Welcome to Turnover Town; population every team the Cowboys play against this year. If you look to your right, you will see me patting myself on the back for that wonderful and compelling title that metaphorically snagged your mouse pointer and demanded you click on it. If you look to your left, you will see an incoming pillow being launched at your face with malicious intent…so duck! Too late? Sorry! I should have probably told you to look left first but I was really in a hurry to pat myself on the back for the aforementioned title.
Anywho, I’m calling it now: This defense will absolutely have more turnovers than it did last year…and (since they only stole 28 - 9 interceptions/19 forced fumbles - to begin with and doing so would not be all that surprising) by a large margin. Be it through forced fumble or interception, this young wrecking crew may not be dominant in terms of shutting down the opposition but they absolutely will be opportunistic.
Let’s have a look at the formula that I believe will ultimately lead to more turnovers:
It starts with a healthy duo of Sean Lee and Jaylon Smith. To understand why, you have to understand a little bit about how Marinelli likes his defense to attack. The defensive lineman (barring read option situations) in Marinelli’s 4-3 are asked to attack 1 gap. It is the linebacker’s responsibility to read the play, react, and plug the unmanned gaps, if necessary. Because of that concept, the linebackers are an essential ingredient to the run-defense being effective and as a result having two really good ones can go a long way in making a defense look great as a collective.
I am projecting that Lee’s instincts and football IQ teamed with Smith’s like attributes and potential elite athleticism, is going to make the Cowboys once again extremely difficult to run against. That combined with the offenses ability to put points up in bunches will force the opposition to pass the ball more than they would like. As a result, the Cowboys secondary in-game will be an interception-rich environment and since if anything these rookies know how to go get the football, I suspect that will be happening on a regular and consistent basis.
Recently Dez was asked to sound off on various players within the Cowboys organization during an interview on Sunday. One person Dez showed love to in particular was one Byron Jones. According to Dez, Byron’s focus all offseason has been the art of taking the ball away. Rather it be bouncing a ball off the wall, completing a turn-around, identifying the ball in the air and snatching it out of the air or putting in extra and extensive work with the jugs machine, Byron has exhibited an understanding that despite being described as solid in his 1st year as Free Safety, the one interception he accounted for in 2016 simply was not enough. Recent reports indicate he has snagged two interceptions already in training camp, however, on one of those he was only able to get one foot inbounds. That said, the extra work seems to be paying off.
Jeff Heath, everyone favorite’s whipping boy, for the moment is penciled in as the starter at Strong Safety for opening day against the Giants. For many, given New York’s improved receiving core and the –ever-annoying-presence of Eli Manning, that reality is met with trepidation and concern. After all, Jeff Heath’s rookie year saw him placed in the unenviable situation of having to start early due to a string of injuries in the secondary and those starts were less than stellar. Of course, for those who follow football closely, how Heath responded was to be expected. Still, for others, how he played ultimately decided he is a bum and Heath will be a bum until he can prove on National TV otherwise.
That’s a fair request, all things considered. For what it’s worth, though, Heath did pick off Aaron Rodgers in the playoffs. And during OTA’s, he picked off Dak twice. So, one could assume, given the opportunity (opportunity being defined as a ball actually hitting him in the hands) Heath has at the very least proven he can catch, which for many isn’t saying a lot, but tell that to the Secondary-circus that recently left town.
Anthony Brown had one interception in 2016…one. His senior year in college, where he started all 12 games for Purdue, he had 4 interceptions…which isn’t great, but is far from terrible and likely above average among college corners for one season. Where Brown stands out in particular as a defender is his athleticism. He is both one of the fastest and laterally-quickest players on the team. How I suspect Anthony may enjoy an improvement in take-aways from last year is not necessarily due to any special work he has put in this past offseason, but more so due to how much more he will be used in 2017, given the exodus of Carr and Clairborne in this past Free Agency.
With the veteran’s departure, Brown raced up the depth chart and may even supplant one of the more experienced corners (Carroll/Scandrick) to start on the outside against the Giants in just over a month. So, by merit of more opportunity, Brown should absolutely improve on his interceptions totals from a year ago.
Scandrick (8 in 8 years) and Carroll (8 in 7 years) certainly aren’t known for take-away’s, but given the aforementioned shift to more zone coverage, in general, if they don’t see an increase in their typical turnover-count, it won’t be because the opportunities are not there. That said, they are solid veterans whom we can collectively count on to be serviceable in coverage. Here’s hoping they remain only as placeholders for the potential, if not eventual, emergence of one of if not all of the rookies.
Often times we fans have a tendency to simply go look at the stats compiled be it in the pro’s or in college by players to determine if they excel at various task that they will be expected to perform at the NFL level. For the most part stats compiled in college can be very telling in terms of what to expect from the player in the NFL. But it also can be very misleading. Take interceptions, for instance.
Interceptions certainly do depend on the player and their aptitude for tracking, timing their jump, attacking and catching the ball; a player must possess those skills to be considered a ball hawk. But interceptions also depend heavily on scheme and on how that particular player is used. For example, teams that operate predominantly in zone coverage by default should have more interceptions.
In four years and 41 starts Jourdan Lewis collected 6 interceptions. From this you may gather that he simply doesn’t have a knack for it and nothing could be further from the truth. While there are few weakness to his game (diminutive size aside), mirroring the opponent quite possibly is one of the best things Jourdan does; last year he had the lowest completion percentage against at 23.1%. As such, it stands to reason that if his focus is predominantly on the receiver and not so much the quarterback, rare is the opportunity to take the ball away…especially when you are as good at it as Jourdan demonstrated throughout college, since the majority of the time the quarterback would target a different receiver from the one being blanketed by Lewis.
His ability to take the ball away may continue to rarely be showcased dependent on how he is used and how often he is used by Marinelli, but the Cowboys have expressed a commitment to generating more turnovers and zone coverage is the best way to create turnovers. Given the fact that he excels at mirroring players, I suspect he will still be used principally in man coverage. That said, if he can do this:
…he can take the ball away just as well as anyone presently on the team…and, yes, I do believe that is saying something…I’m not just not sure exactly what it is saying…yet.
Like Lewis, Chidobe joins the Cowboys after having played 4 years of college and also lacks an impressive resume as it pertains to interceptions; over the course of 48 starts he only collected 3 interceptions. Also like Lewis, his lack in interceptions may have more to do with how he was used and less to do with a lack of ability to take the ball away. At Colorado, Awuzie was the Swiss Army Knife in the secondary. He played outside corner, linebacker, and Safety over the course of 4 years, with the majority of his snaps coming at the Nickel Corner spot. Once again, like Lewis, he was predominantly used in man coverage and excelled in that role. That said, he has top-tier athleticism to pair with excellent instincts. As evidenced by the two interceptions he has already snagged in training camp, he is no stranger to going and getting the ball…and he is certainly not limited in that regard either.
Xavier Woods I suspect will not see the field often in 2017. That said, given his 14 interceptions collected over the last 3 years of his 4 year college career at La Tech, Woods clearly has a knack for going and getting the football. Given that, 3rd and long for the opposition, may be a place we see #25 take the field, somewhere between Byron Jones and Jeff Heath deep. Predicting a final count is difficult considering he may never find the field during the regular season; but with his track record, it definitely won’t be because he can’t find the football.
I have often said that at the end of the day, the scoreboard is the most compelling stat we fans should pay attention to. Often when I say this, it is typically following an explanation of bend don’t break and why the “yards allowed” stat for the Cowboys typically places them in unfavorable light with the so-called experts who are clearly looking at the wrong stat to measure their effectiveness as a unit. I bring that up now only to point out that turnovers may be the second most telling stat in football. He who wins the turnover battle typically wins the game…and that is especially the case when you have an offense as potent as does the Cowboys.
If you haven’t put it completely together, the reason I called this contribution “Of Pillow Talk and Knee Jerk Reactions” is because I realize I’m telling many of you want you want to hear/believe/read and for the most part this is a complete knee jerk reaction to several practices that featured interceptions over the first week of training camp. Therein is the ugly truth. To be fair, a lot of things will have to go right for this to come to fruition. That said, the youth movement at the very least seems to guarantee an improvement in the defense actually catching the ball, which is still a departure from previous years where it seemed much of our secondary played with oven mitts on their hands.
Thoughts?
