The View From My Couch: Dak and Romo

[Bleu Star]

Reality:

Romo cannot prepare in practice for what he will see when he steps back onto the field mid season. Everyone else will be in mid season form and he will be trotting his just healed back out there yet again. I hate to say it again but. . . His body no longer goes as fast as his brain thinks it can and he has had a difficult time adjusting to that. It is evident in his continuous attempts to slide late because he thinks he's more elusive than he actually is.

I would never wish injury on anyone but I can't see him lasting longer than two games. So. . Stay ready Dak.

Yeah dude. They don't want to hear reality. They're too emotionally attached to that shiny glimmering antique item. If they save it up long enough, it'll be worth a lot of money one day.

 

[JDSmith]

Yeah dude. They don't want to hear reality. They're too emotionally attached to that shiny glimmering antique item. If they save it up long enough, it'll be worth a lot of money one day.

Did you forget which account you're logged in on? You just replied to yourself as if responding to another party.

 

[Bleu Star]

Did you forget which account you're logged in on? You just replied to yourself as if responding to another party.

Hahha. I like to entertain myself on occasion.

 

[percyhoward]

Hahha. I like to entertain myself on occasion.

TMI, Bleu.

 

[boysfanindc]

I think Dak drops back goes through his reads and takes what the D is giving him even if it is the shorter routes.

I think Romo drops back and is always looking for the big play, even if that means he has to hold the ball to give his receivers the time to make a second move.

Pass protection looks better for Dak because he is getting rid of the ball quickly most of the times, while Romo wants to give the play as much time as he can.

 

[Bullflop]

Some way, somehow, something needs to change to allow Romo to deliver the ball faster. He's likely going to continue getting hit by onrushing defensive linemen if it continues. Dak is delivering the ball more expeditiously than Romo. He appears to make his reads quicker. It affords him the advantage of putting defenses at a serious disadvantage due to the lack of time for them to adjust. I think Romo is simply dealing with too many options to be as efficient as he might be otherwise. I not too sure Jerry did him or the team a big favor by allowing him to make as many last second adjustments as he does.

 

[Diehardblues]

It's nice to see a forum mature enough to handle discussing Romo. There are some forums that are more Romo fan sites than Cowboys much too sensitive to handle open discussions they had to create subforums to control.

 

[YosemiteSam]

So, don't rush Romo back. Let him knock the rust off.

One thing is clear. With Romo at the helm, this offense is far more dangerous.

You can see with each game, Dak is becoming less and less of a Checkdown Sally, but Romo is one of the best quick strike QBs playing. (if you could only get Dez to give full effort on every play)

 

[DogFace]

He likely looked so awkward sliding because of all his back problems. His mind just knows it's likely to be uncomfortable at least.

 

[Hoov]

I think Dak drops back goes through his reads and takes what the D is giving him even if it is the shorter routes.

I think Romo drops back and is always looking for the big play, even if that means he has to hold the ball to give his receivers the time to make a second move.

Pass protection looks better for Dak because he is getting rid of the ball quickly most of the times, while Romo wants to give the play as much time as he can.

I think this is accurate. The problem I have with that is that while Romo gets more big plays, the offense will also have more times when drives are stalled either because of long down and distances from this style of play. Also, he still does not automatically go to the hot read when blitzed - he tries to escape and make a play downfield - sometimes it works but just as often it backfires.

 

[Bleu Star]

TMI, Bleu.

Actually laughing out loud.

 

[Doomsay]

Lottery numbers?? Thanks

Nah, easy money. Over the past two seasons, Tony has suffered a multiple month injury once in about every 90 snaps - he's been lasing less than a game and a half before being injured. Every defense wants to take him out now, it's blood sport & too easy. Unfortunately, I'd have to take those odds, all day.

 

[erod]

Looked to me like he went into a normal slide and got hit from behind.

I see your point, but I think Romo's body language was saying, "Tony, what are you doing?"

He should have just thrown from the pocket. It was preaseason.

 

[erod]

I take issue with the "Dak is processing information faster than Romo post snap."

We have seen numerous times post snap guys come open for tds (thinking Bears and Dez week 1) and Dak simply never, ever saw them.

One of the reasons guys like Laurent had so much success here (Terrance as well) was Romo recognizing information as a long play unfolds and "seeing" how everyone is moving and knowing where Terrance Robinson Laurent Williams would come open.

Romo has an uncanny ability to deliver the ball at just the right time. I like how he throws over linebackers shoulders to Witten down the seam. He can anticipate the body position of the defender and throw a guy open.

Took him a long time to learn to do that though. That's the thing I most hope he can teach Dak.

 

[AshyLarry06]

We can’t escape the Romo vs. Dak debate. It’s talked about on ESPN, every sports radio show, forums, blogs and articles all over the internet. We’ve discussed it on my podcast in every single episode. We’ve had Marcus Mosher (NeonDeion21) and Mark Lane (The Emperor) on the show and those two very popular Cowboys fans had drastically differing opinions. On Monday we’re gonna talk to Dave Halprin from BTB about it. I’ve remained relatively silent on it, but a moment of clarity yesterday has inspired me to write about it. What follows is no more and no less than one man’s attempt to find some sanity in a truly crazy situation.

These two quarterbacks take remarkably different approaches to the position. Romo is all pre-snap, and Prescott is all post-snap. Romo affects the running game with audibles, and blocking scheme changes, Prescott affects the running game with his legs and play fakes. When Romo misses, he usually misses wide, when Prescott misses he usually misses high. Two very different players operating what is essentially the same offense in very different ways.

When Romo steps up to the line of scrimmage in the pre-snap phase, he has four responsibilities. He must identify and call out the mike, he has to set the protection, he has to pick from a myriad of plays and make sure everyone on the offense knows which play he’s chosen, and he must, MUST get the defense to show their hand before the snap. This is why he runs the clock all the way down to 0.00001 second before the snap, because it forces the defense to get in the position they need to be at the snap. This is why Romo appears to go through his reads so fast, because he knows where he is going to throw the ball before the ball is snapped on probably 70% of his throws. When he’s wrong pre-snap, this is where he gets into so much trouble post-snap, holding onto the ball for too long, taking sacks and late throws that the defense has time to react to. On the plus side of this style, when he’s right pre-snap, he pushes the ball down the field several orders of magnitude better than Prescott. This style of play leaves Romo open to more hits which only exacerbates his current health problems.

When Prescott steps up to the line of scrimmage in the pre-snap phase, he has three responsibilities. He has to identify and call out the mike just like Tony, he does not set the protection, Fredbeard does that. He has to pick between one of two plays he’s been given and alert the offense if he’s checking away from the called play to the alternate (a much easier task than Romo’s) and he has to make his best educated guess about the defensive coverage before the ball is snapped. The majority of Prescott’s success comes post snap where I find he processes information much faster than Romo. The scary part about that is how green he is right now, he’s only going to get faster and better at post-snap diagnosis as his career continues. While this style of play tends to be safer it leads to a lot of shorter throws which can lead to other problems down the line. A quick example being a defense that decides to play a 2 man shell the whole game, Dak will automatically just take the checkdown every time because his pre-snap and post-snap reads will confirm the defense has the downfield stuff covered up. Typically defenses love doing this and forcing you to make your way down the field a little a time without making any mistakes. Fortunately Dak has shown the ability and patience to do just that. It’s also difficult to play that coverage when facing this offensive line and this stable of running backs.

All of this is why the pre-snap phase looks so much more hectic with Romo under center. Romo has a lot more to do and by design needs to snap the ball as late as possible.

So where do I come down on the whole Dak vs. Romo thing? I’m getting to that. When I have this debate internally, I always find myself going back to the play in Seattle where Tony got hurt. Two things really stand out to me about that play, neither of them being the injury itself. One, Tony bailed out of a clean pocket. Yes, it was a blitz, but Zeke stepped up and chopped down the blitzing player giving Romo plenty of time and space to throw. Tony bailed anyway. The second was how horribly unathletic he looked running/sliding. He didn’t get hurt because he’s fragile, numerous doctors have said as much on countless radio shows and blogs. He got hurt because he chose to slide in the most awkward way imaginable. If Tony’s mind is causing him to bail out of clean pockets, or his athleticism has eroded to the point that he can’t slide properly, he doesn’t need to be out there. Of course the rust factor has to be taken into account and perhaps if he hadn’t gotten injured on that play, it would have all started coming back to him before the Seattle game was over.

We’ve all asked the question: What happens if we are 5-1 when Romo is ready to come back? If Dak wins the next two games, and especially if the offense looks impressive in those wins, I think you have to stick with him simply because you don’t want to ruin something that is clearly working. If Dak loses one or both of the next two, or the offense looks very poor in wins, you have to give Romo a chance, with the caveat that he has to knock the rust off relatively quickly and improve the offense. Of course all of this is contingent on Romo being completely healthy. You stick with Dak until Romo is 100%.

The fun part about the debate is that the future is extremely bright no matter which side you find yourself on, which is great for this football junkie.

Exceptional post, sir. Thoroughly enjoyed every word of it and the information it provided. Additionally, if you don't mind me asking, how do you access your podcast and where is it located? I'm certainly gonna tune in now after reading this post

 

[JDSmith]

Romo has an uncanny ability to deliver the ball at just the right time. I like how he throws over linebackers shoulders to Witten down the seam. He can anticipate the body position of the defender and throw a guy open.

Took him a long time to learn to do that though. That's the thing I most hope he can teach Dak.

I was listening to KD Drummond (I think) on a podcast and I thought he put it best. He said roughly,"Dak can throw to the open receiver, Romo can throw the receiver open."

 

[DandyDon52]

And I've never liked Romo setting up line protections because of the time it takes. It gets the offense out of sync as well and makes for more pre-snap penalties while allowing defenses to set their blitzes.

This, it can cause false starts and delay of game penaltys.
I dont think dak has had a delay of game.
Also I dont like snapping the ball @ 0 that helps the defense.
that all may look cool, but if it really worked, there would never be sacks, runs stopped at the los, or tony holding the ball
too long.

 

[xwalker]

The OP has a wrong interpretation of what QBs like Romo are doing and seeing before a play.

Romo can look at an alignment and, with great certainty, know who's really blitzing, who's bluffing, where the safeties will flow, and what the linebackers coverage will be.

He can literally make adjustments that give a short route a chance to go the distance, or create space for a running play to be more successful. Simply by changing routes and moving receivers around.

Right now, Dak is just changing from run to pass or pass to run. He can alter a route perhaps. That's it.

That takes years to understand, and most never do.

People tend to exaggerate how much can be done pre-snap even running the clock down to 1 second. Defenses can vary what they do from similar pre-snap alignments.

 

[couchscout]

Exceptional post, sir. Thoroughly enjoyed every word of it and the information it provided. Additionally, if you don't mind me asking, how do you access your podcast and where is it located? I'm certainly gonna tune in now after reading this post

I'm not supposed to link to outside stuff on this site, but you can see where to go in my sig. You can also check out the shows facebook page, just search for 2 point conversion. I'm actually in the process right now of editing the audio for our latest episode, so a new will be out within the hour.

 

[couchscout]

I was listening to KD Drummond (I think) on a podcast and I thought he put it best. He said roughly,"Dak can throw to the open receiver, Romo can throw the receiver open."

No question, I think Romo is the second best QB in the NFL at throwing receivers open. Something Dak will have to learn, but I've seen glimpses of it already, so I know he has the ability to do it.