The ballad of Mike Zimmer

[TNCowboy]

I give Zimmer no credit. None whatsoever. We've given him a truckload of front 7 talent the last 2 years, and the passrush is no better than it was when Parcells got here.

We're still playing the same passive D, waiting for the other team to make the mistake. It worked fine today, and fine against TN. But in the 2 games we played against good teams, it didn't work. Against good QBs, you have to pressure, or they'll pick you apart. Just like McNabb last week. Just like Delhomme and Manning will do the next 2 weeks unless there's a lot more pressure on the QB.

 

[The30YardSlant]

The 2001 defense was not in the top 10, and the 2005 defense was #11.

The 2001 defense was #8, *edit* my bad, counted wrong, yes, last year's team was not in the top 10, but just outside of it

They were #11 in 2005, #14 in 2003, #12 in 2002.

11
14
12

All top half of the league

Thanks for, yet again, throwing yourself under the bus

 

[The30YardSlant]

I think it is fair that most would say Jim Johnson of the eagles is the superior DC.


Looks see what the Eagles did vs the Texans.

Carr had a 102 Rating
Carr threw 0 ints
The texans scored a TD and A FG
The texans had 19 first downs
The texans had 70 rushing yards
The texans had 208 yards passing
The texans had 27:09 time of possesion.
Philly had 5 sacks

Now the cowboys

Carr had a 37 qb rating
Carr threw 2 ints
The texans had 2 FGs 0 TDs
The texans had 12 first downs
The texans had 34 yards rushing
The texans had 198 yards passing
The texans had 24:46 in time of possesion
Dallas had 0 sacks

====

We did better than Philly against the Texans in every category except sacks. Yet we still won by a larger margin and gave up less points.

Damn those facts, damn them all to Hell

 

[CrazyCowboy]

Note to self......

TEXANS scored SIX only!

 

[Wolfpack]

Sacks are a good read as to how much pressure you are getting on QBs.

Today, we rushed 4 most of the time and didnt get any sacks. Houston kept at least man in most of the time and Carr did a good job of getting the ball out quickly. The result was short patterns that either we had covered (Henry played short routes all game) or a quick tackle by a LB in zone.

The 4 man rush would have gotten more sacks had Houston tried to go to deeper routes, but had they tried that you might have seen a blitz or two from us.

I think Houstons game plan was for shorter routes to avoid sacks and we were happy to let them try to put a long drive together. Works for me anyway.

 

[Ratmatt]

A bash Mike Zimmer thread at Cowboyszone! You're probably shocked.

It is warrented today though, against a team as bad as the Texans, the Cowboys had ZERO quarterback sacks.

Not only did they have zero quarterback sacks, but they weren't even close to Carr but maybe one or two times.

Now, as we all know, David Carr is one of the tougher QB's in the league to sack, but that is simply no excuse.

Bob Dole has heard people all year long with these tiresome "Ware vs. Merriman", "Is Marcus Spears a bust?" discussions.

The fact of the matter is this - there is NOBODY out there that can tell Bob Dole with a straight face that this defense doesn't have the talent to be causing havoc on opposing QB's.

So why aren't they?

Mike Zimmer.

I've said this before and I'll say it again.For all the people who bash on zimmer,and say this defense isn't aggressive enough,or there not as blitz happy as other 3-4 defenses.All I have to say is he is running this defense like he is being told to run it.This is parcells defense,he forced zimmer to learn it,and it is being ran the way parcells wants it.Now if we're complaining that zimmer isn't a good enough coach or motivator to get his players to play up to there potential,then that may be another matter,but if we're complaining that this defenses isn't aggressive enough,like alot of people do on here,then I believe that zimmer is nothing but a scapegoat for parcells.

 

[CanadianCowboysFan]

A bash Mike Zimmer thread at Cowboyszone! You're probably shocked.

It is warrented today though, against a team as bad as the Texans, the Cowboys had ZERO quarterback sacks.

Not only did they have zero quarterback sacks, but they weren't even close to Carr but maybe one or two times.

Now, as we all know, David Carr is one of the tougher QB's in the league to sack, but that is simply no excuse.

Bob Dole has heard people all year long with these tiresome "Ware vs. Merriman", "Is Marcus Spears a bust?" discussions.

The fact of the matter is this - there is NOBODY out there that can tell Bob Dole with a straight face that this defense doesn't have the talent to be causing havoc on opposing QB's.

So why aren't they?

Mike Zimmer.

Damn man, the team didn't give up a TD the entire game and you are whining because they had no sacks? We sacked McFlabb three times last week but gave up 4 offensive touchdowns. Which did you prefer?

 

[ghst187]

after the way Sean Payton has gone to New Orleans and blossomed, I'm wondering if BP isn't the one holding back Zimmer too....

 

[braw]

Any coach would take a turn over over a sack any day. The job of the D is to not allow points and get the ball back. A to does both while a sack can be over come.

For example:

Eagles vs Giants Eli sacked 9 times yet wins Why? Westbrook fumble late in the game over came the sacks but not the tos.

Eagles vs Cowboys Bledsoe sacked 7 times yet at the 6 yd line to tie the game except he throws an int for a td(dagger). In this game we over came the sacks but not the tos

 

[Bob Sacamano]

Reading isn't your strong suit, is it?

This thread was about the fact that team recorded zero sacks against one of the worst teams in the NFL.

Care to dispute that?

Just so you know, "UHH DUHH WE HELD EM TA 232 YARDS (yes, it was 232, not 162) AND 6 POINTS!1!!!" is not going to help your argument against that.

we had 0 sacks yet held the Texans to 6 points

noone else has been able to do this

you guys are unbelievable, we win, and you still find excuses to *****

 

[MarionBarberThe4th]

Kind of tough to get sacks when they only use a 3 step drop and throw about 20 slants

 

[cowboyed]

Under the circumstances I believed we did an outstanding job against their defense. Sacking Carr these days is not as easy as it used to be. The Texans Oline has improved and Carr releases the ball faster. Their offense as of late has been moving the ball fairly well. Their defense has been aggressive.

We stopped their run game, dead in its tracks. We contained their passing game. Carr too often had to throw perfectly to make anything happen. We held them to two field goals. I guess 3 or 4 sacks would be icing on the cake, but this cake was sweet nevertheless.

I love sacks just like any other fan, but excellent coverage and hurrying the quarterback works for me just as well. What is wrong with a smothering defense?

 

[T-New41]

Yeah our defense sucks. 2 Interceptions, gave up nothing on the ground, gave up no TD's, pressured Carr several times with absolutely no blitz, but we suck because there were no sacks. 0 points in the 2nd half given up, but our defense sucks. Just for once people, look beyond stats and look at what is actually happening on field.

 

[Aikmaniac]

I think I see good points on both sides of this argument.

Against the Eagles last week, that's when the Cowboys needed heavy pressure on one of the best QB's in the NFL. This week (although I haven't seen the game yet) I imagine the plan was to let Carr try and beat them by applying some pressure and letting the secondary smother the WR's.

Maybe Zimmer is afraid to blitz because he's trying to cover up holes in the secondary? Maybe he's not blitzing because BP says not to blitz.

I don't get to see that much of Carr so I don't know if his QB rating up to yesterday was all smoke and mirrors because of them getting blown out or if he's finally turning the corner under Kubiak's system.

I did like the score and the stats of this game. Hope someone uploads it so I can see it.

 

[dwmyers]

A bash Mike Zimmer thread at Cowboyszone! You're probably shocked.

It is warrented today though, against a team as bad as the Texans, the Cowboys had ZERO quarterback sacks.

Not only did they have zero quarterback sacks, but they weren't even close to Carr but maybe one or two times.

Now, as we all know, David Carr is one of the tougher QB's in the league to sack, but that is simply no excuse.

Bob Dole has heard people all year long with these tiresome "Ware vs. Merriman", "Is Marcus Spears a bust?" discussions.

The fact of the matter is this - there is NOBODY out there that can tell Bob Dole with a straight face that this defense doesn't have the talent to be causing havoc on opposing QB's.

So why aren't they?

Mike Zimmer.

/o~ Oh, here's a story 'bout a coach named Zed /o~
/o~ whose players couldn't rush, couldn't keep the fanboys fed /o~

BTW, Pro Football Prospectus 2006, aren't they the ones that are predicting that Detroit is going to win more games than Dallas this year?

David.

 

[YosemiteSam]

First off let me say this. I only saw the first half of the game.

During the first half the Cowboys didn't get close to Carr and that was because Carr did exactly as he should have. He dumped that ball within 2.5 seconds. (sometimes much faster) Your odds in getting pressure on the QB without a blitz in less than 2.5 seconds is almost none. A offensive linemen would have to not block someone or just outright fall down. Looking at the stats, We gave up 10 of 15 for 85 passing yards in the first half vs 13 of 23 for 113 in the second half. I don't see any real difference in the defense in the first and second half that can't be accounted for by the offense actually starting to score. When the scoring starts the Texans stop running and become more one dimensional which allows the defense to tighten the pass coverage. As you can see the Texans had more passing yards in the second half, yet the passing percentage dropped from 66% to 56% and t hey had 2 INTs. Thats what happens when you become one dimensional by playing catchup.

I think the Cowboys have to be really worried about their pass rush. They don't seem to have much without blitzing. I think that is partly due to Zimmer not having a full grasp of the 3-4. I won't blame him for it as it's not because he isn't an qualified NFL defensive coordinator. It's because he is learning a new system. I would either lay the blame on Parcells for keeping him as the defensive cooridinator or more likely, Jerry Jones insisting that he stay. Zimmer is a great coach, he is just coaching the wrong style defense. With the Cowboys secondary the front seven should be able to show more complexed looks, but choose to keep the rush simple which makes the offensive lines blocking schemes easier to handle. Instead of making the rush more complexed they tend to make the coverages more complexed. (big props to Ellis for making the switch as quickly as he did and at 270lbs!)

The question is, when will the Cowboys start mixing it up on the line. I'm talking about delayed stunts and/or delayed blitzing. (which seems to eat the Cowboys o-line alive!) Anything to add a wrinkle to the rush and make the opposing offensive line work harder. At this point we are seeing straight rushes of four (though we do blitz too) against five offensive linemen and either a tightend or a RB blocking. A vanilla four man pass rush against 5-6 blockers generally doesn't provide much pressure.

The Cowboys winning the game was expected, but I got a lot more pleasure out of the Commanders getting dished by the Titans and the Saints dispatching of the Eagles. SWEET!

 

[Doomsday]

Who cares how many yards and points the defense gave up!! What matters is sacks!!

 

[Doomsday]

I would be shocked if part of BP's gameplan wasnt to make the Texans drive the length of the field and string together long drives. With Moulds and Johnson on the outside the last thing Dallas wanted to do was give up a big TD and let Houston hang around. I cant imagine Dallas is going to go into every game with the same objectives defensively.

 

[joseephuss]

Damn man, the team didn't give up a TD the entire game and you are whining because they had no sacks? We sacked McFlabb three times last week but gave up 4 offensive touchdowns. Which did you prefer?

Exactly.

Against the Eagles one TD came on a short field thanks to McBriar and it was on a run. On two of the long passes by McNabb, he was being pressured. He had to move around to escape the rush, but since he is a good QB, he made plays on blown coverages. The othere was on a well designed trick play, flea flicker. I thought Dallas did a good job of pressuring the Eagles, but were poor in coverage. Against Houston, they were great in coverage and concentrated on not giving up big plays or cheap TDs. I will take that every game. Now if they can combine the two, they will win more games against good teams.

 

[Maikeru-sama]

and you might be surprised that most of his "numbers" came when his team was getting blown out

hence, why stats dont always tell the whole story

David

Yeah.

I like David Carr as a QB but his Run Game is absolutely horrid. Most teams, including the Cowboys are going to have them one dimensional by the 2nd Quarter and I personally thought it was only a matter of time before he started turning the ball over because he has no run game.

I have to re-check the game, but I thought we got sack toward the end of the game.

- Mike G.