Garrett is seriously playcalling like a scolded child

[Quarterback Coach]

maybe he is out thinking himself instead of going back to basics, which in this case, going back to what worked.

Maybe he's just not good.

 

[Stautner]

Wait, so you're honestly trying to criticize the team for throwing sometimes on 1st-and-10? I would have thought you'd recognize that running on every 1st-and-10 would make us more predictable and not less, but far be it from me to ascribe rationality where none may exist.

Come on, at least try to stick to what I actually said. Your habit of ignoring my actual words and changing facts and twisting selective portions of what someone says does not help your credibility.

As it is, this just appears to be desperate attempt to make a point that isn't there. I am not criticizing them for throwing sometimes on 1st and 10, and I never indicated anything close to that. That's your fabrication. I am criticizing them for throwing ONLY in situations where a pass would be a common or expected play rather than taking advantage of the running success and doing a hard play fake on downs where the defense would be expecting and gearing up for the run. I've made that very clear - over and over and over again. It isn't that difficult to understand - give it a try.

Also keep in mind I discussed not only the timing of the pass plays, but the style of pass play. The running success set up a perfect opportunity to use play action fakes and we didn't do that. But, again, you have chosen to ignore that part of my point.

You offered up your own commentary about 1st-and-10 without any prompting. I simply asked whether you would classify two of the other most common situations in which we passed in the first half as predictable. Since you said we "only" passed in predictable situations, the answer is obviously yes. If you're unwilling to justify calling 2nd-and-5 a "predictable" passing situation, why keep repeating it?

Just a few posts ago, you were trying to claim that throwing on "3rd and long" was "the primary" example of predictability. Now, after looking at the play-by-play (apparently for the first time), your definition has conveniently shifted to "anything longer than 4 yards, regardless of the down" and you're only concerned with 2nd-and-short? How do you expect anyone to know which parts of your arguments to pay attention to if you can't even make up your own mind?

PRIMARY and ONLY do not mean the same thing. Look it up - I'm certain both words are in the dictionary. In fact, I specifically said 3rd and long was the PRIMARY example, but not the only situation where passes would be expected or common.

But, again, you chose to ignore what I actually said and instead tried to twist a selective part of my words.

To appease you I'll explain it again. 3rd and long is the PRIMARY example of a passing down (again, not the same as ONLY), but anything 5 yards or more is a down where the defense will be looking for a pass as much as for a run. It's pretty simple, and you can't alter the definition of the word "primary" to make it fit your argument.

So your main complaint about the game is about not taking a shot on two or three running downs, in situations where we picked up the first down any way? Personally, I can find much more glaring problems with our performance, like all of those drive-killing incomplete passes. Those certainly kept a lot more points off the board than a handful of runs that went for first downs.

Great, we got a few 1st downs on 2nd and short and moved a few more yards. How many scores did that lead to?

And I talked about 6 downs in the 1st half alone, not 2-3 in the game. Again you have a habit of skipping facts.

And those were only the best examples. And again, the fact we got some 1st downs isn't the point. The fact we couldn't sustain drives in that manner is.

It seems you are missing the big picture. The goal is to score, right? If you are adhering to a plan that gets a few 1st downs but is difficult to sustain long enough to score, then those 1st down runs on 2nd and short don't mean a lot do they?

I don't know how you can possibly miss ("ignore" is really the word) what I've said, but that's my point. Those kinds of drives may require 12 or more plays in order to score, and are hard to rely on because the more plays it takes and the more 3rd downs you have to convert the greater the possibility of a penalty or tackle for a loss or stuffed run or bad pass or something to kill a drive. Somewhere along the way we had to mix in plays that gave us our best shot at a bigger chunk of yardage, and we had the ideal situations set up to do that with the play action fakes when they would have been expecting the run. The fact that on 6 of those ideal situations we still would have had 3rd down to work on the 1st down is just icing on the cake.

Of course, I've said all this before, and you ignore that part. Your MO is to only take selective comments and twist them into something different than what was said to suit your purposes.

 

[kmd24]

Somewhere along the way we had to mix in plays that gave us our best shot at a bigger chunk of yardage, and we had the ideal situations set up to do that with the play action fakes when they would have been expecting the run. The fact that on 6 of those ideal situations we still would have had 3rd down to work on the 1st down is just icing on the cake.

The fact is that play action works less often for the Cowboys because a high percentage of our successful running plays come on delays and draws. I don't have any recent video evidence, but you can go back to the clips of Kenny Phillips' interception on Romo's deep pass to Hurd in the Giants game for an example.

Also, I think Washington was letting Dallas have the run by playing a lot of two deep coverage, even after all the running success. I remember very few plays with Horton or Landry in the box presnap, but I don't have a recording to review, so I could be wrong.

 

[Stautner]

The fact is that play action works less often for the Cowboys because a high percentage of our successful running plays come on delays and draws. I don't have any recent video evidence, but you can go back to the clips of Kenny Phillips' interception on Romo's deep pass to Hurd in the Giants game for an example.

Also, I think Washington was letting Dallas have the run by playing a lot of two deep coverage, even after all the running success. I remember very few plays with Horton or Landry in the box presnap, but I don't have a recording to review, so I could be wrong.

There is some truth to this, but the Washington game was not a normal game. We made a full commitment to establish the run, and we did exactly that in a big way, which made this game different than most games.

Keep in mind that my discussion isn't about the entire season, it's about this game. The running game dominated early on, and the Commanders had to adjust. At the same time, we should have known we couldn't expect that to alone to carry us the entire game, especially knowing the defense would make adjustments, and especially knowing that it requires long, drawn out, painstaking drives with lots of 3rd down conversions and lots of plays in order to score. So, based on the success of the run and knowing that the Commanders were going to dig in, play action became viable. The DB's didn't necessarily have to be playing in the box for the play action to work, they just needed to freeze for a second when they thought yet another run was coming.

 

[NinePointOh]

Great, we got a few 1st downs on 2nd and short and moved a few more yards. How many scores did that lead to?

It led to a red zone trip (when we turned it over) and a field goal attempt (which we missed).

There were literally dozens of factors that caused us to get so few points. What you're doing is blaming our failures on some of our most successful plays. What I'm saying is that all of the drive-killing incomplete passes and turnovers had much more to do with our problems.

And I talked about 6 downs in the 1st half alone, not 2-3 in the game. Again you have a habit of skipping facts.

I was assuming that you wouldn't have thrown on all 6 of them, since doing the same thing six times in a row on 2nd-and-short wouldn't seem to fit a rational definition of "unpredictable." But again, far be it from me to ascribe rationality where none may exist. So fair enough, I'll let you decide: did you honestly want to throw the ball every single time we got a 2nd-and-short, or only some of the time?

And keep in mind that we faced exactly one 2nd-and-short in the 2nd half, and we threw the ball, so there is no relevant first half/full game distinction to be made.

And those were only the best examples. And again, the fact we got some 1st downs isn't the point. The fact we couldn't sustain drives in that manner is. It seems you are missing the big picture. The goal is to score, right? If you are adhering to a plan that gets a few 1st downs but is difficult to sustain long enough to score, then those 1st down runs on 2nd and short don't mean a lot do they?

I don't know how you can possibly miss ("ignore" is really the word) what I've said, but that's my point. Those kinds of drives may require 12 or more plays in order to score, and are hard to rely on because the more plays it takes and the more 3rd downs you have to convert the greater the possibility of a penalty or tackle for a loss or stuffed run or bad pass or something to kill a drive. Somewhere along the way we had to mix in plays that gave us our best shot at a bigger chunk of yardage, and we had the ideal situations set up to do that with the play action fakes when they would have been expecting the run. The fact that on 6 of those ideal situations we still would have had 3rd down to work on the 1st down is just icing on the cake.

Of course, I've said all this before, and you ignore that part. Your MO is to only take selective comments and twist them into something different than what was said to suit your purposes.

Here's what you seem to be ignoring: my point isn't that playaction passes on 2nd-and-short are a bad idea (unless you do it every single time), but that there were much more significant problems that caused our struggles. Your entire argument hinges on a select handful of plays where we could have passed instead of running for the first down, but that doesn't explain what actually went wrong on any of our bad plays.

You're hoping that, if we hit on a deep playaction pass, we wouldn't have had to run some of the plays that we screwed up. But the odds of actually completing a pass longer than 10 yards on a given play against a halfway decent pass defense, even in the most favorable game situation, and the number of those 2nd-and-short plays that took place on the exact same drive, make it so that we'd have been pretty fortunate to gain another 7 points by throwing those 2-3 (or 6, or whatever number you deem appropriate) extra passes. Even if we succeeded at doing so, 14-6 instead of 7-6 would still have been a poor performance -- and the very mistakes I've been talking about all along would still be the best explanation for those struggles.

 

[Stautner]

It led to a red zone trip (when we turned it over) and a field goal attempt (which we missed).

There were literally dozens of factors that caused us to get so few points. What you're doing is blaming our failures on some of our most successful plays. What I'm saying is that all of the drive-killing incomplete passes and turnovers had much more to do with our problems.

I was assuming that you wouldn't have thrown on all 6 of them, since doing the same thing six times in a row on 2nd-and-short wouldn't seem to fit a rational definition of "unpredictable." But again, far be it from me to ascribe rationality where none may exist. So fair enough, I'll let you decide: did you honestly want to throw the ball every single time we got a 2nd-and-short, or only some of the time?

And keep in mind that we faced exactly one 2nd-and-short in the 2nd half, and we threw the ball, so there is no relevant first half/full game distinction to be made.

Here's what you seem to be ignoring: my point isn't that playaction passes on 2nd-and-short are a bad idea (unless you do it every single time), but that there were much more significant problems that caused our struggles. Your entire argument hinges on a select handful of plays where we could have passed instead of running for the first down, but that doesn't explain what actually went wrong on any of our bad plays.

You're hoping that, if we hit on a deep playaction pass, we wouldn't have had to run some of the plays that we screwed up. But the odds of actually completing a pass longer than 10 yards on a given play against a halfway decent pass defense, even in the most favorable game situation, are such that we'd have been pretty fortunate to gain another 7 points by throwing those 2-3 (or 6, or whatever number you deem appropriate) extra passes. Even if we succeeded at doing so, 14-6 instead of 7-6 would still have been a poor performance -- and the very mistakes I've been talking about all along would still be the best explanation for those struggles.

Good, ONE red zone trip. And you are thrilled with that? And it occurred on the drive I am not commenting on anyway. That's the drive that established the run for us - after that is when the play action became viable. Of course, I have said this before, and as usual you conveniently forgot.

As for this not being the only factor in our problems, so what? I was not attempting to address every issue on the team. I chose this to talk about because it was an important factor and was based on not taking advantage of opportunities that made sense in the context of the game. It doesn't make it any less valid because it wasn't the only problem the team had.

As for assuming I wouldn't have thrown on all 6 opportunities, that's correct. The thing is that the 6 opportunities I discussed were the just the ones that were the ideal tailor made opportunites - as if fate were opening a door wide in front of us and saying all you have to do is walk in to reach your goal, and we passed on all 6. Nevertheless, given the success of the run the play action wasn't ONLY viable on those 6 ocassions. When you establish the run in a big way like we did, play action should be a no-brainer.

As for the 2nd half, you are talking to yourself because I haven't been concerning myself with the 2nd half. I said from the get go that we made an attempt to be more balanced in the 2nd half, but just weren't in sync. i suspect part may have been because we didn't establish a good offensive rythem the first half, but that's just a guees. Nevertheless, again you are arguing points that don't fit given what I have already said.

By the way, it's pretty ridiculous to act as if "completing a pass longer than 10 yards on a given play against a halfway decent pass defense" is so unrealistic. If that's really such a long shot, especially on a play action after establishing a dominant running game, then we belong in NCAA divison III football.

The fact is I'm not saying that doing what I suggest is a guarantee of anything, just that it's a proven, tried and true tactic and that it made no sense to not make the effort to take advantage of the opportunity we had opened for ourselves.

 

[Stautner]

NinePointOh:

I'll give you an analogy.

When a team comes out throwing the ball, completes pass after pass, the defense has to adjust. DB's are all back in coverage, safeties helping double team. Linebackers chasing TE's or rushing the passer. That's what draw plays are for - to give the look of yet another pass while taking advantage of the fact that the defense has lost focus on playing the run.

It's a tried and true tactic employed by every team in the NFL.

And it works the other way around. When you establish the run, especially in as strong a way as we did Sunday, the defense has to adjust. That's what play action is for - to give the look of yet another run while taking advantage of the fact that the defense has lost focus on playing the pass.

It's a tried and true tactic employed by every team in the NFL.

 

[NinePointOh]

Good, ONE red zone trip. And you are thrilled with that?

Obviously not. You must have missed (or selectively ignored) the part where I said I was interested in identifying why our drives were stalling. And by "the part," I of course mean "the bulk of this entire conversation."

And it occurred on the drive I am not commenting on anyway. That's the drive that established the run - after that is when the play action became viable. Of course, I have said this before, and as usual you conveniently forgot.

As a matter of fact,you've been commenting on that drive this whole time -- three of the 2nd-and-2-or-less plays you've been complaining about came on that possession. If you can't make up your own mind about what you're trying to say, how do you expect anyone else to follow your psychobabble?

As for this not being the only factor in our problems, so what? I was not attempting to address every issue on the team. I chose this to talk about because it was an important factor and was based on not taking advantage of opportunities that made sense in the context of the game. It doesn't make it any less valid because it wasn't the only problem the team had.

Who said anything about the "only" factor? I'm saying that other factors were much, much more important.

As for assuming I wouldn't have thrown on all 6 opportunities, that's correct. The thing is that the 6 opportunities I discussed were the just the ones that were the ideal tailor made opportunites - as if fate were opening a door wide in front of us and saying all you have to do is walk in to reach your goal, and we passed on all 6. Nevertheless, given the success of the run the play action wasn't ONLY viable on those 6 ocassions. When you establish the run in a big way like we did, play action should be a no-brainer.

I still haven't disputed that playaction passes are a bad idea.

As for the 2nd half, you are talking to yourself because I haven't been concerning myself with the 2nd half. I said from the get go that we made an attempt to be more balanced in the 2nd half. Again you are arguing points that don't fit given what I have already said.

As a matter of fact, you made the distinction yourself when you said, "And I talked about6 downs in the 1st half alone, not 2-3 in the game."

But of course, now apparently you're trying to claim that of those "6 downs in the 1st half," you never even commented on 3 of them. So perhaps I shouldn't expect you to remember what you wrote just a few posts ago.

By the way, it's pretty ridiculous to act as if "completing a pass longer than 10 yards on a given play against a halfway decent pass defense" is so unrealistic. If that's really such a long shot, especially on a play action after establishing a dominant running game, then we belong in NCAA divison III football.

Completing the pass isn't a long shot. You might have between a 40% and 70% chance of completing the pass itself, give or take some depending on how deep you throw it. The odds of completing the pass for a 50+ yard touchdown, or completing the pass for less than that and then going on and scoring a touchdown, is almost certainly below a 50-50 probability, which means we'd be fortunate to gain 7 points out of it. In order to gain more than 7 points, we'd have to do it successfully twice, in which case you square the probabilities.

And now that you've decided not to include three of the situations that you originally included among your 6, it's even less significant.

The fact is I'm not saying that doing what I suggest is a guarantee of anything, just that it's a proven, tried and true tactic and that it made no sense to not make the effort to take advantage of the opportunity we had opened for ourselves.

Except when we did. Or do you honestly think we had zero run fakes?

NinePointOh:

I'll give you an analogy.

When a team comes out throwing the ball, completes pass after pass, the defense has to adjust. DB's are all back in coverage, safeties helping double team. Linebackers chasing TE's or rushing the passer. That's what draw plays are for - to give the look of yet another pass while taking advantage of the fact that the defense has lost focus on playing the run.

It's a tried and true tactic employed by every team in the NFL.

And it works the other way around. When you establish the run, especially in as strong a way as we did Sunday, the defense has to adjust. That's what play action is for - to give the look of yet another run while taking advantage of the fact that the defense has lost focus on playing the pass.

It's a tried and true tactic employed by every team in the NFL.

I'm familiar with what playaction passes are for, thanks.

 

[Stautner]

I'll call you Chubby Checker, because you know how to do the twist. What you say may not have a damn thing to do with what you tell us, but you twist like hell to make it appear so. Instead of making this a full length novel, i'll narrow down a bit

Who said anything about the "only" factor? I'm saying that other factors were much, much more important.

That's your opinion, and you are entitled to it. But i was addressing this factor, so if you plan to tell me I'm wrong you have to talk about what I'm addressing.

By your logic, if someone said Romo threw a bad pass you would consider it an appropriate argument if someone responded by saying "no he didn't because we should have run the ball instead.

Sorry, but you can't tell me my point is wrong by saying there are other points that were also problems.

I still haven't disputed that playaction passes are a bad idea.

Then what are you trying to say? My whole point has been that we set ourselves up perfectly to run play action passes and didn't take advantage. Now you are telling me you have been arguing all the time about a point you agree on? Very strange.

As a matter of fact, you made the distinction yourself when you said, "And I talked about6 downs in the 1st half alone, not 2-3 in the game."

As a matter of fact, this statement proves exactly the opposite of what you are strangely trying to claim. It specifically shows I wasn't concerning myself with what happened in the 2nd half, and was only counting what happened in the 1st half. My entire commentary has been about the 1st half, post after post after post, and you try to twist one line out of all those posts to say I am discussing the second half. Sorry, the history of this thread goes against you.

Completing the pass isn't a long shot. You might have between a 40% and 70% chance of completing the pass itself, give or take some depending on how deep you throw it. The odds of completing the pass for a 50+ yard touchdown, or completing the pass for less than that and then going on and scoring a touchdown, is almost certainly below a 50-50 probability, which means we'd be fortunate to gain 7 points out of it. In order to gain more than 7 points, we'd have to do it successfully twice, in which case you square the probabilities.

Well, hell, by this logic why pass at all? There is no guarantee it will lead to a TD, so why do it?

This is comical.

(Sighs) Okay, let me try again. The idea here is that you have to figure out ways to score without having to rely on long, drawn out, 12+ play drives to do it. The odds of something going wrong to kill the drive by relying on that route are increased. I've said this A LOT - over and over - you somehow keep missing it.

So, you have to find ways to mix in plays that will get you a bigger chunk of yardage at times. Not necessarily the 50 yard bomb, but something that will get you downfield faster than a 5 yards per play average.

My point is that we had the ideal, tailor made, right in front of our face situations to mix in exactly the kinds of plays that were most likely to accomplish that in the context of the game, and we ignored it repeatedly.

Forget all the sidetracks and twists and turns - look at this simply. THAT's what I'm saying in a nutshell.

 

[NinePointOh]

That's your opinion, and you are entitled to it. But i was addressing this factor, so if you plan to tell me I'm wrong you have to talk about what I'm addressing.

I plan to tell you exactly what I've been telling you all along -- that your point is relatively meaningless to the question of why our offense was struggling.

If a man dies in a flash flood, would you blame his drowning on the 12 ounces of Diet Pepsi he spilled on the floor?

As a matter of fact, this statement proves exactly the opposite of what you are strangely trying to claim. It specifically shows I wasn't concerning myself with what happened in the 2nd half, and was only counting what happened in the 1st half. My entire commentary has been about the 1st half, post after post after post, and you try to twist one line out of all those posts to say I am discussing the second half. Sorry, the history of this thread goes against you.

How convenient. The number of plays you're referring to shrinks yet again. Hey, fine by me.

Well, hell, by this logic why pass at all? There is no guarantee it will lead to a TD, so why do it?

Well, see, running on every single play gives you a very tiny chance of scoring, and executing no play at all gives you exactly zero chance.

What we're talking about here is your implicit assertion that replacing a small number of our successful plays with a playaction pass would have had anything close to a 50% chance of giving us another 7 points. Or, if you agree that the chance would be far less than 50%, then you apparently agreed when I said we'd have been fortunate to have gained an extra 7 points with your strategy, in which case you've spent an awful lot of energy disputing something you agree with.

My point is that we had the ideal, tailor made, right in front of our face situations to mix in exactly the kinds of plays that were most likely to accomplish that in the context of the game, and we ignored it repeatedly

Ah, yes. Repeatedly. Of course, now that you're ignoring the entire second half, our entire runs-only drive, and presumably the entire drive before that (since we hadn't "set up the playaction" yet), you're left complaining about three drives. Oh, but you also decided you weren't talking about anything 5 yards or longer, because those are "predictable" situations, so that leaves ... 3 plays. Oh, but you also said you wouldn't do it every single time you're in the situation, so you're left with either 1 or 2 plays. And that includes two 3rd downs, where an incomplete pass would have killed a drive that we actually extended by running.

 

[Stautner]

NinePointOh:

I know you have been working on a long response, and we could go on and on clouding the real points with all the extraneous dialogue, but I don't have time to keep that up, and frankly it makes no sense to do so.

So here's the deal. Let’s cut the “he said/she said” crap. Let’s look at what I am saying, IN SIMPLE TERMS, and cut the twisting and turning and fabricating and deflecting, and if you want to do so, you can tell me, IN SIMPLE TERMS, what you think is wrong about these statements.


I BELIEVE:

1. After establishing a successful running game a team has the best chance to make an impact throwing the ball with play action and by picking and choosing the ideal moments.

2. Taking advantage of a successful running game in this manner is a common, tried and true practice in the NFL.

3. We established a successful running game, yet we did not attempt to take advantage of play action or pick the ideal moments, therefore we let our best chance at passing success pass us by.

4. Being that taking advantage of a successful running game in this manner is a common, tried and true practice in the NFL, Garrett should have recognized it.

5. By failing to take advantage of our best chance to mix in timely passing plays that would have moved us downfield more quickly, we essentially chose to rely on long, extended drives in order to score, thereby increasing the chance that a negative play would occur along the way to stall the drive.

6. This was mostly a 1st half issue.


Hopefully this format will be less confusing and eliminate the need for some of the dialogue that doesn't apply.

Keep in mind i am not attempting to discuss anything wrong with our offense other than this one specific issue in this one specific game. Accordingly, if you have a problem with the points above, restrict your comments to those points and let's not slide back into clouding the discussion with things unrelated to those points.