Sturm - Decoding Linehan - Lions

The offense looked noticeably different than in the Giants game. Yes, the Giants have a better defense, more pressure, better coverage - but this past week's offensive game plan beats that same defense easily, IMO.
 
The team can undoubtedly get better. 3rd down completion percentage for starters and Dak himself improving in season shows the lie of no room for improvement.

As for gift horses and mouths, that implies that there is a giver that you could potentially be insulting. If that is anyone it is Jerry Jones and frankly he is the one making billions of dollars off of us embracing that type of thing.

He was almost late on the throw to Butler. When he drops back he is looking right but when he hits the back foot he is looking left where Butler is passing the safety who had not opened up his hips to follow him and the corner had committed to TWill. He lets it go in anticipation and the ball arrives with him having 5 yards of separation. He allowed the secondary to try to react.
 
FuzzyLumpkins said:
The team can undoubtedly get better. 3rd down completion percentage for starters and Dak himself improving in season shows the lie of no room for improvement.

As for gift horses and mouths, that implies that there is a giver that you could potentially be insulting. If that is anyone it is Jerry Jones and frankly he is the one making billions of dollars off of us embracing that type of thing.

He was almost late on the throw to Butler. When he drops back he is looking right but when he hits the back foot he is looking left where Butler is passing the safety who had not opened up his hips to follow him and the corner had committed to TWill. He lets it go in anticipation and the ball arrives with him having 5 yards of separation. He allowed the secondary to try to react.
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His anticipation and making those type of throws has been a valid point of criticism and concern. It was readily apparent to me early in the season that he was needing to 'see things' first before he would sling it. And it's a criticism people made of him coming out of college. And with some validity to it I would say.

But I think it's both a 'curse' and a 'blessing'. While it may prevent him taking more shots, I think it also allows him to cut down on potential interceptions, as evidenced by his incredibly low rate of throwing them and his nearly 6-1 TD to INT ratio.

And I see him taking more of those shots as the season progresses too. He made an anticipation throw to Witten that failed to connect (Witten hadn't looked for the ball yet), but to me it showed that he saw what was happening, quickly reacted, and trusted his seasoned veteran to make the play. A good sign in my book.
 
Very enjoyable read and instructive analysis, as always, Bob.

Not sure, however, how the relative under-performance in sacks per attempt can be attributed to not passing in the 2nd half of games they have in hand. Fewer attempts means fewer opportunities for the offense to drive down the ratio, for sure. But it also means fewer opportunities for the defense to increase the ratio. In fact, that's quite the point of looking at sacks per attempt: it allows us to compare the proficiency of offenses at preventing sacks irrespective of whether they are pass-heavy or not. The raw number of sacks prevents useful comparison, of course, because it places teams that drop back to pass more at a disadvantage.
 
I do think that the point that the Sturminator is trying to make is that we should appreciate what we have in Dak. If that is indeed the case I agree wholeheartedly.

I realize that in the context of a rookie QB expecting him to be able to read defenses at all is usually the bar that they need to be overcome and he could do that coming in. Looking at the performance curves of QBs their is no reason that we should not expect him to improve and he is already one of the best in the league.

I just hope that the coaches and he himself are taking the approach of trying to improve weakness as opposed to appreciate what they have already done. Personally, I look at it that way until the season is over and then reflect on what they accomplished. There is no doubt this team has surpassed my very best hope for what could be already.
 
Everybody is worried that he'll be another flash in the pan like RG3, Foles and Kaepernick, but those guys were running college gimmick garbage that only temporarily fooled NFL defenses. RG3 had 1 good season running the Baylor offense in the NFL and then died. Foles coasted on the novelty of Chip Kelly's college offense for a season. Kaepernick ran the option on uber-talented teams under Harbaugh and then died.

Dak is running a pro style offense with almost a dozen permutations of formations and personnel in one game. He's moving safeties around with his eyes. He's checking into plays that make defenses look dumb. This is not rookie stuff.
 
The NFL declares 15 different statistics to measure offensive performances as more significant than all of the others. They are: Yards per game, yards per play, rushing yards per game, rushing yards per play, passing yards per game, passing yards per play, interception rate, sacks per attempt, first downs per game, third-down percentage, fourth-down percentage, red-zone scoring percentage, goal-to-go scoring percentage, time of possession and points per game.
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If that's true, someone needs to help the NFL catch up to things like points per drive, drive success rate, and passer rating. :D

(we're 3rd in all three categories btw)
 
sean10mm said:
Everybody is worried that he'll be another flash in the pan like RG3, Foles and Kaepernick, but those guys were running college gimmick garbage that only temporarily fooled NFL defenses. RG3 had 1 good season running the Baylor offense in the NFL and then died. Foles coasted on the novelty of Chip Kelly's college offense for a season. Kaepernick ran the option on uber-talented teams under Harbaugh and then died.

Dak is running a pro style offense with almost a dozen permutations of formations and personnel in one game. He's moving safeties around with his eyes. He's checking into plays that make defenses look dumb. This is not rookie stuff.
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Who or what do u attribute this learning curve that Dak is excelling at? I imagine it's a combo of stuff. A perfect storm of things.


Edit: looks like this is partially responsible...

http://sportsday.***BANNED-URL***/d...-romo-mark-sanchez-kellen-moore-helped-season
 
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Did anyone else notice how fast Zeke went through the hole as it opened? I guess it's the gif and is flaws, but he almost looked like he disappeared and reappeared in that instant. I watched it like 10 times.

"That boy good"-Arsenio Hall
 
sean10mm said:
Everybody is worried that he'll be another flash in the pan like RG3, Foles and Kaepernick, but those guys were running college gimmick garbage that only temporarily fooled NFL defenses. RG3 had 1 good season running the Baylor offense in the NFL and then died. Foles coasted on the novelty of Chip Kelly's college offense for a season. Kaepernick ran the option on uber-talented teams under Harbaugh and then died.

Dak is running a pro style offense with almost a dozen permutations of formations and personnel in one game. He's moving safeties around with his eyes. He's checking into plays that make defenses look dumb. This is not rookie stuff.
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On the nose. There's no 'gimmick' to his game. Prescott is simply getting it done, and the sky's the limit.
:hammer:
 
DallasDW00ds0n said:
Only thing that holds the offense back is penalties
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Yep. And Garrett said essentially the same thing in his postgame speech this week. Along the lines of 'the only team that can stop our offense is us' and cleaning up the pre-snap penalties.
 
Dak's success is easy to understand. Most quarterback busts are MENTAL busts. To be a pro quarterback you need a pretty good level of general intelligence to learn the complicated offensive systems, but you also need to be able to make snap decisions very quickly under pressure when your opponent is actively trying to give you false clues about how they're going to defend each play, which is a completely different kind of mental talent. You also need a very high level of emotional stability - things constantly go wrong in football games, and you need to be able to move on to the next play and not let penalties, drops, fumbles, cheap shots, taunting or the defense giving up plays to put the team behind with little time left upset your equilibrium. But temperament and intelligence are often completely disconnected things - there are plenty of calm morons and excitable smart people, but neither of them should be NFL QBs.

All that is kind of just the tip of the iceberg. Being a pro QB in the modern era is a very specialized job that almost nobody has the mental make-up to accomplish. And by the way, nobody knows how to scout for these things in a meaningful way. Dak is simply one of those guys who has everything from the neck up. He has a mind for football. Team draft QBs based on who has 1% more arm velocity or 1" of extra height or a 0.1 second faster 40 time because that's what they can measure, but none of that means very much.

You can point to Dak's situation, but this team had a bunch of guys in basically the same situation last year that totally crapped the bed. Would Zeke have helped them? Sure, but they would have still all been stiffs and the team would have been just a more competitive loser than they were, because those guys were mentally incapable of surviving as an NFL QB in 2016. Adrian Peterson never made the Vikings matter outside 1 season when Favre was playing like it was 1996.
 
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