Lawrence could star for Cowboys

[Mansta54]

The kid is gonna be special under Marinelli.

 

[jobberone]

We gave up 10 INTs and fumbles and had 28 takeaways.

 

[adbutcher]

The kid is gonna be special under Marinelli.

Indeed and I will be in the I told you so crew.

 

[SportsGuru80]

He's going to have 8 or 9 sacks this year as a rookie which will be very respectable.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

He's going to have 8 or 9 sacks this year as a rookie which will be very respectable.

If he gets 6, I'll be impressed.

 

[Hoofbite]

I keep hearing the defense was the worst in the league in Total Defense and we were close to that. I've seen a lot of fancy stats but we were near the bottom period. We were 26th in points. How we managed that giving up about 410 yds a game is astounding IMO.

I still think we'll finish somewhere around 20 give or take 4-5 positions. It's crowded in the middle any way so TOs make a huge difference in how a team finishes in stats.

NFL.com (and likely others) default ranks by yardage and I doubt many people look beyond what pops up first.

I'm not sure why they do that. I guess maybe yardage is directly attributable to the defense where points can be scored when the defense is on the sideline.

Points-wise Dallas raked 26th but I'd wager a few teams behind Dallas had more points scored where the defense wasn't on the field. Did Dallas have any scores against them through Special Teams and offensive turnovers?

 

[BigStar]

We gave up 10 INTs and fumbles and had 28 takeaways.

Yikes, didn't realize how efficient our plus/minus ratio was in that regard. Plus 18 is insane and only resulted in 8-8. I still feel the team can surpass that record (8-8) but didn't realize how much help the D was already receiving in terms of being put in a good position (field position/limited scoring opportunities off TOs for opponents).

I still feel the team can follow the NO/GB model as stressed throughout the 2013 season. My clinging hope in 2013 was that JG would come to this realization (yeah, I know) and look to this offensive game plan by relying less on Witten and running the offense almost exclusively through Dez and Murray. This is where the calling for more motion, stack formations, pick routes, and using Dez in the slot amongst frustrated Garret critics stemmed from.

Witten would still get his looks, just not at the same frequency considering the team doesn't seem to send him down the seam much at all anymore. Witten has clear value but the Romo-Witten connection wasn't resulting in a winning method. So instead of simply blaming the obvious deficiencies on D for the lack of wins, why not change some aspects of the O instead of continually banging your head against the wall and expect it to eventually stop hurting.

Our only chance was to have a dynamic offense (dictate instead of always taking what is given) that could milk the clock to run out games after gaining early leads through big plays and scores. This seems to be the mantra stated to garner hope for the 2014 season. I was one of the bigger supporters to part ways with Ware for this very reason. He was not going to lift the D to anything special on his own considering the lack of talent across the board (don't blame him specifically of course) and would not benefit the team in any different regard to have in remain next season looking towards 2015 (when the D may become formidable again). The team would still have to rely on the formula above for success and a playoff shot, with or without him, so better to gut it and rebuild the D from the ground up with as much cap room freed up for the future as possible to assist.

 

[waving monkey]

He's going to have 8 or 9 sacks this year as a rookie which will be very respectable.

He's going to have 8 or 9 sacks this year as a rookie which will be very respectable.

That's what Ware got has rookie season @ the 11th slot
I'd be fine with 5 or 6 his rookie season. what will be his hurries?

 

[Fredd]

We gave up 10 INTs and fumbles and had 28 takeaways.

wait, romo had 10 ints and orton had two, right? that's 12 right there not counting any fumbles...

 

[Bullflop]

Granted, Lawrence acquitted himself well in the OTAs recently but it means little in terms of what lies ahead of him in the future. He'll be obliged to prove himself on the field of play when it really counts, just like DeMarcus did and everyone else who's had to come before him. There's surely no automatic entitlement to acclaim here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm hoping he proves himself to be the cat's meow but until then, it's a waiting game and little more than that until such time as he demonstrates he's for real. The fact that the Cowboys gave up a pick to get him means little or nothing if he doesn't prove worthy of the organization taking that risk. Here's hoping he does just that.

 

[BIGDen]

He's going to have 8 or 9 sacks this year as a rookie which will be very respectable.

I know it's a lot for a rookie, but I also can see him getting about 8 sacks (as well as making some disruptive plays like forced fumbles/tipped passes/QB hurries). If he gets less than 6 sacks I'll be somewhat disappointed unless he has quite a few other impactful plays.

 

[jobberone]

NFL.com (and likely others) default ranks by yardage and I doubt many people look beyond what pops up first.

I'm not sure why they do that. I guess maybe yardage is directly attributable to the defense where points can be scored when the defense is on the sideline.

Points-wise Dallas raked 26th but I'd wager a few teams behind Dallas had more points scored where the defense wasn't on the field. Did Dallas have any scores against them through Special Teams and offensive turnovers?

Last year we allowed only one score a 23 yard scoop and run by the Raiders on TDay. Generally we give up 2-4 scores per year. I think this STs and coach will do well again this year. It will be hard for the offense to do as well.

We scored 6 cheapies last year with one pick six, 2 punt returns, and 3 fumble recoveries for a score.

We gave up 12 INTs (Romo had 10) and 8 fumbles. Only one fumble was returned against us mentioned above. We had a league leading fumble recovery rate of 67%+. We fumbled 18 times and recovered 10 of them! Our opponents fumbled 16 times and we recovered 13 of them!!! which is 81%. So last year the defense gave us some very good opportunities. No doubt about it.

We gave up over 6000 yds worst in the league and 432 pts which was 26th. So the defense will be hard pressed to rate the same this year. You can say they were worse than their points allowed. I'll just say we were awful.

Our SoS was .480 which was the 8th easiest in the league. SRS: Total -0.7, Offense: 2.7, Defense: -3.4, SoS: -1.1, with the average 0.0.

 

[jobberone]

Yikes, didn't realize how efficient our plus/minus ratio was in that regard. Plus 18 is insane and only resulted in 8-8. I still feel the team can surpass that record (8-8) but didn't realize how much help the D was already receiving in terms of being put in a good position (field position/limited scoring opportunities off TOs for opponents).

I still feel the team can follow the NO/GB model as stressed throughout the 2013 season. My clinging hope in 2013 was that JG would come to this realization (yeah, I know) and look to this offensive game plan by relying less on Witten and running the offense almost exclusively through Dez and Murray. This is where the calling for more motion, stack formations, pick routes, and using Dez in the slot amongst frustrated Garret critics stemmed from.

Witten would still get his looks, just not at the same frequency considering the team doesn't seem to send him down the seam much at all anymore. Witten has clear value but the Romo-Witten connection wasn't resulting in a winning method. So instead of simply blaming the obvious deficiencies on D for the lack of wins, why not change some aspects of the O instead of continually banging your head against the wall and expect it to eventually stop hurting.

Our only chance was to have a dynamic offense (dictate instead of always taking what is given) that could milk the clock to run out games after gaining early leads through big plays and scores. This seems to be the mantra stated to garner hope for the 2014 season. I was one of the bigger supporters to part ways with Ware for this very reason. He was not going to lift the D to anything special on his own considering the lack of talent across the board (don't blame him specifically of course) and would not benefit the team in any different regard to have in remain next season looking towards 2015 (when the D may become formidable again). The team would still have to rely on the formula above for success and a playoff shot, with or without him, so better to gut it and rebuild the D from the ground up with as much cap room freed up for the future as possible to assist.

We were +8 in TO diff not 18. Romo had 10 INTs but Orten had 2 so we had 12 INTs (my bad-I just was doing Romo) and we lost 8 fumbles for a total TO 20. We had 28 takeaways. I should have written that better to avoid confusion. See above.

 

[burmafrd]

We were 9th in the NFL in positive take away margin. It is going to be hard to beat that by much. We had a lot of takeaway's on D that is unusual. So frankly that makes the D look worse - and more likely to be worse in those areas this year then better; or at least markedly better.

 

[Hoofbite]

Last year we allowed only one score a 23 yard scoop and run by the Raiders on TDay. Generally we give up 2-4 scores per year. I think this STs and coach will do well again this year. It will be hard for the offense to do as well.

We scored 6 cheapies last year with one pick six, 2 punt returns, and 3 fumble recoveries for a score.

We gave up 12 INTs (Romo had 10) and 8 fumbles. Only one fumble was returned against us mentioned above. We had a league leading fumble recovery rate of 67%+. We fumbled 18 times and recovered 10 of them! Our opponents fumbled 16 times and we recovered 13 of them!!! which is 81%. So last year the defense gave us some very good opportunities. No doubt about it.

We gave up over 6000 yds worst in the league and 432 pts which was 26th. So the defense will be hard pressed to rate the same this year. You can say they were worse than their points allowed. I'll just say we were awful.

Our SoS was .480 which was the 8th easiest in the league. SRS: Total -0.7, Offense: 2.7, Defense: -3.4, SoS: -1.1, with the average 0.0.

I was just pointing out that the reason people say Dallas was the worst may be because of how teams are ranked by default on reputable websites, which is according to yardage.

I only included the points part because I'm not sure why some sites like NFL.com and ESPN rank by yardage while other sites such as PFR rank by points.

Then again, it's certainly possible that those who say Dallas was the worst on defense are in fact looking at both, and may be accounting for scores against a team that are not attributable to the defense. The combination of which may result in Dallas being the worst.

I don't know where other teams sit after looking at such points but I hard a hard time coming up with many for Dallas. Would be interesting to see how it played out. May take a look a little later.

 

[BigStar]

We were +8 in TO diff not 18. Romo had 10 INTs but Orten had 2 so we had 12 INTs (my bad-I just was doing Romo) and we lost 8 fumbles for a total TO 20. We had 28 takeaways. I should have written that better to avoid confusion. See above.

Thanks for the clarification. So the D was helped, but not to the extreme extent I had believed (what does that say about me that I just took that as fact). There's nothing that should prevent this same kind of positive ratio in 14 but admittedly Lee was a TO machine that contributed to that ratio while he was healthy (DET). Maybe our secondary can start contributing more in this regard (long over due).

 

[jobberone]

I was just pointing out that the reason people say Dallas was the worst may be because of how teams are ranked by default on reputable websites, which is according to yardage.

I only included the points part because I'm not sure why some sites like NFL.com and ESPN rank by yardage while other sites such as PFR rank by points.

Then again, it's certainly possible that those who say Dallas was the worst on defense are in fact looking at both, and may be accounting for scores against a team that are not attributable to the defense. The combination of which may result in Dallas being the worst.

I don't know where other teams sit after looking at such points but I hard a hard time coming up with many for Dallas. Would be interesting to see how it played out. May take a look a little later.

There is no doubt that we generated +points with the TO diff. We had 5 scores by cheapies last year. Also, we aren't likely to recover 81% of our opponents fumbles this year. We might decrease our INTs this year although it will likely be better by about one every other game at best. Also, we only lost 8 fumbles so that may increase this year. The low number may be a result of low #s of run snaps.

We average giving 4-5 cheapies a year with only one last year. That's likely to go up to average. So last year we got five and we only gave up one. But we found other ways for teams to score frequently and in a very timely fashion.

So the defense will have to get more pressure and increase its #s of INTs and hopefully we can win the my pass defense is better than your pass defense thingy.

It's hard to find the hidden yardage given and taken and the easy scores but its out there.

 

[jobberone]

Thanks for the clarification. So the D was helped, but not to the extreme extent I had believed (what does that say about me that I just took that as fact). There's nothing that should prevent this same kind of positive ratio in 14 but admittedly Lee was a TO machine that contributed to that ratio while he was healthy (DET). Maybe our secondary can start contributing more in this regard (long over due).

It says nothing about you but mostly about my poor communication in that post. Rereading it showed it was easy to misinterpret that.

Lee only played in about 8 games looking at snaps on average although he played in more.

 

[Doc50]

We were 9th in the NFL in positive take away margin. It is going to be hard to beat that by much. We had a lot of takeaway's on D that is unusual. So frankly that makes the D look worse - and more likely to be worse in those areas this year then better; or at least markedly better.

That's a lot of TO's considering our relative lack of pressure. Therefore even without Lee, we might expect to see more this year with our expected improvement in DL play.

 

[guag]

I keep hearing the defense was the worst in the league in Total Defense and we were close to that. I've seen a lot of fancy stats but we were near the bottom period. We were 26th in points. How we managed that giving up about 410 yds a game is astounding IMO.

I think the amount of turnovers we forced on D attributed to that. I can only imagine how many points we'd have given up if it wasn't for turnovers.

Actually, I'm reading the rest of the thread after this post and it looks like the TO thing was addressed