Quick Review OL and RBs, focus on Collins/Bern/Randle

[JD_KaPow]

One run play failed because of a terrible block by the FB. The TEs need to be better blocking in the run game.

Don't forget, Hanna was also out yesterday.

 

[JoeyBoy718]

Leary is a restricted free agent. He will likely either be with the Cowboy or they'll get a 2nd round pick for him.

Good news. I could see a team giving that up for him. He's a stud.

 

[Awakened]

Don't forget, Hanna was also out yesterday.

Yeah, that probably affected our running game more than most people realize. Also, Dez is a good run blocker.

 

[Tobal]

McFadden might need more runs, to knock some rust off. I see the speed and decent power, but he doesn't look confident. If he'd make a decision and go I think he'd eliminate or minimize some of the negative plays.

I was very happy with Randles performance, I thought he saved us from negative plays more than once and had several tough runs.

I think people seem to have forgotten how hard a time we had running the ball on the Eagles last year and that was with Dez burning them.

 

[Jack Burton]

How much of the O-line problems do you think are attributable to Romo running the clock down to zero on nearly every play? I understand the reasons Romo does this. But from an O-line perspective, it looks like it might be creating problems, as they have to stay in their stance longer, plus it allows the defensive line to know when the ball is going to be snapped. At any rate, whether this is an issue or not, the O-line must play better. They can't keep holding, false starting, lining up incorrectly, etc.

 

[xwalker]

Don't forget, Hanna was also out yesterday.

Yes, I jumped around in my OP but I mentioned Hanna later in the post. They need better blocking from the TEs or they need to run more from 3 WR sets which worked well last year. Also, they need to avoid having Witten block Cox.

 

[xwalker]

How much of the O-line problems do you think are attributable to Romo running the clock down to zero on nearly every play? I understand the reasons Romo does this. But from an O-line perspective, it looks like it might be creating problems, as they have to stay in their stance longer, plus it allows the defensive line to know when the ball is going to be snapped. At any rate, whether this is an issue or not, the O-line must play better. They can't keep holding, false starting, lining up incorrectly, etc.

It is possible that it could contribute to false starts because they do stay in their stances for awhile. It that is a problem the OL could wait longer into the play clock before getting into their stance.

In general I don't think running the play clock down is a big problem, but one thing that recently occurred to me is that on runs they rarely run the play clock down to 0:01 like they often do on pass plays. It seems feasible that a defense could somehow get a small advantage from this knowledge, although I don't know if it would be significant. I guess the defense could be more in a run defense alignment and then drop back into more of pass defense alignment once the play clock has passed about 0:04 indicating that it will almost definitely be a pass.

 

[CowboyRoy]

The All-22 is not available yet, so this is from the broadcast view.

I focused primarily on Bernadeau, Collins and Randle but I did watch the others also.

Bernadeau was not the worst player ever as I've seen people claim; however, Collins was definitely better.

Collins did have a few whiffs and they didn't throw many stunts or blitzes at him which was something he struggled with in the preseason. He did pick up the few stunts that he did see with no problem. Most of his whiffs were in the running game and were probably due to being overly aggressive and going for the kill-shot type block. He did have a couple of run plays where he started in one direction and then realized he should be blocking the guy on the opposite side but overall for his 1st ever real NFL game he was quite good.

I don't really think the goal line run was a problem with Collins as claimed by the announcers. He did take a step back but he drove his man sideways out of the hole. It was not his man that clogged up that play. They defender that Free was blocking slammed into Martin's legs preventing Martin from maintaining his block and his man was the primary tackler on that play.

Bernadeau has always had a tendency to be late off the snap while playing Guard. He had two false starts probably because he was trying to improve this problem; however, on several snaps he was still late off the snap. I can go frame by frame and see all other offensive players move before he moves which gives the defender an advantage. They can win games with Bernadeau playing but Collins is better and Leary is obviously better.

Randle was actually very good. He got something out of nothing multiple times and got "dirty yards" on many plays. He didn't have a good average because he was hit in the backfield often.

McFadden appeared to get what was available not more, not less.

Overall the run blocking was not that good. I didn't see any 1 obvious reason for it. The Eagles sometimes run blitzed and seemed to have a good feel for when and where the Cowboys were going to run. The Eagles have a very good DL. As mentioned above, both Bern and Collins had some issues. Fred had some issues with their NT at times. Free is very limited and can't even get movement when blocking a LB. People said that Martin struggled, but I didn't notice it. There was 1 play where it initially looked like he was terrible but on review the defender appears to yank his face-mask and get him off balance.

The pass blocking was OK but not as good as last week. The play where Romo was injured was NOT Bernadeau's fault. They blitzed both LBs and Bern blocked the 1st one. There was no blocker available for the 2nd one. Romo needed to get rid of the ball on that play. Free is still not very good and completely whiffed more than once.

One run play failed because of a terrible block by the FB. The TEs need to be better blocking in the run game. I didn't count but they seemed to run from sets with a FB or multiple TEs more often than normal. I actually think they run better in general from 3 WR sets which spreads out the defense. Even Witten had some failed run blocks. They missed Hanna although, I don't think he was 100% last week either. It would be nice to have a big nasty run blocking TE but they obviously don't want one of those. They did use the OT Brown a couple of times.

Obviously not having Dez allows defenses to use the defender that would normally be in double coverage on Dez to drop down and defend the run. Also, once Weeden was in the game, the defense loaded up against the run and dared Weeden to beat them.

I still wish that Collins could play RT. Having him at RT would really open up the running game.

Fantastic Job. This answered a lot of questions for me.

With Romo and Dez out, its going to be tough going in the run game. I also agree that they need the 3 WR set more as their staple or even 4 WR sets with the run game. Spread them out and run it. More draws perhaps.