Offensive Balance

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The trouble is...and what many don't understand...we have success running because of the pass.

They see 4.9 YPC and think we should run it 35 times...well if we did that 4.9 would become 2.5 or 3.0 YPC and we'd never move the ball. Our OL is not a power running OL, just because they are big doesn't mean they routinely maul defenders.

Best case they will get stalemates and things clog up and we get a couple of yards, worst case they get shoved back and we lose a couple.

You want to run it more?

Get 3 guys more like Free and Kosier that can move and zone block.

Holland, Gurode and Davis were absolutely mauling defenders. Gurode was winning one on ones against the nose guard all night long and Davis and Holland were getting push.

All in all that was not a bad performance at all by our interior line and they were shining in the run game in the first half. So what do you do? Call multiple bubble screens to Dez that get blown up each time. When you have Felix Jones and your getting yardage on tosses why do you go away from that?

It was mindnumbingly stupid to run the ball to start the game and then go away from it when you are owning face with it early. Its the second half you still are having trouble scoring points and you still stay away from it? Really?

I really see no reason to not have at least balance with 4.7 YPC. They never really stopped our run.

 

[kramskoi]

Counting penalty yardage, we averaged 4.7 yards per running play and 4.3 yards per pass play. So one thing that running the ball more *did* was it resulted in more net yardage per play for the offense. But I'd really like to look at three-and-out's.

It's true that three-and-out's weren't our problem in this game--our problem wasn't getting a couple of first downs on a drive, or even three or four. It was the old familiar problem of stringing enough first downs together to get into the end zone, or at least stringing enough long drives together to get multiple FG attempts.

So if I'm trying to figure out what caused that problem, it does me no good to count three-and-out's. Instead I'd look at what we were doing offensively that led to first down conversions (successes) vs. what we were doing that led to punts (failures).

First, the successes. What kind of plays were we running that led to us converting the next first down in that drive?

• When Passing on 1st down
  14 of 22 (64%)
• When Running on 1st down
  10 of 10 (100%)
  
  2nd half only
  (prior to final drive)
• When Passing on 1st down
  0 of 3 (0%)
• When Running on 1st down
  6 of 6 (100%)

For the whole game, every single time we ran the ball on first down led to a conversion. When we passed on first down, we weren't nearly as successful at getting that next first down.

Now the failures:
What kind of plays were we running that led to 4th downs? Find the punts and work backwards. We punted six times in the game, and the series that ended with punts looked like this:

1. 1st Qtr
   at end of 8-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
2. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 6-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
3. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 12-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
4. 3rd Qtr
   at end of 5-play drive
   pass-run-pass-punt
5. 4th Qtr
   at end of 8-play dirve
   pass-pass-pass-punt
6. 4th Qtr
   at end of 3-play drive
   pass-pass-run-punt

That's six different series of downs that all led to punts, making for a total of 18 plays from scrimmage. And 16 of the 18 were passes. Our pass-run ratio for the whole game may have been heavy, but it definitely wasn't 16-2. So obviously a great many of the plays from earlier on in those drives were runs.

We can either speculate about what good running the ball more *would* have done, or we can just look at the play-by-play to see what good running the ball *did* do when we did run, compared to the good that passing did.

...interesting...very interesting...good work my friend...

 

[CF74]

I keep reading about how we should run the ball more, I also see some that point out that the passing game has to be the focus in today's game. It seems to me that one game is not enough of a sample size to determine what plagues this team. Afterall, last year is last year and this is a new year here before us with less than a 100 offensive snaps in the books. Now that doesn't mean that I'm not concerned about how this team looked against Washington, but I'm going to refrain from going into a full blown panic attack as of yet.. Onething that I will say that I believe in is that you should try to exploit the defenses weakest link. Whether that weak link is run defense or pass defense, that particular link should be exploited. While some semblance of balance between run/pass is nice to have. I don't believe that a team can go into a game with a pre-conceived number of plays dedicated to either pass or run. If the team passes 60 times one week and wins that is fine, if it runs 50 times the next week that is fine also. The only thing that matters is the accumalation of W's and not the dreaded L's. So anyway, let's just see what happens over the next few weeks and see what trends develop. Hopefully we'll see some victories strung together and a happier crowd in these parts.

Craig

One thing that needs to be analyzed is what trends we are seeing in our stalled out drives, which would include penalties while either running or passing the ball. It seems like our O-line gets tired and sloppy when having to pass protect and that is what's killing our drives imo.

But alas I'm no stats nerd so I could be way off..

 

[jay cee]

Shouldn't you also account for what defensive formation they faced on those downs? If the Skins had 8 or 9 in the box on a particular down that would account for a pass more than likely. Craig

that's where you bust them with the playaction pass. How often did the Cowboys run playaction?

 

[craig71]

One thing that needs to be analyzed is what trends we are seeing in our stalled out drives, which would include penalties while either running or passing the ball. It seems like our O-line gets tired and sloppy when having to pass protect and that is what's killing our drives imo.

But alas I'm no stats nerd so I could be way off..

I'll be honest, I thought Houck could have done a better job last year with the O-line. I question whether or not that he is a little long in the tooth to be an effective coach today. I know he was one of the best at one time, I'm not so sure that is the case today.

Craig

 

[craig71]

that's where you bust them with the playaction pass. How often did the Cowboys run playaction?

Playaction can do wonders to force a defense from crashing toward the LOS, providing you execute the play without incurring a penalty along the way.

Craig

 

[BourbonBalz]

For God's sake it isn't the 90's!

In that decade our OL averaged around 320 pounds...care to guess the average DL?

DL today are a lot bigger.

Ratliff would be a big DL in the 90's. Bruce Smith played 3-4 DE in the 270's.

Doesn't matter. No one can tell me our Oline can't run block. Barber and Jones were both averaging about 5 yards per carry against Washington. The problem is both only got 8 carries. That's just stupid any way you cut it.

 

[blindzebra]

Doesn't matter. No one can tell me our Oline can't run block. Barber and Jones were both averaging about 5 yards per carry against Washington. The problem is both only got 8 carries. That's just stupid any way you cut it.

SD first and goal last year...end of debate.