a full back? Isnt that just playing into the strength of the monster? I understand that the offensive line was going to have its hands full and needed some help but this game plan was one of the worse I have seen from JG.

We had 3 passing TD's and they all went to WR's...

 

[NextGenBoys]

This is the one that is really hard to grasp. The Vikings front 7 is by far the biggest strength on their team and one of the best in the NFL.

Why on earth would you come into the game with the idea that you are going to go 1 WR, 2 TEs and a full back? Isnt that just playing into the strength of the monster? I understand that the offensive line was going to have its hands full and needed some help but this game plan was one of the worse I have seen from JG.

Why anyone questions what we did deep down the field against Minnesota I'll never know.

Minnesota employs a Tampa 2 shell and philosophy, and schemes away the deep ball, forcing you to pass underneath and they come up and tackle.

Remember the first half of Buffalo in 2007? That's what it would've been like had we tried to force things down the field. Now, when it was there in given opportunities, we attacked it. But that was only a few plays.

 

[Future]

How on earth do we have an advantage on special teams? :laugh2:

Is Dodge bad enough punter to make them worse than an inept kicking, kick return, kick coverage, and punt return game?

 

[dbair1967]

Why anyone questions what we did deep down the field against Minnesota I'll never know.

Minnesota employs a Tampa 2 shell and philosophy, and schemes away the deep ball, forcing you to pass underneath and they come up and tackle.

Remember the first half of Buffalo in 2007? That's what it would've been like had we tried to force things down the field. Now, when it was there in given opportunities, we attacked it. But that was only a few plays.

You still have to threaten the defense downfield, otherwise they condense the field even more on you. The Bears and Vikes played us almost exactly the same way (especially vs the run) and the same areas of the field were open, we just chose to ignore it. The fact is the Vikes dont have the secondary to match up with our receivers, and the few times we did go downfield, the plays worked.

I thought we coached "scared" against them (Vikes), though in some ways I can understand why. The coaches dont trust this OL at all, and its apparent in the way they gameplan and call the games.

This is why I dont get all the constant criticism of Garrett. On one hand you have thread after thread talking about how awful the OL is, but then you also have thread after thread talking about how bad the play calling is or whatever. If both were as awful as people here made it out to be, we'd be constantly going 3 and out and never moving the ball. As much as people want to dwell on Romo bailing out the OL, the fact is they are even WORSE at run blocking. And our inability to run consistently has been a problem for years.

 

[Idgit]

Why anyone questions what we did deep down the field against Minnesota I'll never know.

Minnesota employs a Tampa 2 shell and philosophy, and schemes away the deep ball, forcing you to pass underneath and they come up and tackle.

Remember the first half of Buffalo in 2007? That's what it would've been like had we tried to force things down the field. Now, when it was there in given opportunities, we attacked it. But that was only a few plays.

We moved the ball like nobody else did this year v. MIN. In MIN. There's no ground to beef about the offensive game plan.

 

[Hoofbite]

You still have to threaten the defense downfield, otherwise they condense the field even more on you. The Bears and Vikes played us almost exactly the same way (especially vs the run) and the same areas of the field were open, we just chose to ignore it. The fact is the Vikes dont have the secondary to match up with our receivers, and the few times we did go downfield, the plays worked.

I thought we coached "scared" against them (Vikes), though in some ways I can understand why. The coaches dont trust this OL at all, and its apparent in the way they gameplan and call the games.

This is why I dont get all the constant criticism of Garrett. On one hand you have thread after thread talking about how awful the OL is, but then you also have thread after thread talking about how bad the play calling is or whatever. If both were as awful as people here made it out to be, we'd be constantly going 3 and out and never moving the ball. As much as people want to dwell on Romo bailing out the OL, the fact is they are even WORSE at run blocking. And our inability to run consistently has been a problem for years.

The OL does suck but that shouldn't prevent you from calling plays if you have a favorable matchup.

I'd say that Packers have an OL that's pretty bad but I don't see Aaron Rodgers playing the role of Check Down Charlie.

I'm getting really sick of Dallas playing a 6 man OL with Bennett out there and that group still not being able to block a thing.

Chargers have a pretty bad OL too but they take their shots.

If you have 1 on 1 coverage on Austin or Bryant, I'd take both of them outjumping the DB all day of the week.

I can't give any coach a pass on the OL. They made their bed. This OL sucked last year in Minny and they rode with it.

 

[dbair1967]

The OL does suck but that shouldn't prevent you from calling plays if you have a favorable matchup.

I'd say that Packers have an OL that's pretty bad but I don't see Aaron Rodgers playing the role of Check Down Charlie.

I'm getting really sick of Dallas playing a 6 man OL with Bennett out there and that group still not being able to block a thing.

Chargers have a pretty bad OL too but they take their shots.
If you have 1 on 1 coverage on Austin or Bryant, I'd take both of them outjumping the DB all day of the week.

I can't give any coach a pass on the OL. They made their bed. This OL sucked last year in Minny and they rode with it.

And niether the Chargers nor the Packers are lighting up anybody's scoreboards, now are they?

As for your last comment, I dont think anyone can reasonably take anything away from the Minny game last yr, OL play included. You cant lose your starting LT and have your RT play on one leg, and expect to see good results on the road against a team with a dominant front 7.

 

[Doomsday]

Why anyone questions what we did deep down the field against Minnesota I'll never know.

Minnesota employs a Tampa 2 shell and philosophy, and schemes away the deep ball, forcing you to pass underneath and they come up and tackle.

Remember the first half of Buffalo in 2007? That's what it would've been like had we tried to force things down the field. Now, when it was there in given opportunities, we attacked it. But that was only a few plays.

Just cause you go three wide doesnt mean you have to go down the field. Lining up with 1 WR, 2 TEs and a FB leaves you a lot less options. Basically now not only are you not stretching the field vertically, you are not stretching it horizontally either. JG tried to line up and smash them in their mouths and it wasnt working.

You have to attack the middle of the field and get your slot WR matched up on their LBs. When you only have 1 WR on the field you are NOT able to do this.

Not to mention that we really only took 2 shots down the field one was a TD called back and the other was a TD to Dez.

 

[Doomsday]

We moved the ball like nobody else did this year v. MIN. In MIN. There's no ground to beef about the offensive game plan.

We didnt move the ball well enough to get enough points and we gave away 10 points due to turnovers and another 7 becuase we couldnt manage a first down when pinned inside our 5. Forgetting the pinned back scenerio, the offense scored 21 points and gave up 10, not exactly a winning recipe.

 

[Hoofbite]

And niether the Chargers nor the Packers are lighting up anybody's scoreboards, now are they?

As for your last comment, I dont think anyone can reasonably take anything away from the Minny game last yr, OL play included. You cant lose your starting LT and have your RT play on one leg, and expect to see good results on the road against a team with a dominant front 7.

It doesn't matter how well their offenses are doing. They take their shots. The idea that you can't take shots because of a weak OL is bunk.

Just for the record. Both in the top 10 in scoring.

 

[Doomsday]

Watching he Chargers last week looked a lot like watching Dallas. Every time they would move the ball and get momentum they would have a penalty or Rivers would get sacked.

 

[Idgit]

We didnt move the ball well enough to get enough points and we gave away 10 points due to turnovers and another 7 becuase we couldnt manage a first down when pinned inside our 5. Forgetting the pinned back scenerio, the offense scored 21 points and gave up 10, not exactly a winning recipe.

The offense played well against a very good defense. You need to learn to manage expectations. We also had a td erased when Miles stepped on the defender's foot, and scoring position taken away on Dez's return by an unnecessary special teams penalty.

The offensive game plan was good enough to win. It was execution, like it always is in Dallas that did the team in again.

 

[Gaede]

We moved the ball like nobody else did this year v. MIN. In MIN. There's no ground to beef about the offensive game plan.

Agreed.

 

[sonnyboy]

I'm just amazed reading through this thread. Practically speechless.

I guess it goes to show that if you don't win nothing else matters. You did nothing right and their is nothing positive to point to or build on going forward.

How can anyone have a problem with our game plan or play calling?

We were facing one of the best home pass rushing teams in football. So we decide to go with less spread offensive formations and more running.

It worked! We moved the ball, scored 21 points and didn't yield a sack! Yet the same idiots who kill Garrett for chucking it all day, give him no credit for running a balanced attack and dealing with the strength of the defense they were facing.
Guess it would've made more sense to go 3 WRs, throw it 50 times and take 5 sacks!