Our oline is better than we think.

[InmanRoshi]

Here's the running lanes DM used for four critical runs in the 4th quarter of 5, 7, 9 and 15 yards, to discredit this "DeMarco Murray made all those fourth quarter runs on his own and was getting hit in the backfield" revisionist history nonsense.

 

[Doomsay]

Once again, Romo made our OL "appear" OK. If that would have been Eli behind our line I would have expected 10 sacks. Romo is a blessing and a curse at the same time. The OL takes no heat what so ever because of Romo's escapability, so we don't spend resources to upgtrade it like we should. Keeping Romo upright, and in the pocket can win us 4-5 more games, IMO.

The line did improve in the 2nd half + as pointed out above there were some good running lanes created against one of the best DL's in football.

 

[ElGatoGrande]

It's far too early to draw any conclusions. The OL looked horrendous early and if it hadn't been for the heroics of Romo and Murray things could have been much worse. Later in the game I saw some plays with good blocking, men staying with their blocks, etc. How much of that was the OL jelling and how much of it was their defense tiring because of training camp and Romo/Murray generating first downs is hard to say,,, after playing several teams with decent defenses we will have a better idea of what's what. If they can stand up to Washington's front 7 I might have to get a jersey with "Callahan" on it! :

 

[Nexx]

oline looks a lot better when they dont get pressure consistantly in your face in the passing game *cough* costa *cough*

cook and the two guards did well in pass protection allowing romo to step or to the slide without anyone else being there to sack him if one of the tackles got beatne. romo is great at avoiding the intital pressure.

 

[InmanRoshi]

Good post and analysis.

Was Beasley in the game after this play?

FWIW, unless I missed it, I don't think Beasley played another offensive snap after that.

 

[jjktkk]

Once again, Romo made our OL "appear" OK. If that would have been Eli behind our line I would have expected 10 sacks. Romo is a blessing and a curse at the same time. The OL takes no heat what so ever because of Romo's escapability, so we don't spend resources to upgtrade it like we should. Keeping Romo upright, and in the pocket can win us 4-5 more games, IMO.

WHAT??? Where have you been the past few years? Do you need me to post some forum links on here, about the Boy's bad Oline? Theres quite a few to choose from.

 

[jjktkk]

Yeah Romo ending up in the hospital and the boys having 19 sacks in December is middle of the road.

Another used car salesman

This thread is about this year's Oline. Try to keep up.

 

[jjktkk]

And how do you know?


I mean really... how do you know that?

burmafrd goes to a palm reader daily.

 

[Derekmtl85]

I thought Washington's OL looked better than ours.

Well if you ignore the fact that we played a much better defense...then sure.

 

[CowboyRoy]

I don't grade offensive lines based on one play, anymore than I grade Romo's entire night based off one stupid interception. It's kinda of a really dumb way to look at things, which is why NFL people don't do it. I carefully watch the games in their entireity based on all snaps, and I try to objectively look at things to view exactly what happened and where the blame is assesed. For example, if you have an existing confirmation bias you might blame the OL for letting a Giants defender run into the backfield untouched in the 2nd quarter, but if you rewatch the game and analyze it you would see that the Cowboys were employing an empty backfield and the Giants ran a blitz in adjustment to the empty backfield that leaves a guy unaccounted for.

The bottomline is that the interior OL imposed it's will on the Giants DTs as the game went along, capping it off with a 12 play/7 minute drive in the 4th quarter featuring 9 and 15 yard runs on Murray running right down the Giant's throat. Justin Tuck and Osi were largely invisible. JPP is the only player on the Giants front 4 who had any real impact on the game, against a guy who's playing left tackle for the first time in a game since high school. The Giants entire defensive, if not organizational, philosophy pins on the performance of the defensive line. That's why they invest an indordinate amount of draft picks and cap space into their DL to come at an offense in waves. Unless they completely dictate and dominate the game, they aren't winning . They were allowed to neither dictate nor dominate the game.

And for what it's worth, when people start throwing around words like "homers" and "realist" I pretty much take it for granted that I'm dealing with a non-informed fan. When the "realists" mindlessly bleat the same groupthink platitudes from the collective hivemind, it's really not "thinking outside the box". It's utter juvenile nonsense to me by people who don't have a relevant point to make.

Who said anything about ONE play? He was whiffing all game long. Although I will agree that the Oline did get a little better in the 2nd half, it was more because of Romo running around then anything else. Penalties were still rampant. I did like the run game picking it up. This is exactly why you stick with the run game, even if its not working. You wear out the defense eventually and that happened with the long drives.

However, the bottom line is that no one in thier right minds should be complimenting the Oline after that horrid performance. It was terrible. Now if your starting at ground zero, ok, baby steps. But it is sorely out of place to start giving them props after that performance. Im sure they will have some better games and then we can give them credit if need be.

 

[CowboyRoy]

I don't grade offensive lines based on one play, anymore than I grade Romo's entire night based off one stupid interception. It's kinda of a really dumb way to look at things, which is why NFL people don't do it. I carefully watch the games in their entireity based on all snaps, and I try to objectively look at things to view exactly what happened and where the blame is assesed. For example, if you have an existing confirmation bias you might blame the OL for letting a Giants defender run into the backfield untouched in the 2nd quarter, but if you rewatch the game and analyze it you would see that the Cowboys were employing an empty backfield and the Giants ran a blitz in adjustment to the empty backfield that leaves a guy unaccounted for.

The bottomline is that the interior OL imposed it's will on the Giants DTs as the game went along, capping it off with a 12 play/7 minute drive in the 4th quarter featuring 9 and 15 yard runs on Murray running right down the Giant's throat. Justin Tuck and Osi were largely invisible. JPP is the only player on the Giants front 4 who had any real impact on the game, against a guy who's playing left tackle for the first time in a game since high school. The Giants entire defensive, if not organizational, philosophy pins on the performance of the defensive line. That's why they invest an indordinate amount of draft picks and cap space into their DL to come at an offense in waves. Unless they completely dictate and dominate the game, they aren't winning . They were allowed to neither dictate nor dominate the game.

And for what it's worth, when people start throwing around words like "homers" and "realist" I pretty much take it for granted that I'm dealing with a non-informed fan. When the "realists" mindlessly bleat the same groupthink platitudes from the collective hivemind, it's really not "thinking outside the box". It's utter juvenile nonsense to me by people who don't have a relevant point to make.

When you start bleating homeristic rants, you will be labeled a homer.

 

[CowboyRoy]

I don't consider myself a homer and I didn't consider it horrid. Im also taking into account their time together vs the the best D line in football.


I was more upset with their penalties than I was with their blocking.


This group may be good and it may suck but we need to see more before we jump to any conclusions.

I certainly agree we need more time to truely evaluate what they can be. But as of now, they played a bad game. I was actually shocked that anyone would post a thread complimenting thier play and actually trying to rub it in as if this was some kind of great performance. In preseason the Oline was horrid. In game #1 is wasnt much better. When they get better, they will be acknowledged for doing so. I see no shame in acknowledging that the Oline is playing bad. They are.

But lets talk about a couple of things we already know:

Free is an average tackle, if that. Costa is bad.

I was actually disappointed badly with the play of Smith. He was beaten often during that game. And the penalties were bad also.

 

[InmanRoshi]

What "teh preshurez constantly in Romoz face every snapz !1111" actually looked like in the 2nd half. Here's a screen shot of every pass attempt of the 2nd half at the moment Romo released the ball.

1

2

3

4 - The only play in the 3rd Q that Romo takes a hit after the throw

5

6 - Romo easily rolls right after Tuck over-commits on a inside move. No other Giants defender in the same zip code.

7

8

Other passing plays that didn't count as an "attempt". JPP got a sack paired one on one with Jason Witten. Romo escapes from the pocket and runs up field after all of his WRs are covered way down field in man.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Im not saying well. People think we have one of the 5 worst lines in the league. Im saying it'll endup in that 14-18 range, with Romo thats more than enough.

More than enough for what? A championship? The Oline is the weak link of this team. When it becomes a strength, this team will be ready for a championship. We already have two average to bad players in free and costa. The only guy of pro bowl caliber is smith in my opinion. We just signed two career backups to play guard. I think everyone is frustrated with the efforts of Jerry and Garrett to upgrade this line properly.

 

[CowboyRoy]

No, it qualifies me as someone who carefully reviews every snap in the game and comes up with my opinion based on what happens on the field.

If you truely went back and evaluated each snap and came away impressed with their performance than you are correct, you are not a homer. You are just very misguided. I suggest you go back and watch again.

 

[CATCH17]

I certainly agree we need more time to truely evaluate what they can be. But as of now, they played a bad game. I was actually shocked that anyone would post a thread complimenting thier play and actually trying to rub it in as if this was some kind of great performance. In preseason the Oline was horrid. In game #1 is wasnt much better. When they get better, they will be acknowledged for doing so. I see no shame in acknowledging that the Oline is playing bad. They are.

But lets talk about a couple of things we already know:

Free is an average tackle, if that. Costa is bad.

I was actually disappointed badly with the play of Smith. He was beaten often during that game. And the penalties were bad also.

Im worried about him more than I am any other position right now.

He doesn't look as athletic as he once did and he technique is getting him beat as well.

 

[HoosierCowboy]

team game, team game, team, game!!!

if a player makes other players look better THEN THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S A TEAM GAME AND IN TEAM SPORTS THAT HAPPENS--was Emmit only good because of his OL? was Aikman only good because of his receivers?

:bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2::bang2:

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

And giving up 19 sacks in what is probably the most important month of the season?

You can track the performance of the oline with how Kosier did. Kosier is gone. Holland was hurt -again- for the last two games of the season. Kosier was moderately healthy in the middle of te season but the wheels fell off come winter.

As IR said if you look at it analytically rather than knee jerk generalizations perhaps the sky is not falling.

We rant he ball and ran it well against a pretty good albeit banged up Giants front 7. We wore them down and won out in the second half. When is the last time you could say that about an oline of ours?

Livings is a road grader and running left is going to be a staple behind he and Smith. Free lacks ideal lateral quickness but he is more powerful then he was last year and I am hoping that Bernadeau gets his explosiveness back as that hip heals.

The wildcard is at center but compared to the interior line that we had last December it's a pretty obvious step in the right direction.

This is a new line at each position and it stands to reason that they will improve upon that.

 

[CowboyRoy]

It's too early to tell, but we don't need then to be great or even great just not awful like they have been in previous seasons.

Thats a pretty low standard statement. And what will them being "not aweful" get us? Into the playoffs?

There is no reason why Jerry and Garrett cant get good Olineman in here. Settling for career backups to block for your franchise QB is short sighted and unacceptable. Just try to envision how unstoppable Romo would be if he had time in the pocket. Just think how devastating Murray would be with big holes to run through. We would destroy people. That should be the goal. Not getting a line that can be "not aweful".

 

[CowboyRoy]

The line did improve in the 2nd half + as pointed out above there were some good running lanes created against one of the best DL's in football.

You call those good running lanes? The Oline is pushed back into the backfield on most of those. A good Oline gets push and allow the back a few steps before he hits the line.