Premise: The Cowboys Defense Can't Be Any Worse

[Nation]

The most commonly heard thing this offseason has been how The Dallas Cowboys Defensive unit can't be any worse than it was last year. I wanted to take a real look at this to get an idea of how bad defensive teams have followed up terrible years. The NFL uses total yardage for the formal ranking of units that you hear on TV, and Dallas ranked last in that category this past season. I wanted to use a second metric to go along with this, and chose Football Outsiders rankings for a more advance situation and opponent based rankings list. Dallas ranked 30th out of 32 teams with them last year. What I then did was take a look at teams who finished in the bottom 5 in both the NFL and FootballOutsiders defensive rankings and how they followed up the next season. For 2013 three teams fit that mix: Atlanta, Jacksonvile, and our Dallas Cowboys. On to the other teams in the past 5 years:

2012 Season: New Orleans, Jacksonville
2011 Season: New England, Tampa Bay, Carolina
2010 Season: Denver, Houston, Jacksonville
2009 Season: Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis
2008 Season: Detroit, Denver, St Louis

These were your "worst of the worst", a distinction that despite some truly bad seasons the Cowboys were able to avoid up until this 2013 season. My obvious question was how did those teams follow up the next year, as I wanted to get an idea of what hope there may be. Here goes:

It is a chart that makes you happy to get mediocre results. A few teams improved considerable which we'll get into, but the majority were again below-average to terrible. The good thing is the offense has the talent to compete in the NFC East with one of the below-average scenarios. The bad news is "just" below-average is something we'll probably be lucky to achieve, based on past history of bad D's.

The teams that improved had combinations of changes in culture, talent, and coaching that we aren't seeing in Dallas this year. Of the teams that went on to become Top Ten units, here are the details:

2013 New Orleans Saints: New Coordinator (Rex Ryan), Development of Cameron Jordan, Junio Galette, and Akiem Hicks, Added Keenan Lewis
2012 Carolina Panthers: Added Luke Kuechly, excellent play from developing Greg Hardy and Charles Johnson
2011 Houston Texans: New Coordinator (Wade Phillips) Added Jonathan Joseph, JJ Watt; Development of Antonio Smith
2011 Jacksonville Jaguars: Added Jeremy Mincey, Paul Posluszny, Matt Roth, Drew Coleman
2009 Denver Broncos: New Coordinator (Mike Nolan) Added Andra Davis, Brian Dawkins, development of Elvis Dumervil

​

This is where our biggest problem is as far as making a 2014 comeback unlikely. The lack of new-talent in the Cowboys locker room on the defensive side of the ball is pretty apparent. Henry Melton has more pure talent than Jason Hatcher, but it's likely unreasonable to expect him to outplay Hatcher's 2013 season. DeMarcus Lawrence is going to need some seasoning to replace the production of a hobbled DeMarcus Ware.

The defensive unit and most of all the DLine feels to me like the 2010 season revisited, where we knew the offensive line was a disaster going in, thought we could put some lipstick on a big, and saw Romo's collarbone get snapped in half. Maybe some of the investments we've made in the secondary finally pay off, the DTs play at a high level, and Bruce Carter becomes Derrick Brooks. But as a betting man I'm putting my money on the D being a Bottom 12 unit, not a Top 20.

 

[dogunwo]

Great long post.

 

[itsaboat]

Our two former DC's had IMMEDIATE success on their new teams. It's a little disappointing but they are two good defensive minds.

 

[Hardline]

This defense can be worse. But probably not.

 

[Nation]

This defense can be worse. But probably not.

No doubt. But the 2014 version of better is likely to still be pretty bad.

 

[Zman5]

The most commonly heard thing this offseason has been how The Dallas Cowboys Defensive unit can't be any worse than it was last year. I wanted to take a real look at this to get an idea of how bad defensive teams have followed up terrible years. The NFL uses total yardage for the formal ranking of units that you hear on TV, and Dallas ranked last in that category this past season. I wanted to use a second metric to go along with this, and chose Football Outsiders rankings for a more advance situation and opponent based rankings list. Dallas ranked 30th out of 32 teams with them last year. What I then did was take a look at teams who finished in the bottom 5 in both the NFL and FootballOutsiders defensive rankings and how they followed up the next season. For 2013 three teams fit that mix: Atlanta, Jacksonvile, and our Dallas Cowboys. On to the other teams in the past 5 years:

2012 Season: New Orleans, Jacksonville
2011 Season: New England, Tampa Bay, Carolina
2010 Season: Denver, Houston, Jacksonville
2009 Season: Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis
2008 Season: Detroit, Denver, St Louis

These were your "worst of the worst", a distinction that despite some truly bad seasons the Cowboys were able to avoid up until this 2013 season. My obvious question was how did those teams follow up the next year, as I wanted to get an idea of what hope there may be. Here goes:

It is a chart that makes you happy to get mediocre results. A few teams improved considerable which we'll get into, but the majority were again below-average to terrible. The good thing is the offense has the talent to compete in the NFC East with one of the below-average scenarios. The bad news is "just" below-average is something we'll probably be lucky to achieve, based on past history of bad D's.

The teams that improved had combinations of changes in culture, talent, and coaching that we aren't seeing in Dallas this year. Of the teams that went on to become Top Ten units, here are the details:

2013 New Orleans Saints: New Coordinator (Rex Ryan), Development of Cameron Jordan, Junio Galette, and Akiem Hicks, Added Keenan Lewis
2012 Carolina Panthers: Added Luke Kuechly, excellent play from developing Greg Hardy and Charles Johnson
2011 Houston Texans: New Coordinator (Wade Phillips) Added Jonathan Joseph, JJ Watt; Development of Antonio Smith
2011 Jacksonville Jaguars: Added Jeremy Mincey, Paul Posluszny, Matt Roth, Drew Coleman
2009 Denver Broncos: New Coordinator (Mike Nolan) Added Andra Davis, Brian Dawkins, development of Elvis Dumervil

​

This is where our biggest problem is as far as making a 2014 comeback unlikely. The lack of new-talent in the Cowboys locker room on the defensive side of the ball is pretty apparent. Henry Melton has more pure talent than Jason Hatcher, but it's likely unreasonable to expect him to outplay Hatcher's 2013 season. DeMarcus Lawrence is going to need some seasoning to replace the production of a hobbled DeMarcus Ware.

The defensive unit and most of all the DLine feels to me like the 2010 season revisited, where we knew the offensive line was a disaster going in, thought we could put some lipstick on a big, and saw Romo's collarbone get snapped in half. Maybe some of the investments we've made in the secondary finally pay off, the DTs play at a high level, and Bruce Carter becomes Derrick Brooks. But as a betting man I'm putting my money on the D being a Bottom 12 unit, not a Top 20.

I just posted in another thread that it's not a given that our defense can't be worse than last year. Major injuries to Carr and O-Scan and continue bad play from Carter will most likely give us the same or worse results than last year.

 

[DFWJC]

This defense can be worse. But probably not.

This

 

[WoodysGirl]

I don't think many folks are counting on the Cowboys to trot out a Top 5 defensive unit. I'd say many of us just believe they won't be bottom 5 and historically bad.

 

[casmith07]

I don't think many folks are counting on the Cowboys to trot out a Top 5 defensive unit. I'd say many of us just believe they won't be bottom 5 and historically bad.

Are you kidding me?! This is a 2-14 defense AT BEST!!!!!

 

[Bizwah]

I disagree that we have no young talent to develop. Lawrence isn't young talent? Crawford isn't young talent? Wilcox isn't young talent?

I'm not one that thinks we'll field an awesome defense. But I do think we will improve. Again, I don't think people remember how bad the injury situation was last year. We struggled to have four healthy DL at times. We struggled to have three healthy LBs. How often did we have two straight games with the same front seven?

We won't have Ware or Hatcher one Lee. That stinks. But I like what we could be if we can stay reasonably healthy. Again this is the season for optimism.

I'm going into this season believing that a DL rotation of Crawford, McClain, Melton, Lawrence, Mincey, Bass, Selvie,Bishop, and Spencer will be better than a DL rotation of Ware (injured 6 sacks), Hatcher, Hayden, Selvie, and......whoever we we would bring in on Wednesdays to play significant snaps on Sunday.

I like the secondary. That sounds crazy, but I do. I think the fact that they'll be playing more man-press will play to their strengths. Scandrick has shown that a player can develop. That's why I'm still high on Claiborne. He played well (when healthy ) as a rookie. He was never healthy last year. Carr had a good first year here. Again, he's a press CB, not a zone guy.

Church was good in his first full year as a starter. I'm excited to see Wilcox's development.

Again, there's not enough to make me think we will be a top ten defense, but I think there's enough to say the arrow is pointing up.

 

[Idgit]

I'd be thrilled with mediocre. That said, we technically made enough changes, including at DC. If we improve, reading who we added after the fact it's going to fit right in with the changes made by those other teams.

 

[CrownCowboy]

The bottomline is that this defense just needs to stay healthy.

They need to get through training camp, get some preseason plays under their belt and go through the season intact as a unit. As mentioned, the revolving door at some positions last year killed us.

If they can avoid nagging injuries or injuries where a player or two is out a significant amount of games and get to play as a group, they'll improve from last year.

 

[jday]

The most commonly heard thing this offseason has been how The Dallas Cowboys Defensive unit can't be any worse than it was last year. I wanted to take a real look at this to get an idea of how bad defensive teams have followed up terrible years. The NFL uses total yardage for the formal ranking of units that you hear on TV, and Dallas ranked last in that category this past season. I wanted to use a second metric to go along with this, and chose Football Outsiders rankings for a more advance situation and opponent based rankings list. Dallas ranked 30th out of 32 teams with them last year. What I then did was take a look at teams who finished in the bottom 5 in both the NFL and FootballOutsiders defensive rankings and how they followed up the next season. For 2013 three teams fit that mix: Atlanta, Jacksonvile, and our Dallas Cowboys. On to the other teams in the past 5 years:

2012 Season: New Orleans, Jacksonville
2011 Season: New England, Tampa Bay, Carolina
2010 Season: Denver, Houston, Jacksonville
2009 Season: Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis
2008 Season: Detroit, Denver, St Louis

These were your "worst of the worst", a distinction that despite some truly bad seasons the Cowboys were able to avoid up until this 2013 season. My obvious question was how did those teams follow up the next year, as I wanted to get an idea of what hope there may be. Here goes:

It is a chart that makes you happy to get mediocre results. A few teams improved considerable which we'll get into, but the majority were again below-average to terrible. The good thing is the offense has the talent to compete in the NFC East with one of the below-average scenarios. The bad news is "just" below-average is something we'll probably be lucky to achieve, based on past history of bad D's.

The teams that improved had combinations of changes in culture, talent, and coaching that we aren't seeing in Dallas this year. Of the teams that went on to become Top Ten units, here are the details:

2013 New Orleans Saints: New Coordinator (Rex Ryan), Development of Cameron Jordan, Junio Galette, and Akiem Hicks, Added Keenan Lewis
2012 Carolina Panthers: Added Luke Kuechly, excellent play from developing Greg Hardy and Charles Johnson
2011 Houston Texans: New Coordinator (Wade Phillips) Added Jonathan Joseph, JJ Watt; Development of Antonio Smith
2011 Jacksonville Jaguars: Added Jeremy Mincey, Paul Posluszny, Matt Roth, Drew Coleman
2009 Denver Broncos: New Coordinator (Mike Nolan) Added Andra Davis, Brian Dawkins, development of Elvis Dumervil

​

This is where our biggest problem is as far as making a 2014 comeback unlikely. The lack of new-talent in the Cowboys locker room on the defensive side of the ball is pretty apparent. Henry Melton has more pure talent than Jason Hatcher, but it's likely unreasonable to expect him to outplay Hatcher's 2013 season. DeMarcus Lawrence is going to need some seasoning to replace the production of a hobbled DeMarcus Ware.

The defensive unit and most of all the DLine feels to me like the 2010 season revisited, where we knew the offensive line was a disaster going in, thought we could put some lipstick on a big, and saw Romo's collarbone get snapped in half. Maybe some of the investments we've made in the secondary finally pay off, the DTs play at a high level, and Bruce Carter becomes Derrick Brooks. But as a betting man I'm putting my money on the D being a Bottom 12 unit, not a Top 20.

The most commonly heard thing this offseason has been how The Dallas Cowboys Defensive unit can't be any worse than it was last year. I wanted to take a real look at this to get an idea of how bad defensive teams have followed up terrible years. The NFL uses total yardage for the formal ranking of units that you hear on TV, and Dallas ranked last in that category this past season. I wanted to use a second metric to go along with this, and chose Football Outsiders rankings for a more advance situation and opponent based rankings list. Dallas ranked 30th out of 32 teams with them last year. What I then did was take a look at teams who finished in the bottom 5 in both the NFL and FootballOutsiders defensive rankings and how they followed up the next season. For 2013 three teams fit that mix: Atlanta, Jacksonvile, and our Dallas Cowboys. On to the other teams in the past 5 years:

2012 Season: New Orleans, Jacksonville
2011 Season: New England, Tampa Bay, Carolina
2010 Season: Denver, Houston, Jacksonville
2009 Season: Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis
2008 Season: Detroit, Denver, St Louis

These were your "worst of the worst", a distinction that despite some truly bad seasons the Cowboys were able to avoid up until this 2013 season. My obvious question was how did those teams follow up the next year, as I wanted to get an idea of what hope there may be. Here goes:

It is a chart that makes you happy to get mediocre results. A few teams improved considerable which we'll get into, but the majority were again below-average to terrible. The good thing is the offense has the talent to compete in the NFC East with one of the below-average scenarios. The bad news is "just" below-average is something we'll probably be lucky to achieve, based on past history of bad D's.

The teams that improved had combinations of changes in culture, talent, and coaching that we aren't seeing in Dallas this year. Of the teams that went on to become Top Ten units, here are the details:

2013 New Orleans Saints: New Coordinator (Rex Ryan), Development of Cameron Jordan, Junio Galette, and Akiem Hicks, Added Keenan Lewis
2012 Carolina Panthers: Added Luke Kuechly, excellent play from developing Greg Hardy and Charles Johnson
2011 Houston Texans: New Coordinator (Wade Phillips) Added Jonathan Joseph, JJ Watt; Development of Antonio Smith
2011 Jacksonville Jaguars: Added Jeremy Mincey, Paul Posluszny, Matt Roth, Drew Coleman
2009 Denver Broncos: New Coordinator (Mike Nolan) Added Andra Davis, Brian Dawkins, development of Elvis Dumervil

​

This is where our biggest problem is as far as making a 2014 comeback unlikely. The lack of new-talent in the Cowboys locker room on the defensive side of the ball is pretty apparent. Henry Melton has more pure talent than Jason Hatcher, but it's likely unreasonable to expect him to outplay Hatcher's 2013 season. DeMarcus Lawrence is going to need some seasoning to replace the production of a hobbled DeMarcus Ware.

The defensive unit and most of all the DLine feels to me like the 2010 season revisited, where we knew the offensive line was a disaster going in, thought we could put some lipstick on a big, and saw Romo's collarbone get snapped in half. Maybe some of the investments we've made in the secondary finally pay off, the DTs play at a high level, and Bruce Carter becomes Derrick Brooks. But as a betting man I'm putting my money on the D being a Bottom 12 unit, not a Top 20.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what argument you are making here, but I thought it was interesting that Aikman was recently quoted saying something to the same extent: "The Cowboys defense can only get better!" I, personally, disagree with this sentiment. It can get worse. I won't predict one way or the other if it will, but I really don't see how the Cowboys defense improved in the offseason...so it could very well be worse, the same or better. While I am hoping for the latter, in my mind, this is the least likely, regardless of what has happened on different teams, with different coaches, a whole set of different players, different cap restrictions, and different draft quality/positions. I think the Cowboys are the exception to the rule, as far as the above argument, because they have either completely missed in the 1st few rounds on players or were not drafting high enough to find true difference makers - and that is what truly separates this team from others. So comparison's are difficult to draw given those variables.

 

[Vanilla2]

I'd be happy with top 18.

That's gotta count for a win or two.

Amirite?

 

[waving monkey]

how can anyone doubt that comparing last years street FA brought in in the middle of the season wasn't a formula for worst?
One camp under the rookies belts will beat that. seriously

 

[Bullflop]

Even if significant injuries do occur, the defensive depth should be improved enough this year to enable it to get by considerably better than they did in 2013, imo. There will be more depth on the DL, LB and in the defensive backfield. That should hopefully make enough of a difference to cushion the blow of injuries better than it was ever possible to do so last year.

 

[Tabascocat]

The defense may not be able to get worse ranking wise, but they can certainly get worse statistically. There are way too many variables in play such as injuries, bad bounces, lack of takeaways, etc. We need to hope the young guys step up, Melton is able to play well, including Spencer(if and when he comes back).

There are still question marks in the secondary, linebackers and an unproven line. The depth doesn't look so great either if there are multiple injuries.

If this defense can remain relatively healthy, I would be happy with a ranking of around 20 or so. We can compete with that if the offense does their part IMO.

 

[Idgit]

The defense may not be able to get worse ranking wise, but they can certainly get worse statistically. There are way too many variables in play such as injuries, bad bounces, lack of takeaways, etc. We need to hope the young guys step up, Melton is able to play well, including Spencer(if and when he comes back).

There are still question marks in the secondary, linebackers and an unproven line. The depth doesn't look so great either if there are multiple injuries.

If this defense can remain relatively healthy, I would be happy with a ranking of around 20 or so. We can compete with that if the offense does their part IMO.

I'd say our defensive depth is one area where we did improve a fair amount. We've got average players across the board other than at CB, but we've got a fair number of average players everywhere.

 

[Tabascocat]

I'd say our defensive depth is one area where we did improve a fair amount. We've got average players across the board other than at CB, but we've got a fair number of average players everywhere.

Yes, there is more depth there yet unproven and if injuries occur, there isn't much depth behind the depth, if ya know what I mean. There are bodies but are they worthy NFL players? Only time will tell.

 

[JoeyBoy718]

There's this fallacy that the defense can't be any worse since you can't be any worse than the 32nd ranked defense. That doesn't mean we can't be worse statistically than last year. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. I want to have hope but I can't really find any anywhere. I'm extremely optimistic about the offense. I'm predicting top 3 in the league. But I can honestly see the defense being worse than last year.