Yakuza Rich
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I got the Football Outsiders 2017 Almanac and went thru the entire NFC East.
The negative part is that the Cowboys (and Eagles) were written by Mike Tanier. I like Tanier’s writing, but he has shown time and time again that he cannot put his Eagles fandom aside, particularly when it comes to writing about the Cowboys.
3 years ago was the last time Tanier wrote about the Cowboys and it was extremely condescending with no positives and the Cowboys went 12-4, won the Division and won a playoff game. This write-up was less condescending, but still an issue with Tanier writing about how lucky the Cowboys were and how they basically ‘fell into’ Dak, EE, the O-Line, etc.
What was a bit strange, at least to me, was Tanier continuing stating that Jerry Jones would falsely take credit for ideas like building a team thru a dominant O-Line, that he always knew Dak was going to be this good and if Rico works out that Jerry would claim that he invented the idea of taking a former college basketball player and making him a tight end. I won’t deny that Jerry says his fair share of goofy things, but falsely taking credit for innovations hasn’t been one of them. The only innovation I can think of that Jerry takes credit for is the draft value chart which was indeed created by the Cowboys. And if you want to talk about a team that falsely takes credit for innovations in football, you need to go to Massachusetts.
They are still pretty high on Dak and stated that any regression would be ‘reasonable’ towards the mean. So don’t expect a large dropoff in production as it doesn’t appear to be a fluke. They are still high on Elliott and mentioned how he steered clear of 370 carries in a season mark which is a good thing. They appear to be very high on Dez and his production for this season, but made very little mention of Beasley who had a fantastic year. They expect Beasley’s production to drop because they believe that much of that production will be eaten up by Dez.
They tend to like the prospects for the O-Line as their numbers had Free as the weak link and they see Collins as an upgrade and the question comes down to the LG spot.
Defensively they weren’t too ecstatic about the defense other than it comes at a cheap cost and is young. Taco didn’t score well in their SackSEER ratings which projects pass rushers coming out of college because Taco had that breakout senior season and did poorly in the 40 yard dash (4.92). They did mention that if the defense can get 5-6 sacks out of Taco that could be a solid value for the team.
The big concern they have for the defense is that the departures (Carr, Church, Wilcox, Claiborne, etc) were a lot of snaps that will need to be replaced by rookies. Tanier kept referring to Marinelli as playing Tampa-2 defense which we really haven’t played much of since Marinelli became the D-Coordinator. We played a lot of Cover-3 in 2014, then a lot of Cover-1 Man in 2015 and then played a mix of Cover-3, Man, Cover-5 and Man in 2016 (with some random Cover-2 shells). Their numbers really liked Byron Jones. They didn’t mention anything about Anthony Brown.
Overall they have us winning the division going 9-7/10-6. They have the Giants in 2nd claiming that the Giants are basically loading up the team for Eli’s final possible Super Bowl run. They had the Skins in 3rd looking like a 8-8/9-7 team and the Eagles in last place. Tanier did the Eagles write-up and made his fair share of excuses for Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson.
They viewed the Cowboys in the same light at the 2016 Atlanta Falcons that had a powerful offense with a young defense that gave up a lot of yards, but plays with the lead and they may finally start to create turnovers which could lead to Super Bowl contending team. They also felt that the team should be on pace to be one of the top teams for the next few years.
I’m just not used to Football Outsiders projecting us to go 8-8 every year. But up until this past season, Garrett had a .500 record, so they had a point. I agree with them from a statistical standpoint that the team will likely rely on their offense and then in order to contend for the Super Bowl, be a defense that can force turnovers. However, this reminds me of the 1997-1998 Denver Broncos template. A high scoring, run oriented offense that had the ability to control the pace of the game while scoring a lot of points and an overrated defense that was just good at creating turnovers. This gave Denver opponents trouble because they were often forced to pass the ball because they had to play catchup and they had little time to do it.
The key here is to get the turnovers without giving up big plays. That really puts the opponent in a bind because they now get less opportunities to score and they can’t make it up with quick scores themselves. If we can stay healthy and keep players like EE from being suspended, I like our chances.
YR
The negative part is that the Cowboys (and Eagles) were written by Mike Tanier. I like Tanier’s writing, but he has shown time and time again that he cannot put his Eagles fandom aside, particularly when it comes to writing about the Cowboys.
3 years ago was the last time Tanier wrote about the Cowboys and it was extremely condescending with no positives and the Cowboys went 12-4, won the Division and won a playoff game. This write-up was less condescending, but still an issue with Tanier writing about how lucky the Cowboys were and how they basically ‘fell into’ Dak, EE, the O-Line, etc.
What was a bit strange, at least to me, was Tanier continuing stating that Jerry Jones would falsely take credit for ideas like building a team thru a dominant O-Line, that he always knew Dak was going to be this good and if Rico works out that Jerry would claim that he invented the idea of taking a former college basketball player and making him a tight end. I won’t deny that Jerry says his fair share of goofy things, but falsely taking credit for innovations hasn’t been one of them. The only innovation I can think of that Jerry takes credit for is the draft value chart which was indeed created by the Cowboys. And if you want to talk about a team that falsely takes credit for innovations in football, you need to go to Massachusetts.
They are still pretty high on Dak and stated that any regression would be ‘reasonable’ towards the mean. So don’t expect a large dropoff in production as it doesn’t appear to be a fluke. They are still high on Elliott and mentioned how he steered clear of 370 carries in a season mark which is a good thing. They appear to be very high on Dez and his production for this season, but made very little mention of Beasley who had a fantastic year. They expect Beasley’s production to drop because they believe that much of that production will be eaten up by Dez.
They tend to like the prospects for the O-Line as their numbers had Free as the weak link and they see Collins as an upgrade and the question comes down to the LG spot.
Defensively they weren’t too ecstatic about the defense other than it comes at a cheap cost and is young. Taco didn’t score well in their SackSEER ratings which projects pass rushers coming out of college because Taco had that breakout senior season and did poorly in the 40 yard dash (4.92). They did mention that if the defense can get 5-6 sacks out of Taco that could be a solid value for the team.
The big concern they have for the defense is that the departures (Carr, Church, Wilcox, Claiborne, etc) were a lot of snaps that will need to be replaced by rookies. Tanier kept referring to Marinelli as playing Tampa-2 defense which we really haven’t played much of since Marinelli became the D-Coordinator. We played a lot of Cover-3 in 2014, then a lot of Cover-1 Man in 2015 and then played a mix of Cover-3, Man, Cover-5 and Man in 2016 (with some random Cover-2 shells). Their numbers really liked Byron Jones. They didn’t mention anything about Anthony Brown.
Overall they have us winning the division going 9-7/10-6. They have the Giants in 2nd claiming that the Giants are basically loading up the team for Eli’s final possible Super Bowl run. They had the Skins in 3rd looking like a 8-8/9-7 team and the Eagles in last place. Tanier did the Eagles write-up and made his fair share of excuses for Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson.
They viewed the Cowboys in the same light at the 2016 Atlanta Falcons that had a powerful offense with a young defense that gave up a lot of yards, but plays with the lead and they may finally start to create turnovers which could lead to Super Bowl contending team. They also felt that the team should be on pace to be one of the top teams for the next few years.
I’m just not used to Football Outsiders projecting us to go 8-8 every year. But up until this past season, Garrett had a .500 record, so they had a point. I agree with them from a statistical standpoint that the team will likely rely on their offense and then in order to contend for the Super Bowl, be a defense that can force turnovers. However, this reminds me of the 1997-1998 Denver Broncos template. A high scoring, run oriented offense that had the ability to control the pace of the game while scoring a lot of points and an overrated defense that was just good at creating turnovers. This gave Denver opponents trouble because they were often forced to pass the ball because they had to play catchup and they had little time to do it.
The key here is to get the turnovers without giving up big plays. That really puts the opponent in a bind because they now get less opportunities to score and they can’t make it up with quick scores themselves. If we can stay healthy and keep players like EE from being suspended, I like our chances.
YR
