The fatal flaw was exposed

[InmanRoshi]

Moving Glenn and Newman around wont help much. Its pretty much impossible for a CB to defend a player of Coles' speed when he runs a skinny post. Not only is the CB having to stay with a speedster step for step down the field, but across the field as well. Its only because Brunnel hung the ball that Glenn was able to make any play on the ball on the 2nd TD. The problem was Roy on both occasions. The first TD he showed his lack of range by not being able to close on a pass that most safeties should get to. On the second TD he waited until Moss was by him before he got out of his backpedal to turn and run. Too late.

 

[wileedog]

I blame Roy Williams more so than Glenn. Roy wasn't suppose to let anyone get behind him. Period. And he did. I think that is a much larger flaw than Glenn covering Moss.

I don't even think Glenn had that bad of coverage. He missed both balls by mere inches, and if they weren't absolutely perfectly thrown passes he would of have deflected or picked them.

The 2nd one in particular was simply inexcusable for Roy. There wasn't another reciever within 30 yards of the play, there was no one else to worry about. Even if he doesn't make a play on the ball, he HAS to at least tackle Santana before he goes into the end zone.

 

[Hollywood Henderson]

Jos:
Good quality DC's don't put their players in a position to have their weaknesses exposed once, not to mention twice to lose the game...

Good quality innovating DC's put the players in a position where they can EXCELL and make a positive impact on our team...

zimmy failed yet again, as he has so many times in the past in the VERY same manner...

He also failed in his nickle where everyone knew what 4 we were rushing...
Ware on Samuels...Advantage Skins again...

Nope, Ware will excell when he is moved around, can come & blitz from different spots, where we can keep the offense guessing...Where we can win the matchup with him vs a OG, or a RB or NO-ONE!

Its why Parcells was shown screaming his head off at him...

It will be interesting to see what changes are made, but make no mistake, changes DO NEED to be MADE!

 

[ravidubey]

I blame Roy Williams more so than Glenn. Roy wasn't suppose to let anyone get behind him. Period. And he did. I think that is a much larger flaw than Glenn covering Moss.

Glenn has to bump/redirect Moss at the line; if Williams touches or obstructs Moss later it's a penalty. At that point Moss is running full out which is more speed than most safeties have. If the ball is thrown perfectly what could Williams have really done except started backpedaling earlier? But if he backpedals too early he opens the middle of the field. Essentially Glenn provided no coverage on either play.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

In a two deep safety allingment, it is comstumary for one Safety to have a short and long, deep coverage responsability. You can have two safeties responsable for half the field deep but that's normally in a prevent situation, not in a nickle or dime. Everybody does it a little different but bottom line, two critical things went wrong in both coverages. The speed on the field was not recognized and accounted for in coverage, one, and the speed WR was not bumped off the line. Both of these two things are critical. IE, if Roy had deep intermediate responsability, this should have been changed once Moss lined up to his side of the field. Thus, allowing Roy the ability to free up on the short assignment and get right into backpeddle. No excuse, at all, for giving up a free release on Moss. Again, recognition of who is on the field, what the game situation was and what your responsability should be in that situation. IMO, this was probably the biggest error commited. This chuck on the speed guy allows the defense that extra second or so to see where the deep threat is coming from. It's the difference between seeing the steak and getting into position to provide help and getting beat for six.

Everybody is at fault on those two plays. Poor coaching on recognition, responsabiliy and adjustments. Poor execution on behalf of the players for not reading keys and communicating what should be understood between the LBs and DBs.

 

[Aikmaniac]

Great points in this thread. I taped the game also but I don't feel like punching anymore walls.

I didn't realize that at the only time Glenn was covering Moss, Brunell recognized it and "exposed" it.

 

[Justis]

Cortez,Payton,Zimmer, Parcells, Bledsoe, key penalties...

There is so much blame to go around, at least this weakness made itself apparent early so we can deal with it. Is anyone else angry that we never tried a play action the whole game. Since Sean Taylor was such a sucker for the run it would've done great, but all we did was that flea flicker. We also should've ran more when we had two timeouts at our second to last possession. It's of very little comfort but do you realize that Julius has lead every game in rushing since he came back in Baltimore.

 

[Doomsday]

'SKINS EXPOSE WILLIAMS



There's rampant talk in league circles following the Cowboys' late-game loss to the Commanders that those two loooong passes from Mark Brunell to Santana Moss exposed Dallas safety Roy Williams as a very poor performer in pass coverage.



While no one questions his ability to stuff the run, the book on Williams now includes a separate chapter regarding his weaknesses against aerial attacks.



The recipient of arguably undue hype for his overall game, Williams simply doesn't have the raw speed to be a factor in pass coverage. On both of Washington's fourth-quarter touchdowns, Williams couldn't provide deep help to break up the play.
​

All they had to do is watch the last few Giants game if they wanted to see how poor Williams is in coverage. I dont think this is a revalation.

 

[InmanRoshi]

Is anyone else angry that we never tried a play action the whole game.

***? We had 36 passes, and a great majority were play action. The drive in between the two TD scores alone with 5:00 on the clock we attempted two play action passes down the field.


I wish some of you would tape the game and actually go back and evaluate it. Its frightening how off base the revisionist history is from the facts of what happened.

 

[notherbob]

Yeah. It's obvious that the Skins manipulated their formations to ensure that their best and fastest WR would be lined up against our #3, oldest and slowest CB late in the game. That's good coaching from either Gibbs or their OC.

True - it's not all man coverage, you can't always put your best corner on their best WR, the scheme dictates who covers whom and a good OC will take advantage of mismatches in the zones.

 

[notherbob]

In a two deep safety allingment, it is comstumary for one Safety to have a short and long, deep coverage responsability. You can have two safeties responsable for half the field deep but that's normally in a prevent situation, not in a nickle or dime. Everybody does it a little different but bottom line, two critical things went wrong in both coverages. The speed on the field was not recognized and accounted for in coverage, one, and the speed WR was not bumped off the line. Both of these two things are critical. IE, if Roy had deep intermediate responsability, this should have been changed once Moss lined up to his side of the field. Thus, allowing Roy the ability to free up on the short assignment and get right into backpeddle. No excuse, at all, for giving up a free release on Moss. Again, recognition of who is on the field, what the game situation was and what your responsability should be in that situation. IMO, this was probably the biggest error commited. This chuck on the speed guy allows the defense that extra second or so to see where the deep threat is coming from. It's the difference between seeing the steak and getting into position to provide help and getting beat for six.

Everybody is at fault on those two plays. Poor coaching on recognition, responsabiliy and adjustments. Poor execution on behalf of the players for not reading keys and communicating what should be understood between the LBs and DBs.

You are absodominately right.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

All they had to do is watch the last few Giants game if they wanted to see how poor Williams is in coverage. I dont think this is a revalation.

I'll go you one better and just say, look at him while at OU.

I remember the hellfire debates when we drafted Roy. One side of the house (majority I think) said he was a do it all safety that hit like a LB. The other side (minority by a landslide) said that he was average, at best, in coverage and not worthy of a top 10 selection.

Regardless of then and now, I think Roy is a stand up guy for accepting responsability for this thing. That's what leaders do. Roy is what he is. I don't think it's unmanagable. I just think his weakness in coverage has to be recognized and compensated for. The thing that really pisses me of for so long is that it's like our coaching staff doesn't admit that Roy has issues in coverage. It's like they ingnore it and continue to put him in positions he's going to have trouble with. I just don't understand the mentality there.

 

[kartr]

The real fatal flaw is thinking Drew Bledsoe, Mr. career winning percentage of .503 (8-8) is an upgrade over what we had as qb the last two years. Qb ratings mean nothing if you don't win. Brian Griese had a qb rating of 98 last year and his team didn't make the playoffs. Bledsoe missed a half dozen reads that would have resulted in touchdowns or big first downs, and that includes throwing short to Glenn, when Witten was open deep.Don't tell me about him having a man in his face either, cause QC threw touchdowns against the 'skins in 2003 while wearing a defender

 

[stilltheguru]

i still think roy is fine in coverage.he messed up two times big time.



wont happen again this year.

trust.

 

[Justis]

The real fatal flaw is thinking Drew Bledsoe, Mr. career winning percentage of .503 (8-8) is an upgrade over what we had as qb the last two years. Qb ratings mean nothing if you don't win. Brian Griese had a qb rating of 98 last year and his team didn't make the playoffs. Bledsoe missed a half dozen reads that would have resulted in touchdowns or big first downs, and that includes throwing short to Glenn, when Witten was open deep.Don't tell me about him having a man in his face either, cause QC threw touchdowns against the 'skins in 2003 while wearing a defender

Dude, of all the hatred that can be thrown around I'd say that Bledsoe is least deserving. Yeah, he skipped a few passes, but make no mistake he's the best Cowboy's QB since Aikman, when he could count all his fingers. Bledsoe was solid, didn't hold the ball to long, and didn't throw any INTs. I think the real problem was not calling enough deep routes. We have two good deep threats (Glenn, Price) and we failed to utilize them. Curse Payton for his conservative Dave Campo-esk play calling.

 

[Maikeru-sama]

I just think its really stupid to have used a #5 pick on a shutdown CB, and spend what we did on Anthony Henry...then watch in key game situations as they have nothing to do with the coverage on the other teams best WR two weeks in a row...they did it last week with McCardell and Monday with Moss

its just one more reason that Z....

oh screw it

David

Me and you are on the same page. I ad someone argue with me to death that Glenn was a great Pro Bowl Corner and did his job. As I stated, if I am a CEO, I am going to always make sure my Best and Highest paid employees are matched up against the oppositions' best.

There is no excuse for Henry or Newman to not been covering Moss.

- Mike G.

 

[InmanRoshi]

i still think roy is fine in coverage.he messed up two times big time.



wont happen again this year.

trust.

Actually, messed up three times. He let an easy INT go through his hands to zonk him right in the face mask just before the first touchdown was given up. Would have iced the game.

Must have been the playcalling :laugh2:

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

The real fatal flaw is thinking Drew Bledsoe, Mr. career winning percentage of .503 (8-8) is an upgrade over what we had as qb the last two years. Qb ratings mean nothing if you don't win. Brian Griese had a qb rating of 98 last year and his team didn't make the playoffs. Bledsoe missed a half dozen reads that would have resulted in touchdowns or big first downs, and that includes throwing short to Glenn, when Witten was open deep.Don't tell me about him having a man in his face either, cause QC threw touchdowns against the 'skins in 2003 while wearing a defender

I think your fishing on this one Kartr. Bledsoe played well. No agenda at all here. I was completely against bringing Bledsoe in and in favor of developing a young guy. I stand here right now and say that Bledsoe, thus far, has been better then I hoped he'd be, thus far. In fact, barring injury, I would have to say that I was way to harsh on Bledsoe and what I precieved to be short comings in his game. I still worry about the sacks, fumbles and injury/age but I have no questions on his throwing ability, his ability to get out of the pocket and gain yards when there and his courage. I like a lot of what I see from Bledsoe right now. At this point, I'd have to say that I was way off base with a few of my concerns on Bledsoe.

 

[JonJon]

Where was Keith Davis during the fiasco?

 

[Justis]

***? We had 36 passes, and a great majority were play action. The drive in between the two TD scores alone with 5:00 on the clock we attempted two play action passes down the field.


I wish some of you would tape the game and actually go back and evaluate it. Its frightening how off base the revisionist history is from the facts of what happened.

Oops, well I wish we had tried some more deep routes, and run in the last 2 min.