Schefter defends Romo/RJ Choppy on FB Tonight/JJT on Dan Patrick - 9/16/08

[ABQCOWBOY]

Actually, they 'stopped' Philly only on the last drive. The second to last drive, McNabb throws it a little high for a wide-open Westbrook. He would have easily gotten the first down, because of the amount of space the CBs were playing off.

Also, this drive was when the Eagles shot themselves in the foot with a 10 yard penalty, putting them back in a 2nd and 18 yard. McNabb threw a 10 yarder to Smith, I believe. If McNabb hits Westbrook, the Eagles would have had an easy first down, despite having to overcome the penalties.

Prior to this drive, Dallas also didn't technically stop the Eagles. McNabb botched an easy hand-off, and this too after the Eagles moved the chains quite easily for a first down on 2 6 yard strikes by McNabb.

This is the problem with a purely statistical view. Also, Dallas was playing against the deep pass the whole day. It was because of this, that Philly was easily moving the chains with short passes. The only difference between the last drive and the rest of the game is the Eagles had limited time to take the ball downfield. They had to take deeper shots downfield.

Look at the Eagles drive prior to the 4th quarter and into the beginning of the 4th quarter, where they marched down the field easily from their own 26 and scored a TD. If Wade made such awesome adjustments, then why did the Eagles do what they were doing in the first-half and score at will on that long drive.

Besides TO ratio, the best single indicator of a good team or good defensive performance is Average Yard Per Pass Attempt adjusted differential. Basically, this is the amount of yards, minus yardage lost (sacks), divided by attempts, plus or minus what your defense gave up to the other team. 1 is average. Below 1 is not good. 1.5 is a playoff calibur team. 2 is a superbowl champ. The Eagles number was 6.3. Our number was 10.4. Differential is 4.1. Guys, we are not a bad defensive team and we did not play poorly, from a defensive point of view. McNabb had an outstanding game where he probably avoided 4 sure sacks against almost any other QB. We registered 4 sacks as it was. We gave up 3 pts on the opening kick off. We gave up another 14 off turn overs. That's 17 points of there 37 point total. You can't expect a defense to three and out a team like Philly consistantly. We commited 108 yard worth of penalties. All of those things, IMO, are worthy of concern but our actual play, defensively, was not all that bad.

If your going to say that Philly stopped themselves, then you might as well say that our defense killed themselves as well. The fact is that McNabb missed pass because he had pressure. He was forced to move around. He was forced to throw sooner then he wanted. All those things come into why he missed throws. Pro QBs don't just miss wide open receivers because they are inaccurate. Those kinds of QBs don't last 10 years in the league as starting QBs. That's just not realistic. I encourage all to rewatch that game and pay attention to the kinds of passes that Philly was succesful with. Watch us in the run game. See how we really played. I think you'll find that our defense was not nearly as bad as many might think.

We have problems. That's very true. But they are not that we can't stop anybody. Our problems continue to be kick off coverage, Turn Overs and penalties in all phases of the game.

 

[flashback]

I think there might be a change on the defensive staff next year, whether Wade is back or not. And if Wade doesn't win a playoff game, I wouldn't bring him back. Hell, if they don't win a playoff game, I might not bring Garrett back. Just turn the whole thing over to Cowher and see what he can do.

 

[theebs]

I think there might be a change on the defensive staff next year, whether Wade is back or not. And if Wade doesn't win a playoff game, I wouldn't bring him back. Hell, if they don't win a playoff game, I might not bring Garrett back. Just turn the whole thing over to Cowher and see what he can do.

Congratulations!

You get the first official Cowher to Dallas prize of the 2008 season.

There are probably some 0-2 teams who will pony up for that guy if he wants to ever come back. Especially now that john fox is not going anywhere, and the thought was cowher would love to stay home and coach the panthers if he were to ever return.

 

[Sandman52]

Yup. The only question is how to maneuver this. If Wade doesn't want to leave, and it's unlikely he will if the team does as well as we think they will, how will that leave Garrett? He's only extended through this season, so it's going to be a tight-rope act in order to please both guys.

Personally, for the good of the 'chise, I say to hell with public perception and give Garrett his pick of the litter. If he wants to be the HC, you got it bro, we'll fire Wade and plug you in there ASAP... give you cart blanche with the offense, keep Stuart around to keep the D at status quo and not skip a beat.

It's just dealing with the inevitable NFL perception that if Jerry deems you expendable, there is no saving your job. We all know it's an extenuating and extremely rare circumstance in this case, but you know opponent GM's will be using that.

Garrett would bring in Capers like he wanted to this past offseason. We can all see now why Stewart didn't want to have to look over his shoulder. Of all the SD defensive assistants, how did we end up with the worst of the bunch?