Jeff Heath Finally Benched (update: injured with stitches)

[Runwildboys]

It's a little more than that. We've been cheaping out on safety for a long time. Heath is the face of that cheaping out.

Heath is the new Nick Hayden. A little more costly, but also a little better.

Lunch pail player who just keeps showing up and beating out all alternatives. He's been the best of low budget options. People are frustrated with the low budget, but mistakenly blame the best of the low budget players instead of the guys who won't crack open their wallet.

Though as for "best of ...", I'm not so sure anymore. In fact, I just don't think so.

Thompson yields the lowest QB rating when thrown on of all the DBs. Played two games with significant snaps. Miami and NYG. 31-6. 37-18.

Meanwhile, Heath yields the highest QB rating when thrown on.

It's next to impossible to get real apples to oranges comparisons, but Thompson passes the results test. He's not getting beat. He's not a problem.

I've been defending Heath playing for years, but I'm for giving a lot of Heath's defensive snaps to Thompson this week, and seeing what happens.

The Giants and Dolphins probably aren't the best measuring sticks by which to judge the play of a safety.

 

[Runwildboys]

Heath had AD stopped cold on that play until a Viking player caught AD from being slammed down and then pushed him into the end zone. Heath didn’t ride AD into the end zone. You can hate Heath all you want but could you at least be honest and not embellish?

That was about the worst example someone could use discredit Heath.

 

[408Cowboy]

Don’t bother. Remember the Parnell arguments?

Enlighten me

 

[xwalker]

It's a little more than that. We've been cheaping out on safety for a long time. Heath is the face of that cheaping out.

Heath is the new Nick Hayden. A little more costly, but also a little better.

Lunch pail player who just keeps showing up and beating out all alternatives. He's been the best of low budget options. People are frustrated with the low budget, but mistakenly blame the best of the low budget players instead of the guys who won't crack open their wallet.

Though as for "best of ...", I'm not so sure anymore. In fact, I just don't think so.

Thompson yields the lowest QB rating when thrown on of all the DBs. Played two games with significant snaps. Miami and NYG. 31-6. 37-18.

Meanwhile, Heath yields the highest QB rating when thrown on.

It's next to impossible to get real apples to oranges comparisons, but Thompson passes the results test. He's not getting beat. He's not a problem.

I've been defending Heath playing for years, but I'm for giving a lot of Heath's defensive snaps to Thompson this week, and seeing what happens.

If those are PFF stats, then they're meaningless.

They played primarily 2-deep with Thompson. They played primarily single high with Heath in the game. I think that was because of 1st half vs 2nd half with a lead, but it put Thompson in a completely different situation from a pass defense perspective than Heath had been in.

During this off-season I posted several times about Thompson as a player that might have something. I was probably his top "fan" at CZ during the off-season. He had started 16 games at FS for the Giants in 2017 and was not terrible but looked like his limitations in coverage could be rectified by moving him to Strong Safety. He has the size at 6-2, 215 for SS. Unfortunately, the preseason games showed that he probably wouldn't be a good fit at SS. His tackling was mediocre at best.

The coaches put Heath in difficult situations. Heath was in an impossible situation in the game where Awuzie fell down and allowed the 92 yard TD pass. They had Heath over the top on the side with 2 WRs and nobody covered the slot WR forcing Heath to stay over the top of the slot WR. Heath was going to transition towards Awuzie's side about 5 yards earlier but when he saw that literally nobody was covering the slot WR, he turned back to continue in his back-peddle. I think the coaches are over-reliant on Heath's speed. I don't think they would put Thompson is those situations because they know he has limited range.

Somebody posted a video of the Giant QB running on the left and claimed that Heath was at fault.

On the first defensive snap by Thompson, the QB Jones had a similar play running to the left and Thompson was in position to have stopped him, but Thompson had started running downfield after Jones had started rolling out. There was nobody within 15 yards that Thompson could cover. I have no idea what he was doing.

People that hate Heath obviously don't study game footage or the coaches film. When I'm studying other Cowboys defensive players, it's surprising how often Heath shows up making a good play.

The unfortunate issue is that it's impossible to have a legit discussion here about players like Heath because people that have never reviewed 1 minute of game footage constantly whine and post "he sux".

A couple of people have posted their theory that Heath lacks lateral agility. That might be true to an extent but I don't think it is a big problem for him.

My theory is that Heath has a peripheral vision issue. There was that play in a recent game where he collided with a WR or TE and appeared to almost knock himself out. There was the play earlier in the season where he was watching the WR and the ball hit Heath in the side of the face-mask. There have been a least 2 other plays where he almost collided with a WR/TE. He has been relatively good a getting INTs over his career which indicates his primary vision must be OK, but I really think he has a peripheral vision issue.

It was very obvious in the Giants game that the Cowboys game plan was to over-focus on stopping Barkley in the first half. That is why Jones had some success running the ball. It's a common defensive game plan against a RB like Barkley. Stop the run in the 1st half then focus on the pass in the 2nd half, especially if leading on the scoreboard.

I would love to see an upgrade to Heath at SS. I see Derwin James as the prototype of a modern SS. He had 3 INTs and 105 tackles in 2018.

The problem is that most NFL teams won't draft a Strong Safety with a top 20 pick. The Cowboys are not alone in that regard.

I'm not certain that I see the infatuation that some people have with Jamal Adams. Obviously he would be an upgrade, but for a 1st round pick (or more) I would want a SS that has elite coverage ability and I just don't see that with Adams. He has 2 career INTs. For a 2nd round pick, I would have been ecstatic to make that trade.

The bottom line is that Heath is better than many players that have played Safety for the Cowboys like Pat Watkins, etc.. Heath is better than J.J.Wilcox and I was a fan of Wilcox as a draft pick. He had really good physical ability to both play the run and cover but he never had any consistency from the mental aspect of playing Safety. Fans loved Barry Church but the defensive coaches had to really work to hide him in coverage because he had no range whatsoever. He put a strain on other players to compensate for his lack of range in coverage.

The Cowboys primary problems on defense during the losing streak and in the playoff game against the Rams was NOT the Safeties. The root of the problems were the DLine scheme. They tried to compensate for the DL and front 7 issues against the run by taking risk in coverage which resulted in coverage players being put into difficult situations.

In the Eagles game they finally made some adjustments to the DL scheme/assignments and were able to go back to their preferred method of playing coverage. I posted before that my theory is that Kris Richard finally took complete control of the defense including the DL scheme/assignments.

The DL scheme/assignments change continued in the Giants game. Instead of repeated putting Awuzie into situations with no help or forcing a LB to cover a pass catching TE all the way down field, they just sacrificed defending QB runs in order to over-focus on stopping Barkley.

 

[xwalker]

Heath had AD stopped cold on that play until a Viking player caught AD from being slammed down and then pushed him into the end zone. Heath didn’t ride AD into the end zone. You can hate Heath all you want but could you at least be honest and not embellish?

That was about the worst example someone could use discredit Heath.

Heath did a great job on his part of that play. He had Peterson stopped which is a huge accomplishment for any Safety in that situation.

Technically it is against the rules for other offensive players to push the ball carrier into the endzone but they rarely call it.

 

[xwalker]

Orrrrrr just nonstop evidence of Heath's underperformance?

Potato, potato.

Cowboys almost gave up a first round pick plus to replace him a week ago, but you're probably right, he's not an issue.

"Almost"

If you pay attention, when the Cowboys actually make trades in recent years, it tends to just happen (Bennett, Cooper).

When there is significant media cover (Earl Thomas, Adams) the trades don't seem to happen.

I don't think the Cowboys were ever close to trading for Earl Thomas or Adams. Sometimes the Jones boys just like the media coverage.

 

[xwalker]

Don’t bother. Remember the Parnell arguments?

I was proven correct on the Parnell / Free subject.

They had the choice to re-sign either Free or Parnell.

They re-signed Free and saved about 1.5M per year but he gave up 9 sacks in 2016 and then "retired".

Parnell was one of the free agents that allowed Jacksonville to finally make it to the AFC Championship game and came close to defeating the Pats after many years of Jacksonville being a laughingstock.

If the Cowboys had kept Parnell instead of Free, they could have moved him to LT instead of putting Chaz Green at LT. Parnell had been good when he played some games at LT for the Cowboys. Free had been a disaster when they played him at LT.

Some moron will likely post "but Jax cut Parnell his year...".

Jacksonville cut Malik Jackson, Carlos Hyde, Tashaun Gipson and Parnell back in the Spring of this year.

Parnell ended 2018 on IR and could not pass a physical in the Spring. He was already 33 anyway.

 

[phildadon86]

I was proven correct on the Parnell / Free subject.

They had the choice to re-sign either Free or Parnell.

They re-signed Free and saved about 1.5M per year but he gave up 9 sacks in 2016 and then "retired".

Parnell was one of the free agents that allowed Jacksonville to finally make it to the AFC Championship game and came close to defeating the Pats after many years of Jacksonville being a laughingstock.

If the Cowboys had kept Parnell instead of Free, they could have moved him to LT instead of putting Chaz Green at LT. Parnell had been good when he played some games at LT for the Cowboys. Free had been a disaster when they played him at LT.

Some moron will likely post "but Jax cut Parnell his year...".

Jacksonville cut Malik Jackson, Carlos Hyde, Tashaun Gipson and Parnell back in the Spring of this year.

Parnell ended 2018 on IR and could not pass a physical in the Spring. He was already 33 anyway.

And we wouldn’t have La’el Collins. Who’s better? Lol

 

[Sydla]

Average to below average is not the same as "sux", and it doesn't merit the complaints Heath gets.

Hate management for not bringing in better players, not the players who've given us the best play of the guys they've brought in.

Actually an average to below average starting safety should see a lot of criticism.

This whole logic that we can’t criticize average to below average players because it’s not their fault is idiotic.

 

[Sydla]

"Almost"

If you pay attention, when the Cowboys actually make trades in recent years, it tends to just happen (Bennett, Cooper).

When there is significant media cover (Earl Thomas, Adams) the trades don't seem to happen.

I don't think the Cowboys were ever close to trading for Earl Thomas or Adams. Sometimes the Jones boys just like the media coverage.

LOL.

So now we really didn’t want to trade for Adams?

 

[xwalker]

And we wouldn’t have La’el Collins. Who’s better? Lol

• Why wouldn't the Cowboys have La'el Collins?
  • The Cowboys initial plan was to play Collins at OG.
  • They could have had Collins at OG in 2018 instead of a rookie.
  • Collins could have moved to RT in 2019 when Parnell retired.
  • The Chaz Green at LT game could have been Parnell at LT, Collins at RT.
• Parnell started 7 games for the 2014 season including both playoff games.
  • He allowed a total of 1 sack.
  • He was a dominant run blocker.

 

[xwalker]

LOL.

So now we really didn’t want to trade for Adams?

Cowboys: We're interested in trading for Adams.

Jets: We need 2 firsts or a first and 2 seconds.

Cowboys: OK. Have a nice day.


The Cowboys inquired about a player.
- I'm certain that they've inquired about multiple players this season.
- That is not an indicator that they were desperate to get a Safety.

 

[xwalker]

LOL.

So now we really didn’t want to trade for Adams?

You are straw-manning.

They would not call if they were not interested.

 

[Bleu Star]

The obligatory "I hate heath" thread. haha.

Who?

 

[KingintheNorth]

I don't think the Cowboys were ever close to trading for Earl Thomas or Adams. Sometimes the Jones boys just like the media coverage.

Wow. I knew you liked selective data but that's next level head-in-the-sand.

 

[Beaker42]

Heath did a great job on his part of that play. He had Peterson stopped which is a huge accomplishment for any Safety in that situation.

Technically it is against the rules for other offensive players to push the ball carrier into the endzone but they rarely call it.

All of the above is correct but doesn’t change the fact that our D played much better last week when he was stitched to the bench. I just threw that in because I really don’t care for him as anything more than ST play. He really should’ve had AD on the ground before anybody else got there. In a perfect world Heath would’ve been a LB’er and not a safety.

 

[Beaker42]

Wow. I knew you liked selective data but that's next level head-in-the-sand.

Truth is probably somewhere in the middle but closer to your end.

 

[Beaker42]

Heath had AD stopped cold on that play until a Viking player caught AD from being slammed down and then pushed him into the end zone. Heath didn’t ride AD into the end zone. You can hate Heath all you want but could you at least be honest and not embellish?

He should’ve had him down. Period. I knew he was going to be no more than average from that point on. Hey Jeff - Goff’s still running.

 

[Beaker42]

That was about the worst example someone could use discredit Heath.

Has he ever been more than meh? No.

 

[Aviano90]

He should’ve had him down. Period. I knew he was going to be no more than average from that point on. Hey Jeff - Goff’s still running.

You go, Nostradamus! Bold prediction you made there.