jday
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Once again over the course of this week and in the aftermath of the Cowboys complete and utter domination of the New York Giants, I have penned a number of contributions that I was unable to put the finishing touches on and as such have yet to see the light of day. As I have done before, in the following I provide you a catalog of unrelated topics that have been all simultaneously spinning around the toilet bowl that is my mind.
An Open Apology
About five or so years ago, in the offseason prior to the draft, I strongly believed the Cowboys should attempt to trade Jason Witten. My thinking was Jason wasn’t getting any better and, furthermore, it occurred to me that as a security blanket to Romo, he might be holding the Cowboys back due to his lack of overall athleticism and ability to stretch the field. It was my belief (at the time) that if the Cowboys could force Romo’s hand a little in distributing the ball to his playmakers as opposed to a guy whose best athletic days were behind him might just be addition by subtraction. In hindsight, however, I was unbelievably and completely wrong.
Here’s the problem with us fans; we underestimate the value a player brings to a team with his play off the field. As great a chain-mover Witten is, as awesome a sight it is to see a guy with few moves and very little (if any) speed, still figure out ways to get open, what he does for that locker room, what he does in the classroom, what he does in the film room, what he does on the practice field, what he does in life in general away from the team facilities, in my opinion, is the greatest contribution he makes to the Cowboys. You want (nay, need) that guy on an otherwise very young team.
Of the Cowboys 53 players, Witten is the only one who would not look out of place with a leather helmet on his head. Witten is our generation’s Mr. Cowboy. I make no bones about the following collection of names; they all belong in the same sentence: Bob Lilly, Roger Staubach, Randy White, Larry Allen, Mel Renfro, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Darren Woodson, Tony Romo, and Jason Witten (I’m sure there are more that are deserving, but these were the names that immediately came to mind). Jason embodies everything a football player should be: Hard worker, takes nothing for granted, cerebral, giving of his times to causes bigger than him and this game, consummate professional, does the dirty work, good to great at everything he is asked to do, succeeds at being the best version of himself every single day…and has done so for 14 years since being drafted in 2003.
Words spoken in this world more often than not are meaningless and without substance. They are worthless for most because it’s easy to say the right things. I’ve seen quite a few people in this world say a lot of right things and then follow their words up with all the wrong actions. When you witness that from a person, in that moment you realize that what they say going forward should absolutely have no value because they can talk a good game, but if they can’t execute that game, they quite simply are not worthy of being listened to. Period.
That’s what makes Witten worthy of our collective attention. What he says matters because he lives what he says and says what he lives. And that, my friend, is why I was 100% mistaken for suggesting the aforementioned trade and I sincerely apologize. I won’t say it won’t happen again as far as me being wrong, but I will say and continue to believe that Witten should absolutely remain a Cowboy until he is ready to retire, regardless of whether or not he physically falls off of a cliff or not; his presence means that much to the 52 other players on the team. After all, it’s one thing for a coach to tell young players how to be a professional, and quite another to have a player he can simply point to and say: “Whatever you do, do as Witten does and you will not just make it in this league; you will be a Super Star!”
RPO
For many, that collection of letters is a four-letter word…never mind that there is only three letters and it is not a word. That collection of letters stands for Run-Pass Option; a schematic approach that many view in the same light as the now antiquated Wildcat. The stereotypical argument against tends to sound something like, “It is a gimmick offense that has run its course in the league; defenses have figured it out and made the adjustments. The Cowboys don’t need gimmicks to win with the talent they have!” Those who believe this, however, in my opinion, are dead wrong and here’s why:
People believe RPO is dead partially because of Dak’s predecessors; specifically RGIII and Colin Kaepernick. They point to how those particular offenses went from surprising the league to surprisingly inept in their subsequent attempt to make the RPO a staple in professional football. By now, many of us understand that with defenses having an offseason to study tape and figure out ways to stop the Option league-wide and the RPO offenses doing little to diversify from what made them successful a year ago, the option for those particular teams failed them miserably the more they attempted to execute it.
But beyond their failure to properly prognosticate the adjustments defenses would make to shut them down, the predominant issue with the 49ers and Commanders respectively was more so about their signal caller they chose to run their new-fangled offense. RGIII and Colin Kaepernick never learned how to properly diagnose defenses presnap and never learned to get through more than two reads sitting in the pocket. If their first two reads weren’t open, there instincts told them to run and get what they could.
Once a defense is able to narrow down specifically what your offense can do and can’t do, all they have to do from there is take away what you can do, and watch as your offense flounders in the attempt to do what everyone already knows you can’t do. Make sense?
That phenomenon, however, in no way applies to our Cowboys. There is absolutely nothing that offenses do in today’s NFL that the Cowboys offense is not just capable of doing, but do it better than (at the very least) two-thirds of the league offenses. Furthermore, Dak is nowhere close to being a 2-read and go quarterback. He will go through his reads…as many as his offensive line will allow. He will look off the Safety. He will shoulder pump to one side and throw to the other to give his receiver that much more of an edge and chance to get to the ball before the defender. But perhaps the most compelling evidence that supports the Cowboys implementing RPO elements in their offense is the simple fact that the RPO, for the most part, is all Dak has done his entire career from Pop Warner all the way up to NFL. The only thing that has changed is in that time is Dak transitioned from being a run-first quarterback to being a pass-first quarterback.
Add to that the point that the Cowboys have perhaps the best possible run game to make RPO work, and it seems a bit silly to me that people would take issue with the use of what is otherwise described as a gimmick. I’m not saying the Cowboys should use it exclusively; far from it. I believe the Cowboys should take advantage of their versatility and implement small doses of everything they see working across the league. Why not? There are no task too big for that offensive line. There exist no concepts too complicated for Dak to process and execute.
Finally, in terms of skill positions, the Cowboys feature every conceivably type of talent: Need a guy with top-end speed? Terrance Williams and Bryce Butler absolutely can stretch the field? Need a guy who runs crisp routes, is always open and catches everything? Jason Witten, Cole Beasley, and (eventually) Ryan Switzer can do it all and do it better than most. Need a guy who can high point the ball in the redzone and win against tight coverage on 50/50 balls? Dez Bryant, Noel Brown and Rico Gathers will unquestionably go get that football, snatching it from the claws of would-be interceptors. Regardless of what you hope to accomplish offensively on a given play, the Cowboys have every conceivable tool in their toolbox to get that job done…and again, do it better than the vast majority of the league.
So again I ask you, why the hell not use RPO? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as they say. And the Cowboys use of the RPO is far from broke, as the Cowboys lone touchdown pass from Dak to Witten against the Giants Sunday nights should have already indicated.
Upon Further Review
In “Of Faulty Parachutes & Gas Stoves,” I took a cursory view at our next three opponents, pontificating why I believe the Cowboys will walk off into Sunday’s sunset at 2 & 0 on the 2017 season following their upcoming contest against the Broncos. In the following, I would like to briefly provide a little more detail in how I believe the Cowboys will accomplish that, as I have learned a little more about what the Broncos intend to do and, more importantly, what I believe they will absolutely struggle to do.
In “Broncos Head Coach Talks Cowboys,” I dropped a video yesterday of the well-spoken Vance Joseph providing a framework of his opening strategy against the Cowboys. Without delving into schematic specifics, he pointed out that the Broncos ultimate goal is to force Dak to win with his arm; the Broncos defense is at its best shutting down passing lanes, creating turnovers and getting after the quarterback, therefore, it stands to reason shutting down Zeke is line one of the Broncos gameplan. Mr. Joseph further admitted that is easier said than done and was also very complementary of our Dak Prescott stating he performs extremely well in the Cowboys system in an offensive side of the ball that is “built the right way.” Vance closed with the assertion that (paraphrasing), “The Cowboys are easy to scout…hard to stop, though!”
In other words, Vance wasn’t whistling Dixie when breaking down the Herculean effort it would require of his defense to sojourn the Cowboys offensive attack. A misnomer that even I fell victim to is that the Broncos have a great defense; that is not necessarily true…but let me finish. Actually, upon further review, in 2016 the Broncos had a great (elite even) pass defense, ranking #1 in the league, however, against the run the Broncos were one of the worst teams in the league ranking 28th and allowing over 2,000 yards on the season. For reference, Ezekiel Elliott just faced the 3rd ranked rush defense in the Giants from 2016 and still managed to put up 104 yards against 24 attempts and an average of 4.3 yards per tote. Feel free to take a moment to consider the implications of the Broncos now facing perhaps the best running attack in the league and salivate….I’ll wait.
Meanwhile, and not oft-discussed among national media circles (be it online, in print or televised) our beloved Cowboys ranked #1 in 2016 against the run, allowing only 1,336 yards over the course of the season, which is an average of 83.5 a game. So while I completely believe the Broncos offense will fare better than did the Giants against the Cowboys defense, make no mistake, it will not be by much because all the Cowboys run-defense did over the course of the offseason is get better, particularly with the addition of Jaylon Smith next to Sean Lee and Stephen Paea next to Maliek Collins. The Giants aren’t exactly a ground game juggernaut with that offensive line and lack of premier talent in the backfield, but holding them to 35 yards in a game where the Giants absolutely should have kept running the ball to give their defense a rest, suggest to me the Cowboys defense returns to the league stouter than ever against the run.
For me, that will be the difference in the game. He who holds and protects the ball more (particularly in the early going of the game) wins. While I cannot say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Cowboys will be successful in that endeavor, I can say with a very high degree of confidence that the Cowboys on paper are far more prepared to be successful in that objective than are the Broncos.
Wrap It Up
Touching briefly on two of the topics above, I think we can expect more RPO than what was used versus the Giants against the Broncos in the upcoming game. Reading further into Vance Joseph’s assertion that the Broncos must stop the run, and considering their lack of dogs up front to shut the Cowboys ground game down, the Broncos will be putting between 8 and 9 players in the box early. The Cowboys have demonstrated in the past, of course, that it doesn’t matter…they can still succeed regardless of what teams do to stop it. That said, and particularly once the Cowboys get within 15 yards of the endzone, an RPO that features Zeke moving hard inside for a run up the middle and Dak slipping the ball out of Zeke’s grasp at the last second to casually jog to the endzone from the backside, I expect is on this weekend’s offensive attack menu for the Cowboys viewing public.
I am reluctant to predict another dominating performance from our Cowboys against the Broncos. But based on my findings under Upon Further Review, it truly is hard for me to imagine that the Broncos will have more success in stopping the Cowboys ground attack than did the Giants. As I have intimated in previous contributions this week, the Broncos offense is better than the Giants, so I would say it’s a bit ambitious to expect the Cowboys to keep the Broncos from putting up points in return.
The lynch pin in this discussion is as follows: Dak doesn’t make mistakes and, despite the many positives we can ascertain from Trevor’s performance against the Chargers, he did throw an interception that almost led to the Chargers tying the game at the end. With that in mind, in my opinion, this game will be ultimately decided by the quarterback who makes the fewest amount of mistakes. The quarterback responsible for that feat will in turn be responsible for winning the game. Dak doesn’t make mistakes / Trevor does make mistakes. Cowboys win 31 to 17.
Thoughts?
An Open Apology
About five or so years ago, in the offseason prior to the draft, I strongly believed the Cowboys should attempt to trade Jason Witten. My thinking was Jason wasn’t getting any better and, furthermore, it occurred to me that as a security blanket to Romo, he might be holding the Cowboys back due to his lack of overall athleticism and ability to stretch the field. It was my belief (at the time) that if the Cowboys could force Romo’s hand a little in distributing the ball to his playmakers as opposed to a guy whose best athletic days were behind him might just be addition by subtraction. In hindsight, however, I was unbelievably and completely wrong.
Here’s the problem with us fans; we underestimate the value a player brings to a team with his play off the field. As great a chain-mover Witten is, as awesome a sight it is to see a guy with few moves and very little (if any) speed, still figure out ways to get open, what he does for that locker room, what he does in the classroom, what he does in the film room, what he does on the practice field, what he does in life in general away from the team facilities, in my opinion, is the greatest contribution he makes to the Cowboys. You want (nay, need) that guy on an otherwise very young team.
Of the Cowboys 53 players, Witten is the only one who would not look out of place with a leather helmet on his head. Witten is our generation’s Mr. Cowboy. I make no bones about the following collection of names; they all belong in the same sentence: Bob Lilly, Roger Staubach, Randy White, Larry Allen, Mel Renfro, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Darren Woodson, Tony Romo, and Jason Witten (I’m sure there are more that are deserving, but these were the names that immediately came to mind). Jason embodies everything a football player should be: Hard worker, takes nothing for granted, cerebral, giving of his times to causes bigger than him and this game, consummate professional, does the dirty work, good to great at everything he is asked to do, succeeds at being the best version of himself every single day…and has done so for 14 years since being drafted in 2003.
Words spoken in this world more often than not are meaningless and without substance. They are worthless for most because it’s easy to say the right things. I’ve seen quite a few people in this world say a lot of right things and then follow their words up with all the wrong actions. When you witness that from a person, in that moment you realize that what they say going forward should absolutely have no value because they can talk a good game, but if they can’t execute that game, they quite simply are not worthy of being listened to. Period.
That’s what makes Witten worthy of our collective attention. What he says matters because he lives what he says and says what he lives. And that, my friend, is why I was 100% mistaken for suggesting the aforementioned trade and I sincerely apologize. I won’t say it won’t happen again as far as me being wrong, but I will say and continue to believe that Witten should absolutely remain a Cowboy until he is ready to retire, regardless of whether or not he physically falls off of a cliff or not; his presence means that much to the 52 other players on the team. After all, it’s one thing for a coach to tell young players how to be a professional, and quite another to have a player he can simply point to and say: “Whatever you do, do as Witten does and you will not just make it in this league; you will be a Super Star!”
RPO
For many, that collection of letters is a four-letter word…never mind that there is only three letters and it is not a word. That collection of letters stands for Run-Pass Option; a schematic approach that many view in the same light as the now antiquated Wildcat. The stereotypical argument against tends to sound something like, “It is a gimmick offense that has run its course in the league; defenses have figured it out and made the adjustments. The Cowboys don’t need gimmicks to win with the talent they have!” Those who believe this, however, in my opinion, are dead wrong and here’s why:
People believe RPO is dead partially because of Dak’s predecessors; specifically RGIII and Colin Kaepernick. They point to how those particular offenses went from surprising the league to surprisingly inept in their subsequent attempt to make the RPO a staple in professional football. By now, many of us understand that with defenses having an offseason to study tape and figure out ways to stop the Option league-wide and the RPO offenses doing little to diversify from what made them successful a year ago, the option for those particular teams failed them miserably the more they attempted to execute it.
But beyond their failure to properly prognosticate the adjustments defenses would make to shut them down, the predominant issue with the 49ers and Commanders respectively was more so about their signal caller they chose to run their new-fangled offense. RGIII and Colin Kaepernick never learned how to properly diagnose defenses presnap and never learned to get through more than two reads sitting in the pocket. If their first two reads weren’t open, there instincts told them to run and get what they could.
Once a defense is able to narrow down specifically what your offense can do and can’t do, all they have to do from there is take away what you can do, and watch as your offense flounders in the attempt to do what everyone already knows you can’t do. Make sense?
That phenomenon, however, in no way applies to our Cowboys. There is absolutely nothing that offenses do in today’s NFL that the Cowboys offense is not just capable of doing, but do it better than (at the very least) two-thirds of the league offenses. Furthermore, Dak is nowhere close to being a 2-read and go quarterback. He will go through his reads…as many as his offensive line will allow. He will look off the Safety. He will shoulder pump to one side and throw to the other to give his receiver that much more of an edge and chance to get to the ball before the defender. But perhaps the most compelling evidence that supports the Cowboys implementing RPO elements in their offense is the simple fact that the RPO, for the most part, is all Dak has done his entire career from Pop Warner all the way up to NFL. The only thing that has changed is in that time is Dak transitioned from being a run-first quarterback to being a pass-first quarterback.
Add to that the point that the Cowboys have perhaps the best possible run game to make RPO work, and it seems a bit silly to me that people would take issue with the use of what is otherwise described as a gimmick. I’m not saying the Cowboys should use it exclusively; far from it. I believe the Cowboys should take advantage of their versatility and implement small doses of everything they see working across the league. Why not? There are no task too big for that offensive line. There exist no concepts too complicated for Dak to process and execute.
Finally, in terms of skill positions, the Cowboys feature every conceivably type of talent: Need a guy with top-end speed? Terrance Williams and Bryce Butler absolutely can stretch the field? Need a guy who runs crisp routes, is always open and catches everything? Jason Witten, Cole Beasley, and (eventually) Ryan Switzer can do it all and do it better than most. Need a guy who can high point the ball in the redzone and win against tight coverage on 50/50 balls? Dez Bryant, Noel Brown and Rico Gathers will unquestionably go get that football, snatching it from the claws of would-be interceptors. Regardless of what you hope to accomplish offensively on a given play, the Cowboys have every conceivable tool in their toolbox to get that job done…and again, do it better than the vast majority of the league.
So again I ask you, why the hell not use RPO? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as they say. And the Cowboys use of the RPO is far from broke, as the Cowboys lone touchdown pass from Dak to Witten against the Giants Sunday nights should have already indicated.
Upon Further Review
In “Of Faulty Parachutes & Gas Stoves,” I took a cursory view at our next three opponents, pontificating why I believe the Cowboys will walk off into Sunday’s sunset at 2 & 0 on the 2017 season following their upcoming contest against the Broncos. In the following, I would like to briefly provide a little more detail in how I believe the Cowboys will accomplish that, as I have learned a little more about what the Broncos intend to do and, more importantly, what I believe they will absolutely struggle to do.
In “Broncos Head Coach Talks Cowboys,” I dropped a video yesterday of the well-spoken Vance Joseph providing a framework of his opening strategy against the Cowboys. Without delving into schematic specifics, he pointed out that the Broncos ultimate goal is to force Dak to win with his arm; the Broncos defense is at its best shutting down passing lanes, creating turnovers and getting after the quarterback, therefore, it stands to reason shutting down Zeke is line one of the Broncos gameplan. Mr. Joseph further admitted that is easier said than done and was also very complementary of our Dak Prescott stating he performs extremely well in the Cowboys system in an offensive side of the ball that is “built the right way.” Vance closed with the assertion that (paraphrasing), “The Cowboys are easy to scout…hard to stop, though!”
In other words, Vance wasn’t whistling Dixie when breaking down the Herculean effort it would require of his defense to sojourn the Cowboys offensive attack. A misnomer that even I fell victim to is that the Broncos have a great defense; that is not necessarily true…but let me finish. Actually, upon further review, in 2016 the Broncos had a great (elite even) pass defense, ranking #1 in the league, however, against the run the Broncos were one of the worst teams in the league ranking 28th and allowing over 2,000 yards on the season. For reference, Ezekiel Elliott just faced the 3rd ranked rush defense in the Giants from 2016 and still managed to put up 104 yards against 24 attempts and an average of 4.3 yards per tote. Feel free to take a moment to consider the implications of the Broncos now facing perhaps the best running attack in the league and salivate….I’ll wait.
Meanwhile, and not oft-discussed among national media circles (be it online, in print or televised) our beloved Cowboys ranked #1 in 2016 against the run, allowing only 1,336 yards over the course of the season, which is an average of 83.5 a game. So while I completely believe the Broncos offense will fare better than did the Giants against the Cowboys defense, make no mistake, it will not be by much because all the Cowboys run-defense did over the course of the offseason is get better, particularly with the addition of Jaylon Smith next to Sean Lee and Stephen Paea next to Maliek Collins. The Giants aren’t exactly a ground game juggernaut with that offensive line and lack of premier talent in the backfield, but holding them to 35 yards in a game where the Giants absolutely should have kept running the ball to give their defense a rest, suggest to me the Cowboys defense returns to the league stouter than ever against the run.
For me, that will be the difference in the game. He who holds and protects the ball more (particularly in the early going of the game) wins. While I cannot say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Cowboys will be successful in that endeavor, I can say with a very high degree of confidence that the Cowboys on paper are far more prepared to be successful in that objective than are the Broncos.
Wrap It Up
Touching briefly on two of the topics above, I think we can expect more RPO than what was used versus the Giants against the Broncos in the upcoming game. Reading further into Vance Joseph’s assertion that the Broncos must stop the run, and considering their lack of dogs up front to shut the Cowboys ground game down, the Broncos will be putting between 8 and 9 players in the box early. The Cowboys have demonstrated in the past, of course, that it doesn’t matter…they can still succeed regardless of what teams do to stop it. That said, and particularly once the Cowboys get within 15 yards of the endzone, an RPO that features Zeke moving hard inside for a run up the middle and Dak slipping the ball out of Zeke’s grasp at the last second to casually jog to the endzone from the backside, I expect is on this weekend’s offensive attack menu for the Cowboys viewing public.
I am reluctant to predict another dominating performance from our Cowboys against the Broncos. But based on my findings under Upon Further Review, it truly is hard for me to imagine that the Broncos will have more success in stopping the Cowboys ground attack than did the Giants. As I have intimated in previous contributions this week, the Broncos offense is better than the Giants, so I would say it’s a bit ambitious to expect the Cowboys to keep the Broncos from putting up points in return.
The lynch pin in this discussion is as follows: Dak doesn’t make mistakes and, despite the many positives we can ascertain from Trevor’s performance against the Chargers, he did throw an interception that almost led to the Chargers tying the game at the end. With that in mind, in my opinion, this game will be ultimately decided by the quarterback who makes the fewest amount of mistakes. The quarterback responsible for that feat will in turn be responsible for winning the game. Dak doesn’t make mistakes / Trevor does make mistakes. Cowboys win 31 to 17.
Thoughts?
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-- I think he meant RPO in that Dak could run the pass play or audible to a run for Zeke!
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