Statistical Categories That the Boys Rank in the Top 6:

[silverbear]

Total offense-- 5th, at 351.5 yards per game...

First Downs/ game-- 5th, 20.5...

Third down conversion percentage-- 5th, 40.7%...

Time Of Possession-- 5th, 31.5 minutes per game...

Scoring Offense-- 3rd, 28.2 points per game...

Rushing Offense-- 3rd, 147.7 yards per game...

Third down conversion percentage allowed-- 6th, 29.4%...

Completion percentage allowed-- 6th, 56.6%...

Rushing Defense-- 5th, 75.2 yards per game allowed...

Yards Per Carry Allowed-- 4th, 3.1...

On an individual note, Julius Jones leads the NFL in rushing right now, averaging 97.0 yards per game... Mat McBriar leads the league in gross punting average, at 50.7 yards, and is second in net punting average, at 40.9...

 

[THUMPER]

This team has way too much talent on it to be losing games due to turnovers and stupid mistakes.

 

[SteveOS]

I love stats and don't get me wrong, but 2-2 is 2-2, with or without the stats. It's good to see the stats in our favor, but until they can string some wins together, that is all they will be, just stats.

 

[THUMPER]

Some additional stats:

Dallas is 24th in turnover margin at -3. The Rams are #1 at +12 and have yet to throw an INT in 5 games this year even though Bulger is 7th in passes attempted.

On that note, McNabb has thrown 11 TDs and 1 INT. It's a good thing he sucks or we'd really be in trouble. He also leads the league by a pretty good margin in yards per attempt at 9.1 per pass play.

Dallas has sacked the QB 12 times which ties them for 11th place. The Eagles are #1 with 23 and the Giants are next to last with only 5. The Commanders are 28th with 7. Both the Eagles & Commanders have played 5 games while the Cowboys & Giants have played 4.

Dallas is 20th in points allowed at 21.5 per game, slightly ahead of Washington at 22.0, and New York at 23.8 per game. The Eagles are 14th at 19.4 per game.

Drew Bledsoe's QB rating of 63.6 at least puts him ahead of the likes of: Kerry Collins, Vince Young, Chris Simms, Jake Plummer, Aaron Brooks (well, all of the Raiders QBs), and strangely enough, Ben Roethlisberger (41.7) who has 0 TDs and 7 INTs this year.

Terrell Owens is tied for 3rd in the NFL in "passes not caught" at 23. In other words, passes that were thrown to him that for whatever reason he didn't catch. Oddly enough, Torry Holt, who I consider to be one of the top-3 WRs in the game, leads the league in this category but then he also leads in number of passes thrown to him.

Terry Glenn has only 6 passes that he didn't catch.

Someone on this forum who said they would take Willis McGahee over Julius Jones might want to re-think that opinion as McGahee leads the league in stuffs at 16 while Julius is way down the list with 7.

In terms of stuffs per carry, Brandon Jacobs of the Giants leads the league since he has yet to be stuffed in 23 attempts. Ladell Betts is 2nd with 1 in 47 and little Maurice Drew-Jones (from UCLA!) is 3rd at 1 in 33. Marion Barber has 1 in 27 and Julius Jones has 7 stuffs in 86 carries which still puts him among the leaders. Just for comparison, LT has 9 in 89 carries.

Just some stuff to ponder...

 

[Juke99]

Well, my take on it is....

We can have a team that lives up to Parcells philosophy, run the ball...control the clock...stop the other team from running the ball...and still not have a winning record.

Ya GOTTA make plays.

Ya gotta let athletes make plays. We have a lot of guys with playmaking potential....Ware, Williams, Ellis, Newman, Burnett (in the nickel)...Owens, Glenn, Julius...Yet we play a conservative brand of football that is reflected in the stats, and don't have a winning record.

THIS is my biggest gripe about Parcells. He employs a philosophy that teams used in the 1960's.

We controlled the stats vs Philly. And lost the game. Why? Because they made big plays. You can say that we had mental mistakes on defense AND offense but fact of the matter is, they STILL had to make the play.

Owens was open for a TD...Bledsoe put the ball up short...Interception

Glenn had the defense beat on that 4th quarter...Bledsoe put the ball up short...we got the PI penalty...but could have had a TD.

We had McNabb dead to rights on a few plays...including the bomb to Baskett...he avoided the rush and made the big play.

That's what wins games in this version of the NFL. Athletes making big plays.

IMO of course.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

This team has way too much talent on it to be losing games due to turnovers and stupid mistakes.

Agreed. It's primarily the turnovers, which is fixable. Secondarily, it's the penalties, and blown coverages.

I know that one argument is the quickest, easiest way to fix the turnovers is to switch over to Romo. I personally think the quickest, easiest way to fix the turnovers is to stop playing the Eagles on the road. Oh good -- I see we've taken care of that. Having a week at home against Houston to plug in the cracks is going to go a long ways quickly toward mending these problems. The key is to be able to extend that into the following week's home game against NYG. Do that and we're in good shape heading into the road trip.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Well, my take on it is....

We can have a team that lives up to Parcells philosophy, run the ball...control the clock...stop the other team from running the ball...and still not have a winning record.

I have not looked up the numbers of pass vs run this year, or more to the point this past game.

But it seems like we are passing more this season or during that last game.

Which oddly enough I think was the wrong thing to do during that last game.

I thought our Running game was working pretty good, not all the time, but enough to stick with it some more.

This would have cut down on the pressure on the O-Line and bledsoe as it seemed the O-Line was doing a much better job in run blocking compared to pass protection.

Keep running that ball and when those safties start to cheat up than hit them with a long bomb.

Contrary to what many people want to think Bill does not just run run run the ball.

It seemed with both QC and Vinny there were times he was pass happy and he has done the same with Bledsoe IMO. After all they did post the 2nd highest number of passing yards last year in Cowboys history with a QB.

 

[Juke99]

I have not looked up the numbers of pass vs run this year, or more to the point this past game.

But it seems like we are passing more this season or during that last game.

Which oddly enough I think was the wrong thing to do during that last game.

I thought our Running game was working pretty good, not all the time, but enough to stick with it some more.

This would have cut down on the pressure on the O-Line and bledsoe as it seemed the O-Line was doing a much better job in run blocking compared to pass protection.

Keep running that ball and when those safties start to cheat up than hit them with a long bomb.

Contrary to what many people want to think Bill does not just run run run the ball.

It seemed with both QC and Vinny there were times he was pass happy and he has done the same with Bledsoe IMO. After all they did post the 2nd highest number of passing yards last year in Cowboys history with a QB.

He's as conservative as Barry Goldwater.

The entire focus is "don't make a mistake"

It's not, "Go out and make a play to win the game"

Every press conference, all ya hear about is "We made 9 of these kind of mistakes, 7 mental breakdowns, 5 of these kind of mistakes" etc.

We threw the ball, what, 38 times in this past game? Not including the 7 sacks. That's 45 attempts. Yet, I wouldn't exactly call what we did "aggressive" in the passing game.

Now, it's hard to be aggessive when your QB is on his fanny. But again, if he valued a QB who could move and make plays, instead of the proverbial "game manager" (see, I didn't use the word "busdriver" ) we'd be able to be more aggressive.

I'll still hold to my original opinion of Roy Williams being the example. He's not been the playmaker he was before Parcells arrived. He spends his time in coverage. WHY? Because we haven't had a good safety next to him since Woodson left. Now, if we valued playmaking, it would have been a priority to sign a good safety in order to let Roy play to his strengths.

The point of my post was, playmakers win games. We seem to undervalue that and play games to stay close and "win" in the 4th quarter. We play NOT to lose. That's just an observation on my part.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

The main stats I look at are:

1. Sacks
2. Turnover Margin
3. Points Allowed Per Game
4. 1st quarter point differential.


All of these factors have an extremely high correlation to winning in the NFL. Dallas is doing well in #1 and #4. They are averaging 3 sacks per game which means they are on pace to get 48 sacks this year which would've been the 3rd highest in the NFL. 40 sacks in a regular season is very good, 48 sacks in a regular season is outstanding. Also, we've outscored opponents in the first quarter 34-13.

The problem is really #2. We rank t-12th in most takeaways per game (1.75 per game). However, we rank tied for 29th in least giveaways per game (2.5)

When it comes to points allowed per game, you want your team to be in the top 8. Currently Dallas is ranked 20th in points allowed per game, and that's mostly due to the turnovers. And 8 of the 10 turnovers have come from Bledsoe.

I really believe if Bledsoe can just avoid turning the ball over despite getting sacked and making bad throws when he has time, it may not be pretty, but Dallas will be one of the better teams in the league. But since he turns the ball over so often, it puts the rest of the team at a disadvantage.


YAKUZA

 

[Yakuza Rich]

He's as conservative as Barry Goldwater.

The entire focus is "don't make a mistake"

It's not, "Go out and make a play to win the game"

Every press conference, all ya hear about is "We made 9 of these kind of mistakes, 7 mental breakdowns, 5 of these kind of mistakes" etc.

There's really nothing wrong this line of thinking from a coach. Turnover margin has an extremely high correlation to winning. Dallas is doing a solid job of forcing turnovers on defense. The problem is that they are turning the ball over way too often on offense. Thus, we have a -3 turnover margin.

Mental breakdowns are important as well. A missed blocking assignment can get your QB killed and can force you to turn the ball over. Those are extremely bad things. And as the Philly game showed, a missed assignment by Watkins caused Philly to come right back and hit LJ Smith with a 60 yard strike.

I'll live with another team beating my team by sheerly being better. The problem was that Dallas made things pretty easy for McNabb by the mental mistakes and not protecting the ball.


YAKUZA

 

[YosemiteSam]

I noticed passing defense isn't listed. In the end, stats mean nothing. You still have to win.