Manhandled?? Game Stats:

[Dale]

My concerns:

1) Carelessness with the ball. Three interceptions will often lose any game (well, technically, not in this case).

2) Running game. It's been anemic in three of the four preseason games.

3) Skyler Green. I really wanted this kid to be good. The good news? Tyson Thompson has learned how to put some moves on people and looked electric on kick returns.

4) The running game. Just in case No. 2 was ignored.

5) Vanderjagt. Vanderjagt. Vanderjagt. He's looked bad in practice and now in the games. I somewhat believe that he can turn it around when the real season starts, but I remain skeptical until I see it. I don't want to cut him because I think we'll regret that. But I am worried.

Things I liked....

1) Ware looked good. Several "almost" sacks.

2) The backup receivers and passing game in general dominated other than the three costly interceptions.

3) McBriar looked great.

4) While the offensive line concerns me, I actually liked Bledsoe's ability to avoid the rush at times. He didn't just sit there. It seems like he took a little page out of Romo's book in this regard.

 

[silverbear]

we still registered wayyy less than 4 YPC...thats ridiculous. and most of those yards came when the first string DTs were out for Minn i would assume

Let's face it, whenever we play a decent to good rush defense, we're not gonna get a whole lot on the ground...

That's OK, I believe an effective passing game combined with a stout defense spells playoff contender...

 

[silverbear]

the only stats that matter to me are turnovers and field position. I still cant believe our defense let that Minn. offense go 98 yards to score that first TD. Thats what was most shocking tonight.

They hit two plays back to back... from what I heard on the radio, the first (the 40 yard completion) came when Henry had good coverage, but the ball was just thrown perfectly...

But other than those two plays, the Vikings gained 93 yards on 23 plays in the first half... and even with those two plays, they scored 7 points...

The Cowboys have given up 27 points in 4 ball games now... that's an average of under 7 points per game...

As for the turnover issue, we really ought to remember that our opponents haven't really had the ball that much this preseason... the Cowboys have dominated the time of possession in all 4 games; in this game, they held the ball 43 minutes, to the Vikings' 32 minutes...

 

[silverbear]

Take the silver and blue colored glasses off. What was the rushing yardage when the Vikes had their starters in? I'm guessing it wasn't much. The o-line was b-a-d.

They stunk in the running game, but were actually pretty good when it came to pass blocking... 60 pass plays were called in the game, with zero sacks allowed, only one hurry, and our QBs scrambled (if that word can be applied to Bledsoe, LOL) 4 times... that's 5 times the QBs felt heat, in 60 pass attempts...

That's actually pretty good...

 

[silverbear]

Unfortunately the subs sometimes looked better than the starters.

I actually see that as a GOOD thing... our backups have dominated the opponents' backups all preseason... this tells us our depth is better than most teams'... that might come in handy as the season progresses...

 

[silverbear]

Now to be fair... the first quarter the Vikes had 8 men in the box just about every time we ran the ball.

We started passing, and the game opened up. That's why we got our running game going.

A very, very astute observation...

I'd like to see the Boys open the season throwing the ball all over the place, an Air Parcells, if you will... put it in the air 50 times against the Jags... after a game or two or three, the running game is liable to come much easier...

 

[silverbear]

An interesting stat this preason - 136 pass attempts - 3 sacks. Even with Romo's ability to avoid the rush, this aspect of the OL seems much improved.

A good point, let's expand on it a little bit...

136 attempts...

3 sacks...

3 quarterback hurries...

11 carries by the quarterbacks... I can't recall if all of those carries were on scrambles, or if the Boys called a QB sneak or two along the way, but let's assume for the purposes of this discussion all of them were scrambles...

That means in 147 called pass plays, Cowboys quarterbacks were under pressure all of 17 times... that's very, very good...

Almost as good as allowing under 7 points per game defensively... :grin2:

 

[jrumann59]

Personally I think the line's problem is the center, Gurode is dee dee dee, and he always seems to screw up the snap and this time it got Bledsoe rung up, and if it wasn't for romo we would have had a huge lose. Johnson is weak. Now the question is would you rather have a dumb bulldozer who can't make line calls, or a smallish center that is smart and can make the right line calls but occassionally gets blown up by bigger defenders? Oh how I wish for the days of stepnoski.

 

[jbsg02]

most of the rushing yard were tyson thompson against the 3rd stringers

 

[stag hunter]

Norm Hitzges doesn't know anything about football, that's probably because Poland plays futbol.

Dallas QB's: 39/56 for 418 Yards 1td and 3 int
Minn QB's: 19/30 for 235 Yards for 1td and 0 int

Dallas RB's: 31 attempts for 103 Yards
Minn RB's: 29 attempts for 86 Yards

Dallas defense registered: 3.0 Sacks (few blitz's)
Minn defense registered: 0 Sacks (several Blitz's)

If not for the turnovers and missed fg's, this game is more like 24-10. I wouldn't panick yet, except for the fg's.

I guess you didn't watch the first half of the game. Looking at NFL.com's gamebook is not a good way to judge a team's preseason performance.

Our o-line got dominated up front today when it counted (with the 1st stringers in) and that should eclipse two misses by a hurt, rusty Vanderjagt in terms of cause for concern for Dallas fans, IMO. Our running game will struggle immensely this year against teams with any semblence of a competent front 4.

 

[TheEnigma]

They hit two plays back to back... from what I heard on the radio, the first (the 40 yard completion) came when Henry had good coverage, but the ball was just thrown perfectly...

Now I'm not saying that we should cut him because of it, but Henry actually didn't have good coverage on that play. The wide reciever had him beat by about two steps.

 

[Rack]

Norm Hitzges doesn't know anything about football, that's probably because Poland plays futbol.

Dallas QB's: 39/56 for 418 Yards 1td and 3 int
Minn QB's: 19/30 for 235 Yards for 1td and 0 int

Dallas RB's: 31 attempts for 103 Yards
Minn RB's: 29 attempts for 86 Yards

Dallas defense registered: 3.0 Sacks (few blitz's)
Minn defense registered: 0 Sacks (several Blitz's)

If not for the turnovers and missed fg's, this game is more like 24-10. I wouldn't panick yet, except for the fg's.

Show me JUST the first half stats.

 

[AdamJT13]

Show me JUST the first half stats.

FIRST DOWNS
Dallas 11, Minnesota 9

TOTAL YARDS
Dallas 162, Minnesota 157

RUSHING
Dallas 12-12, Minnesota 12-22

PASSING
Dallas 15-20-1-150, Minnesota 11-13-0-135

PENALTIES
Dallas 3-35, Minnesota 3-33

The stats look pretty even to me.

 

[THUMPER]

Wow, someone else knows who Ed Sprinkle was! That dude was one of the toughest, meanest guys to ever lace on a pair of cleats. Some of his hits make Roy Williams' look like a little girl's. No facemasks back then meant a lot of broken noses and lost teeth.

He's a great interview too if you ever get a chance to see any with him from NFL Films.

The Bears were called the "Monsters of the Midway" for a reason back then.

 

[silverbear]

FIRST DOWNS
Dallas 11, Minnesota 9

TOTAL YARDS
Dallas 162, Minnesota 157

RUSHING
Dallas 12-12, Minnesota 12-22

PASSING
Dallas 15-20-1-150, Minnesota 11-13-0-135

PENALTIES
Dallas 3-35, Minnesota 3-33

The stats look pretty even to me.

Here's hoping you have better luck gettin' the Chicken Littles to listen to you than I did when I advanced the same argument, Adam...

Obviously, those numbers do not reflect a "manhandling" of the Cowboys by the Vikings...

Now, the run blocking, that WAS pretty much manhandled... but that was the only aspect of their first half play you could say that about...

Especially when you consider that the Vikings hit two plays back to back that amounted to 64 yards of their offensive total...

 

[Rack]

FIRST DOWNS
Dallas 11, Minnesota 9

TOTAL YARDS
Dallas 162, Minnesota 157

RUSHING
Dallas 12-12, Minnesota 12-22

PASSING
Dallas 15-20-1-150, Minnesota 11-13-0-135

PENALTIES
Dallas 3-35, Minnesota 3-33

The stats look pretty even to me.

Class case of "Stats Lie".

How many of our rushing yards are from our RBs?

 

[Rack]

Here's hoping you have better luck gettin' the Chicken Littles to listen to you than I did when I advanced the same argument, Adam...

Obviously, those numbers do not reflect a "manhandling" of the Cowboys by the Vikings...

Now, the run blocking, that WAS pretty much manhandled... but that was the only aspect of their first half play you could say that about...

Especially when you consider that the Vikings hit two plays back to back that amounted to 64 yards of their offensive total...

What "chicken littles" are you referring to? I didn't see any posters predicting doom for us. I've seen plenty of posters point out the obvious, that Minnesota kicked our butts up front.

The only thing I'm really concerned about is Vanderdrunk. He's been kicking crappy all summer and now he misses two chip shots in OT? Don't give me that "it's only a preseason game" crap either. He WANTED to make those kicks but missed.

I think he's still stuck in the Pittsburgh game.


As far as the rest, like our rushing numbers, that's the kind of production I expect us to put up pretty often this season. We don't have good RBs and our run blocking is average on a good day. I think our numbers would improve if Barber were starting though.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

What "chicken littles" are you referring to? I didn't see any posters predicting doom for us. I've seen plenty of posters point out the obvious, that Minnesota kicked our butts up front.

The only thing I'm really concerned about is Vanderdrunk. He's been kicking crappy all summer and now he misses two chip shots in OT? Don't give me that "it's only a preseason game" crap either. He WANTED to make those kicks but missed.

I think he's still stuck in the Pittsburgh game.


As far as the rest, like our rushing numbers, that's the kind of production I expect us to put up pretty often this season. We don't have good RBs and our run blocking is average on a good day. I think our numbers would improve if Barber were starting though.

VanderJ's looks like our biggest worry but between us having Suisham and him being notoriously bad in preseason, does give some hope because as important as kicking is (we learned that last year), it will never, ever be as important as OL blocking.

Having said that, this is a good team at least because of our D, because our OL is still a work in progress and not set-in-stone bad, and because we've got a lot of weapons on offense who haven't been properly brought out yet (Barber, TO especially).

We're going to be fine. Jax will underestimate us and the Skins suck. If we can start 2-0 going into our bye week I expect we'll do alright this year.

 

[silverbear]

Class case of "Stats Lie".

How many of our rushing yards are from our RBs?

Uhhh, nobody's saying the running game was anything other than hammered crap in that first half, Rack... the stats don't lie about that, 12 carries for 12 yards is quite pathetic, no matter who was carrying the ball...

There is more to a football game than running the ball, y'know...

 

[silverbear]

What "chicken littles" are you referring to?

Rest easy, I wasn't referring to you... you never have been a Chicken Little, and I doubt you ever will be...

I've seen plenty of posters point out the obvious, that Minnesota kicked our butts up front.

The problem is, those posters are full of bovine fecal matter... the Vikings shut down ONE ASPECT of our game-- the rush offense... the pass offense worked at reasonable efficiency, as did the defense...

The only thing I'm really concerned about is Vanderdrunk. He's been kicking crappy all summer and now he misses two chip shots in OT? Don't give me that "it's only a preseason game" crap either.

And don't you assume that I'm gonna defend Vandy... he stunk...

I don't disagree with your pessimistic assessment of the running game, either... I've said as much in other threads, I doubt the Cowboys will get much done on the ground except against bad run D's like the Niners'...

HOWEVER, I've also said that if the passing game is good, and the defense is good, the Cowboys will be a contender, even without much of a running game... gimme a top 5 passing offense, and a top 5 defense, and I'll take the over on 10 wins this season... 12 wouldn't surprise me...

And I truly believe the Boys are quite capable of a top 5 finish in both categories... now, the only question is if Parcells will open up the offense to take advantage of that good passing game...