Yakuza Rich
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As many of you know, I'm more biased to coaching than the personnel decisions made by a team. I strongly believe that the GM position, while not unimportant, is the most overrated position in football. Outside of signing very bad deals to established stars and trading away draft picks, the NFL is mostly about the HC's ability to create an environment where players develop. I think that is Garrett's strong suit and helps explain our recent influx of talent and going 12-4 in 2014 and 13-3 last season.
So I try to pay close attention to the assistants and the job they are doing in helping develop personnel and here's my grades for the Cowboys assistants going into the season.
Scott Linehan (O-Coordinator/Chief Play Caller) - I've been very pleased with the job that Linehan has done here, especially since he made a change in his playcalling to be more run oriented compared to his play calling days with the Lions, Rams and Vikings. I do feel that Garrett has prompted the more run oriented play calling because Garrett does help with the game plan and Garrett has gotten into being more 'simple' with football in recent years. Remember, Garrett is a Nick Saban disciple and Nick Saban is very simplified.
So while that influence from Garrett has helped, I also think it has taken things away from Linehan as we were running the ball nearly 70% of the time on first down in 2014. To put that into perspective, the Cowboys led the league in first down runs at 58% of the time in 2016. However, you could credit Linehan in getting Garrett out of being so predictable. It's one thing to lead the league, it's another to lead the league by a mile.
In the end, the offense has been high productive and efficient. He's made better use of Beasley and I believe the addition of Switzer will help us a lot against Cover-5 looks. It will be interesting to see if we use EE in the passing game more to help solve some issues.
Linehan did provide us with Kellen Moore who has been a disappointment in my eyes as a player out on the field. I'm guessing he suggested Mark Sanchez as well. But to Linehan's credit, Moore and Sanchez are great mentors to Dak as Moore knows the offense as well as anybody and Sanchez is as well coached in mechanics as anybody.
Lastly, Linehan deserves credit for pushing us to draft Dak.
Grade: A
Gary Brown (RB Coach) - Normally RB coaches are considered a dime a dozen. Our big 'hit' has been with EE. The one thing that has stood out to me about EE is prior to coming to the NFL is how well coached he was in HS and college. He reminds me of watching Tiger Woods when he first made the Tour in the sense that he does everything almost exactly perfectly like a 10-year veteran who excels in that particular area. EE's father, high school coaches and college coaches did a tremendous job with him.
For Brown, he has helped with EE learning the zone scheme and EE has been a quick learner. Also, whether we like it or not selecting a 4th overall pick at RB when you have an old and injury prone franchise QB was a big risk. But you don't make that risk unless you are convinced that the RB is a future HoF'er and it was reported that EE was the best RB prospect they had ever scouted. I'm certain that Brown played a role in that.
But, I'm also sure that Brown played a role in players like McFadden (a decent pickup), Morris (underwhelming), Christine Michael (disaster) and making Randle the starter (disaster). He did develop Lance Dunbar's pass receiving, unfortunately Dunbar couldn't stay healthy. He also did a nice job of developing DeMarco Murray.
So, he's had the big home run in EE, but we paid a premium for that home run. The rest of the talent he's been given has been cheap talent. But with Dunbar he showed he can turn a player into a decent specialist and with Murray he showed he can turn a good talent into one of the league's best RB's.
Grade: B-
Derek Dooley (Wide Receivers Coach) - Dooley hasn't been given a lot of talent to work with. Dez was already developed by Jimmy Robinson. Other than that he's had Terrance Williams, a former 3rd round pick and then a bunch of late round picks and UDFA's.
Dooley has done a great job with Beasley and if Switzer comes along well, then we know that Dooley is very good at working with pivot route WR's.
T-Will has never developed his catch radius, but does a lot of other things well that he has developed here. Particularly his blocking. In fact, that's one of the things we've seen out of Dooley's WR's...he motivates them to be quality blockers. For all of the griping against Lucky, he turned out to be a pretty good blocker. Dwayne Harris was phenomenal and T-Will is excellent as well. Even Beasley's blocking has gone from awful to serviceable.
And that's an important part of a run oriented offense. But, we would still want to see more actual receiving production from our Z-Receiver and possibly a new X-Receiver. If Switzer works out that will be another feather in the cap of Dooley and if Noah Brown can turn into something other than a special teamer, Dooley's grade can get into the A's.
Grade: C+
Steve Loney (Tight Ends) - Loney will get an incomplete because he hasn't been with the team long enough and Witten and Hanna were developed by other coaches. That leaves Swaim who looked solid last year and Rico who is a major project.
Wade Wilson (Quarterback) - I hate grading QB coaches because the QB is usually more about the HC's ability to understand how to implement a new QB in the league along with the QB's pure talent. After the starter, the backup QB's are almost never talented enough to do anything worthwhile. And so many of the QB's in the league work with QB specialists in the offseason like Tom Shaw.
Frank Pollack (Offensive Line) - Most of the O-Line was developed by Callahan. So for Pollack any grade that will be decided for him will come on La'el Collins, whomever takes over at LG and how Chaz Green comes out of this. I can see Pollack's grade being incomplete for a while since Tyron, Zack and Fred are so young and it will take a little while to see how the LG spot and Collins develop.
Grade: Incomplete
Rod Marinelli (D-Coordinator) - This is a difficult grade to make because the defense has been plagued by a lack of talent, injuries and suspensions. But it also has been helped tremendously by a high powered, run oriented offense that forces the opponents to throw the ball to keep up in games.
I liked the improvements I saw on defense in 2014 and 2016, but I was disappointed by what I saw in 2015. The Cover-1 man in 2015 was a disaster and teams just ran pick plays on us and scored with ease. And say what you will about Hardy, but he wasn't meant to play DT on passing downs and we kept doing so despite it not working.
I haven't been nutty about many of the D-Line personnel that Marinelli has wanted. It speaks volumes that they kept grading Nick Hayden so high. I haven't been impressed by Benson Mayowa although he did come on towards the end of the season. George Selvie did a lot better than expected and Terrell McClain was better than he was at Houston. The moving of Crawford to DE hasn't been good and Lawrence hasn't lived up to his 2nd round pick, but isn't a disaster either.
On the other hand, Marinelli's defensive philosophy has seemingly changed the organization's philosophy on cornerbacks. No longer are we looking for 'cover corners' who use quickness and speed, but can't tackle to save their life (and often get injured). No we look for more zone corners who can play some press coverage and tackle very well.
I think we made a mistake with JJ Wilcox at safety and I wasn't nutty about Barry Church. Whether it was a Marinelli decision or team decision, it appears we have changed with the times in terms of safety personnel with Byron at FS and Heath at SS and I consider that a positive.
Grade: C
Leon Lett (Defensive Tackles) - Leon hasn't had a lot of talent roll thru here either. T. Crawford was excellent in 2014, but then got injured in 2015 and was moved to DE in 2016. Terrell McClain looked better than he did in Houston, but wasn't a world beater. David Irving looked very good but then started getting more time at DE due to injuries and suspensions.
Cedrick Thornton was a bit of a disappointment last year and I'm assuming that Lett played a part in getting him over here. However, he wasn't a disaster and didn't get an enormous pay day. He did come from different scheme in Philly and it may take a year to get adjusted.
More of Leon's grade in the future will start to come from Maliek Collins' development and if Paea and Thornton pan out.
Grade: C+
Matt Eberflus (Linebackers) - I like the job that Eberflus has done here at linebacker. Getting Anthony Hitchens was a heads up job. Hitchens isn't a world beater, but he played well at the WILL his rookie year when Lee got injured and he stepped up to play the MIKE when needed. He wasn't great by any means, but at least serviceable and it appears he's looking much better this year at the MIKE. All for a 4th round pick which is good value.
Forget Damien Wilson's problems because that's out of Eberflus' control. Wilson came on nicely last year and shows great speed. My guess is that somehow Wilson will not get jail time and probably get a 4-game suspension. The problem for Wilson on the field is that he plays the SAM which doesn't get a lot of time, but on the field he's progressed nicely for a 4th round pick.
While Garrett and Marinelli play a major role in Jaylon's playing time, so does Eberflus. And we need Eberflus to do a balancing act of getting Jaylon enough time so he can get experience and get back his feel for the game, but not too much time to where he could possibly injure himself. That will play a large part in Eberflus' grade after the season.
I will also mention that Rolando McClain looked excellent in 2014, but was too much of a headcase for any team to deal with.
Grade: A-
Joe Baker (Secondary/Corners) - Baker's problems have been that Jerome Henderson stunk as a coach, he was stuck with Carr and Claiborne who were brought in for Rob Ryan's vastly different scheme and because we paid so much for Carr and Claiborne, the rest of the CB talent had to come cheaply.
To his credit, Claiborne did start to develop into a professional cornerback. He did learn how to tackle, he did start to get a better feel for zone coverage and he did start to study and work on his technique like a professional and it paid off until he got injured. Baker probably played a role in us getting Sterling Moore and Moore was a very solid player in his role. Other than that, he's had to deal with getting low round picks and UDFA's like Terrance Mitchell and those guys rarely work out.
The good news is that we may have picked up a steal in Anthony Brown. But for now we can't judge too much until we see the development of Awuzie, Lewis, White, etc.
Grade: C
Greg Jackson (Safeties) - The improvement in the safety play was noticeable under Jackson. This defense is at its best when it can mix up some simple zone shells with press man. We started to do that last year and the defense usually looked better for it. However, that meant we needed to better FS play which we got out of Byron. Even still, JJ Wilcox looked reasonable in zone coverage for the first time in his career.
Jackson gets an incomplete because he's only been here for one year. A lot of his future grade will be dependent upon how Jeff Heath works out. Personally, I'm optimistic. Then we have Xavier Woods and Kavon Frazier. I suspect Frazier will be a special teams player which is alright for a 6th round pick. Woods will likely be the guy to have a chance to actually play safety.
Rich Bisaccia (Special Teams) - Here's a look at our rankings on special teams since Bisaccia has coached the club:
2013: 8th
2014: 13th
2015: 11th
2016: 10th
Here's where we were the 3 years prior:
2010: 15th
2011: 25th
2012: 15th
So, we've seen a little improvement and we are better than average on special teams.
Last year we struggled in the return game and that probably prompted us to get Switzer. I'm not sure how much to really blame Bisaccia as we lost Dwayne Harris and I thought Whitehead had the makings of a great returner, but lost his initial burst after the organization bulked up his frame.
Where we really excelled last year was with the FG kicking (Bailey, of course) and Punting. Chris Jones gets a lot of grief, but he's an excellent placeholder and while he doesn't have McBriar's leg, he is great at angling punts. In the end, I think he may be a more effective player for the Cowboys than McBriar was. If you don't believe me, then you go back and deal with the disaster field goal kicking we had.
Grade: C+
Mike Woicik (Strength and Conditioning) - Strength and conditioning coach is a tough job because you rarely get praise and injuries tend to move towards the mean over time. So if you stay healthy it's usually not for long as eventually players start to get injured and the S&C coach takes the blame.
My problem with Woicik is that we had the same type of injury (hamstring) and last year the back became the issue. The back and hamstring are intertwined and listening to DeMarcus Ware discuss his conditioning with the Broncos makes me think it's a problem with Woicik's training methods.
We also have issues with bulking up some players (i.e. Felix Jones, Lucky) as they tend to lose their explosiveness and can't quite turn speed into power like you would hope.
I think that S&C changes the most rapidly over time than any other part of the game. Researchers and technology finds ways to make athletes bigger and stronger and faster, but with that comes a higher risk for injuries, so S&C specialists need to be on top of how to handle the bigger athlete. I have to wonder how well Woicik is keeping up with the times when other teams don't seem to have nearly the non-contact injuries the Cowboys have and that when the team had Joe Juraszek as the S&C coach, this wasn't nearly the problem.
Grade: D
YR
So I try to pay close attention to the assistants and the job they are doing in helping develop personnel and here's my grades for the Cowboys assistants going into the season.
Scott Linehan (O-Coordinator/Chief Play Caller) - I've been very pleased with the job that Linehan has done here, especially since he made a change in his playcalling to be more run oriented compared to his play calling days with the Lions, Rams and Vikings. I do feel that Garrett has prompted the more run oriented play calling because Garrett does help with the game plan and Garrett has gotten into being more 'simple' with football in recent years. Remember, Garrett is a Nick Saban disciple and Nick Saban is very simplified.
So while that influence from Garrett has helped, I also think it has taken things away from Linehan as we were running the ball nearly 70% of the time on first down in 2014. To put that into perspective, the Cowboys led the league in first down runs at 58% of the time in 2016. However, you could credit Linehan in getting Garrett out of being so predictable. It's one thing to lead the league, it's another to lead the league by a mile.
In the end, the offense has been high productive and efficient. He's made better use of Beasley and I believe the addition of Switzer will help us a lot against Cover-5 looks. It will be interesting to see if we use EE in the passing game more to help solve some issues.
Linehan did provide us with Kellen Moore who has been a disappointment in my eyes as a player out on the field. I'm guessing he suggested Mark Sanchez as well. But to Linehan's credit, Moore and Sanchez are great mentors to Dak as Moore knows the offense as well as anybody and Sanchez is as well coached in mechanics as anybody.
Lastly, Linehan deserves credit for pushing us to draft Dak.
Grade: A
Gary Brown (RB Coach) - Normally RB coaches are considered a dime a dozen. Our big 'hit' has been with EE. The one thing that has stood out to me about EE is prior to coming to the NFL is how well coached he was in HS and college. He reminds me of watching Tiger Woods when he first made the Tour in the sense that he does everything almost exactly perfectly like a 10-year veteran who excels in that particular area. EE's father, high school coaches and college coaches did a tremendous job with him.
For Brown, he has helped with EE learning the zone scheme and EE has been a quick learner. Also, whether we like it or not selecting a 4th overall pick at RB when you have an old and injury prone franchise QB was a big risk. But you don't make that risk unless you are convinced that the RB is a future HoF'er and it was reported that EE was the best RB prospect they had ever scouted. I'm certain that Brown played a role in that.
But, I'm also sure that Brown played a role in players like McFadden (a decent pickup), Morris (underwhelming), Christine Michael (disaster) and making Randle the starter (disaster). He did develop Lance Dunbar's pass receiving, unfortunately Dunbar couldn't stay healthy. He also did a nice job of developing DeMarco Murray.
So, he's had the big home run in EE, but we paid a premium for that home run. The rest of the talent he's been given has been cheap talent. But with Dunbar he showed he can turn a player into a decent specialist and with Murray he showed he can turn a good talent into one of the league's best RB's.
Grade: B-
Derek Dooley (Wide Receivers Coach) - Dooley hasn't been given a lot of talent to work with. Dez was already developed by Jimmy Robinson. Other than that he's had Terrance Williams, a former 3rd round pick and then a bunch of late round picks and UDFA's.
Dooley has done a great job with Beasley and if Switzer comes along well, then we know that Dooley is very good at working with pivot route WR's.
T-Will has never developed his catch radius, but does a lot of other things well that he has developed here. Particularly his blocking. In fact, that's one of the things we've seen out of Dooley's WR's...he motivates them to be quality blockers. For all of the griping against Lucky, he turned out to be a pretty good blocker. Dwayne Harris was phenomenal and T-Will is excellent as well. Even Beasley's blocking has gone from awful to serviceable.
And that's an important part of a run oriented offense. But, we would still want to see more actual receiving production from our Z-Receiver and possibly a new X-Receiver. If Switzer works out that will be another feather in the cap of Dooley and if Noah Brown can turn into something other than a special teamer, Dooley's grade can get into the A's.
Grade: C+
Steve Loney (Tight Ends) - Loney will get an incomplete because he hasn't been with the team long enough and Witten and Hanna were developed by other coaches. That leaves Swaim who looked solid last year and Rico who is a major project.
Wade Wilson (Quarterback) - I hate grading QB coaches because the QB is usually more about the HC's ability to understand how to implement a new QB in the league along with the QB's pure talent. After the starter, the backup QB's are almost never talented enough to do anything worthwhile. And so many of the QB's in the league work with QB specialists in the offseason like Tom Shaw.
Frank Pollack (Offensive Line) - Most of the O-Line was developed by Callahan. So for Pollack any grade that will be decided for him will come on La'el Collins, whomever takes over at LG and how Chaz Green comes out of this. I can see Pollack's grade being incomplete for a while since Tyron, Zack and Fred are so young and it will take a little while to see how the LG spot and Collins develop.
Grade: Incomplete
Rod Marinelli (D-Coordinator) - This is a difficult grade to make because the defense has been plagued by a lack of talent, injuries and suspensions. But it also has been helped tremendously by a high powered, run oriented offense that forces the opponents to throw the ball to keep up in games.
I liked the improvements I saw on defense in 2014 and 2016, but I was disappointed by what I saw in 2015. The Cover-1 man in 2015 was a disaster and teams just ran pick plays on us and scored with ease. And say what you will about Hardy, but he wasn't meant to play DT on passing downs and we kept doing so despite it not working.
I haven't been nutty about many of the D-Line personnel that Marinelli has wanted. It speaks volumes that they kept grading Nick Hayden so high. I haven't been impressed by Benson Mayowa although he did come on towards the end of the season. George Selvie did a lot better than expected and Terrell McClain was better than he was at Houston. The moving of Crawford to DE hasn't been good and Lawrence hasn't lived up to his 2nd round pick, but isn't a disaster either.
On the other hand, Marinelli's defensive philosophy has seemingly changed the organization's philosophy on cornerbacks. No longer are we looking for 'cover corners' who use quickness and speed, but can't tackle to save their life (and often get injured). No we look for more zone corners who can play some press coverage and tackle very well.
I think we made a mistake with JJ Wilcox at safety and I wasn't nutty about Barry Church. Whether it was a Marinelli decision or team decision, it appears we have changed with the times in terms of safety personnel with Byron at FS and Heath at SS and I consider that a positive.
Grade: C
Leon Lett (Defensive Tackles) - Leon hasn't had a lot of talent roll thru here either. T. Crawford was excellent in 2014, but then got injured in 2015 and was moved to DE in 2016. Terrell McClain looked better than he did in Houston, but wasn't a world beater. David Irving looked very good but then started getting more time at DE due to injuries and suspensions.
Cedrick Thornton was a bit of a disappointment last year and I'm assuming that Lett played a part in getting him over here. However, he wasn't a disaster and didn't get an enormous pay day. He did come from different scheme in Philly and it may take a year to get adjusted.
More of Leon's grade in the future will start to come from Maliek Collins' development and if Paea and Thornton pan out.
Grade: C+
Matt Eberflus (Linebackers) - I like the job that Eberflus has done here at linebacker. Getting Anthony Hitchens was a heads up job. Hitchens isn't a world beater, but he played well at the WILL his rookie year when Lee got injured and he stepped up to play the MIKE when needed. He wasn't great by any means, but at least serviceable and it appears he's looking much better this year at the MIKE. All for a 4th round pick which is good value.
Forget Damien Wilson's problems because that's out of Eberflus' control. Wilson came on nicely last year and shows great speed. My guess is that somehow Wilson will not get jail time and probably get a 4-game suspension. The problem for Wilson on the field is that he plays the SAM which doesn't get a lot of time, but on the field he's progressed nicely for a 4th round pick.
While Garrett and Marinelli play a major role in Jaylon's playing time, so does Eberflus. And we need Eberflus to do a balancing act of getting Jaylon enough time so he can get experience and get back his feel for the game, but not too much time to where he could possibly injure himself. That will play a large part in Eberflus' grade after the season.
I will also mention that Rolando McClain looked excellent in 2014, but was too much of a headcase for any team to deal with.
Grade: A-
Joe Baker (Secondary/Corners) - Baker's problems have been that Jerome Henderson stunk as a coach, he was stuck with Carr and Claiborne who were brought in for Rob Ryan's vastly different scheme and because we paid so much for Carr and Claiborne, the rest of the CB talent had to come cheaply.
To his credit, Claiborne did start to develop into a professional cornerback. He did learn how to tackle, he did start to get a better feel for zone coverage and he did start to study and work on his technique like a professional and it paid off until he got injured. Baker probably played a role in us getting Sterling Moore and Moore was a very solid player in his role. Other than that, he's had to deal with getting low round picks and UDFA's like Terrance Mitchell and those guys rarely work out.
The good news is that we may have picked up a steal in Anthony Brown. But for now we can't judge too much until we see the development of Awuzie, Lewis, White, etc.
Grade: C
Greg Jackson (Safeties) - The improvement in the safety play was noticeable under Jackson. This defense is at its best when it can mix up some simple zone shells with press man. We started to do that last year and the defense usually looked better for it. However, that meant we needed to better FS play which we got out of Byron. Even still, JJ Wilcox looked reasonable in zone coverage for the first time in his career.
Jackson gets an incomplete because he's only been here for one year. A lot of his future grade will be dependent upon how Jeff Heath works out. Personally, I'm optimistic. Then we have Xavier Woods and Kavon Frazier. I suspect Frazier will be a special teams player which is alright for a 6th round pick. Woods will likely be the guy to have a chance to actually play safety.
Rich Bisaccia (Special Teams) - Here's a look at our rankings on special teams since Bisaccia has coached the club:
2013: 8th
2014: 13th
2015: 11th
2016: 10th
Here's where we were the 3 years prior:
2010: 15th
2011: 25th
2012: 15th
So, we've seen a little improvement and we are better than average on special teams.
Last year we struggled in the return game and that probably prompted us to get Switzer. I'm not sure how much to really blame Bisaccia as we lost Dwayne Harris and I thought Whitehead had the makings of a great returner, but lost his initial burst after the organization bulked up his frame.
Where we really excelled last year was with the FG kicking (Bailey, of course) and Punting. Chris Jones gets a lot of grief, but he's an excellent placeholder and while he doesn't have McBriar's leg, he is great at angling punts. In the end, I think he may be a more effective player for the Cowboys than McBriar was. If you don't believe me, then you go back and deal with the disaster field goal kicking we had.
Grade: C+
Mike Woicik (Strength and Conditioning) - Strength and conditioning coach is a tough job because you rarely get praise and injuries tend to move towards the mean over time. So if you stay healthy it's usually not for long as eventually players start to get injured and the S&C coach takes the blame.
My problem with Woicik is that we had the same type of injury (hamstring) and last year the back became the issue. The back and hamstring are intertwined and listening to DeMarcus Ware discuss his conditioning with the Broncos makes me think it's a problem with Woicik's training methods.
We also have issues with bulking up some players (i.e. Felix Jones, Lucky) as they tend to lose their explosiveness and can't quite turn speed into power like you would hope.
I think that S&C changes the most rapidly over time than any other part of the game. Researchers and technology finds ways to make athletes bigger and stronger and faster, but with that comes a higher risk for injuries, so S&C specialists need to be on top of how to handle the bigger athlete. I have to wonder how well Woicik is keeping up with the times when other teams don't seem to have nearly the non-contact injuries the Cowboys have and that when the team had Joe Juraszek as the S&C coach, this wasn't nearly the problem.
Grade: D
YR
