couchscout
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I wanna start off by saying you're welcome and offering a return thank you to everyone who drops by to thank me each week, and/or asks questions. I enjoy doing this for everyone and do my best to answer all questions. If you feel I've overlooked your question, feel free to PM me, I've had numerous questions asked there as well and always respond. Thanks again for the support.
Sorry it's taken me all week to get this out, two things contributed to it being late. One, with the extra week, I watched the film a couple extra times so I could get a feel for a few different things. Two, Rage came out Monday night at midnight and have played the crap out of it. On a side note, how I managed to set my life up so that it revolves around video games and football, I'll never know.
This is the one reason I actually had to stop and consider if I really wanted to take this job when it was offered to me (for a fraction of a second). I can't stand going back and watching games like that over and over. I wouldn't care if it were any other team, but it's my job, so I watched this monumental meltdown 6 times over the last week, once in person, once on the DVR and 4 times on the all 22. Heh, I feel like Hoge, "44 hours of tape study this week".
What I saw was simultaneously disheartening and encouraging, I have a lot of notes here, so lets get started.
The Evoltuion of a QB:
A lot of people will already know some or all of this, if you fall in that category feel free to skip this paragraph. When a new QB is getting his first starts in the NFL, defenses play them certain ways to see how they will react and the ways they get played typically go in stages. Not every single QB has followed this exact path, but most have. First the defense will blitz to see how the QB reacts, if he wilts under the pressure they just keep bringing more. He will continue seeing blitz heavy schemes until he proves he can beat the blitz. This is where Michael Vick is right now, still struggling to beat the blitz, especially with his arm. After he shows pretty consistently he can beat the blitz, teams will start to employ a zone heavy scheme. Then the QB must prove his accuracy, both in reading coverages and throwing the football. If he never progresses past this stage, teams will zone him up consistently and mix in some blitz packages. This is where Rex Grossman is, he simply isn't an accurate enough passer to consistently beat zone coverage. Once the QB has shown he can be accurate and make the right decisions against zone, defenses start doing one of two things. Some teams will zone-blitz to try to confuse them, and others play a heavy 2 man under scheme. The zone-blitz teams are typically the ones that do this a lot anyway, and this is generally their final answer to a QB. 2 man under is a far more common answer and is by far the hardest stage for a QB to progress past. It takes a tremendous amount of patience to sit back and slowly and methodically work your way down the field. Most QBs are risk takers by nature, and eventually want to take a shot...play callers too for that matter. It's not difficult to move the ball against 2 man under, it's just slow going and requires patience, and, if you can't punch it in once you get to the red zone, it feels even worse. You just went on a 14 play 9 minutes drive to get 3 points. This is where Matt Ryan is. One of the last resorts teams start using is heavy pre snap games. They lull you into a false sense of security, letting you think you have them figured out pre snap, then in critical moments they show one thing pre snap and drastically change it post snap. This is where Tony Romo is. The final stage is teams just mixing everything like crazy and just hoping to be able to make a play. Brady, Manning, and Brees are the only 3 firmly in this category. Oddly enough, teams are still using a LOT of 2 man under on Rodgers even though he's toasting everyone. That's why you're seeing him use that back shoulder throw roughly 20 times a game.
Tony Romo:
I was completely at a loss leaving the stadium, I knew the 2nd one wasn't his fault but other two I just had no answers for. I got home, watched the broadcast of the game and felt a little better, then the all 22 film arrived in my email inbox and after watching it I felt much much better. Now, don't get me wrong, he messed up big time, and there is no doubt we win this game if he's not out there throwing picks. But here is the key thing about all that, only one of those was a mental mistake. The first one. We ran a play that every team in the league runs some variation of, a playaction pass with a comeback on the weak side. The idea is suck the WLB in, and get the ball over him for an easy completion. Bobby Carpenter just wasn't fooled, and as Romo said after game 1 "too reactionary, I should have made sure." He has a tendency to do this once he thinks he's got the defense figured out, he stops making post snap reads, tries to rely only on pre snap. Failing to make sure what he saw pre snap was the same thing they are doing post snap is what is getting Romo beat right now. And you can bet more teams are gonna start doing this. The second interception wasn't his fault, the WR HAS to cross the corners face, its the cardinal rule of running a slant. Think back to the game against the panthers a few years back we won because Newman stepped in front of a slant route and housed it. The broadcast crew was just trashing Steve Smith for not crossing Newmans face, he saw Newman take inside leverage and broke off his route. Robinson did basically the same thing. The third pick was a physical mistake, the easiest for a coach to forgive. Romo absolutely made the right decision with the ball, 3 more yards on that thing and there are DBs tackling Witten on the other side of the 50. Two things contributed to the throw being short, one Romo is still injured and I have noticed he doesn't have quite the zip he usually does. And second, he threw off his back foot because Suh was about to crush him into a little puddle. We very rarely see Romo throw off of his back foot, so I'm willing to forgive on that one, especially considering he's trying to protect a broken rib while one of the meanest dudes in football is coming to eat his face off. Also wanna throw in that if somebody tackles Carp or Houston, we most likely win this game. Way way too many missed tackles on those returns.
Last thing I'll say about Romo, and I think I saw it mentioned somewhere here this week, I hope everyone realizes that the reason there is so much hate for Romo is because he's so good. Keep that in mind when you're saying he sucks, he doesn't suck, if he sucked you wouldn't care that he played poorly because it would be just another week where our starting QB sucks. He's a very very good QB, so when he lets you down it hurts worse.
Felix Jones:
Don't know why this guy is starting, clearly the best runner on this team is Sean Lissemore
Ok, seriously, Felix looked really good in the first half, and I believe if he didn't get injured early in the second half, we win this game. One of these days this guy is gonna have a game that drops jaws around the league, count on it.
Demarco Murray:
He's getting there, but I still see a lot of Reggie Bush in him. He still thinks he's faster and more agile than everyone else out on the field like he was in college. He missed a few holes Sunday that would have been huge gains, when/if he learns to run it inside he's gonna be very dangerous.
Phil Costa:
This guy is just flat out a really good center. When we play a 3-4 team, he blows the NT off the ball, when we play a 4-3 team he doubles on of the tackles and releases and consistently gets a hat on a LB or DB. He struggles on sweeps, it seems it takes him too long to get out of his stance and turn. Personally, if I was designing plays I would alleviate that by changing the blocking scheme so he doesn't have to do that, he could go forward instead. Either way, he's playing very well aside from the snap issue last Monday night.
Bill Nagy:
I know a lot of people have been asking about this guy, and this was my first time to really evaluate him. He's very athletic and knows how to play his position. He was beating Corey Williams almost every snap, and flat blew him off the ball a few times. He was turning him away from the play, down blocking him, and stonewalling him all game long. When asked to block in space he nailed it every time except once, he didn't get a good block on the John Phillips screen pass, and the guy he attempted to block made the tackle. We got a keeper here I think, we'll see as the season wears on and teams have more tape on him. But as of now he's looking really good.
Tyron Smith:
Not even gonna waste my time with a long report, studying him is booooooring, he wins, pretty much every time. He's got little stuff to work on, but Tyron Smith is the next great Dallas lineman.
Rob Ryan:
I think I'm starting to develop another man crush. I love the way this guy designs and calls defense. Twisting, stunting, looping, personnel, he uses whatever he has at his disposal and it's working. I've been trying to get a bead on this defense, to learn our tendencies and tricks.....I just have no clue. Sometimes it's almost like he calls plays by throwing a dart at the playsheet, or he puts colors next to plays and asks some pretty chick in the stand to pick a color. As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme, reason, or tendency in his play calling...and I love it.
Sean Lissemore:
Another guy I've been asked to watch, it's so much harder to evaluate DL than any other position I think. As I've said before, I immediately go to what the OL did wrong instead of what the DL did right. Being an OL coach, I feel like it doesn't matter what a defensive lineman does, if the offensive lineman does his job with the proper technique he wins every time. That being said, a lot of offensive lineman are doing the wrong thing trying to block Lissemore, he pushes the pocket quite well and that play he made to stop Best for a loss was incredible. His athletic ability is outstanding, he is an excellent 3rd DE/2nd DT. I'm looking forward to watching him progress.
I could probably type a few thousand more words about this game, one of the big benefits of games like these are all the teaching opportunities it brings, Garrett and his staff can look at their play calling, Romo gets to see on tape how much teams are trying to fool him pre snap now, Murray gets to see how many yards he left on the table, etc. I think the future is very bright in Dallas.
Sorry it's taken me all week to get this out, two things contributed to it being late. One, with the extra week, I watched the film a couple extra times so I could get a feel for a few different things. Two, Rage came out Monday night at midnight and have played the crap out of it. On a side note, how I managed to set my life up so that it revolves around video games and football, I'll never know.
This is the one reason I actually had to stop and consider if I really wanted to take this job when it was offered to me (for a fraction of a second). I can't stand going back and watching games like that over and over. I wouldn't care if it were any other team, but it's my job, so I watched this monumental meltdown 6 times over the last week, once in person, once on the DVR and 4 times on the all 22. Heh, I feel like Hoge, "44 hours of tape study this week".
What I saw was simultaneously disheartening and encouraging, I have a lot of notes here, so lets get started.
The Evoltuion of a QB:
A lot of people will already know some or all of this, if you fall in that category feel free to skip this paragraph. When a new QB is getting his first starts in the NFL, defenses play them certain ways to see how they will react and the ways they get played typically go in stages. Not every single QB has followed this exact path, but most have. First the defense will blitz to see how the QB reacts, if he wilts under the pressure they just keep bringing more. He will continue seeing blitz heavy schemes until he proves he can beat the blitz. This is where Michael Vick is right now, still struggling to beat the blitz, especially with his arm. After he shows pretty consistently he can beat the blitz, teams will start to employ a zone heavy scheme. Then the QB must prove his accuracy, both in reading coverages and throwing the football. If he never progresses past this stage, teams will zone him up consistently and mix in some blitz packages. This is where Rex Grossman is, he simply isn't an accurate enough passer to consistently beat zone coverage. Once the QB has shown he can be accurate and make the right decisions against zone, defenses start doing one of two things. Some teams will zone-blitz to try to confuse them, and others play a heavy 2 man under scheme. The zone-blitz teams are typically the ones that do this a lot anyway, and this is generally their final answer to a QB. 2 man under is a far more common answer and is by far the hardest stage for a QB to progress past. It takes a tremendous amount of patience to sit back and slowly and methodically work your way down the field. Most QBs are risk takers by nature, and eventually want to take a shot...play callers too for that matter. It's not difficult to move the ball against 2 man under, it's just slow going and requires patience, and, if you can't punch it in once you get to the red zone, it feels even worse. You just went on a 14 play 9 minutes drive to get 3 points. This is where Matt Ryan is. One of the last resorts teams start using is heavy pre snap games. They lull you into a false sense of security, letting you think you have them figured out pre snap, then in critical moments they show one thing pre snap and drastically change it post snap. This is where Tony Romo is. The final stage is teams just mixing everything like crazy and just hoping to be able to make a play. Brady, Manning, and Brees are the only 3 firmly in this category. Oddly enough, teams are still using a LOT of 2 man under on Rodgers even though he's toasting everyone. That's why you're seeing him use that back shoulder throw roughly 20 times a game.
Tony Romo:
I was completely at a loss leaving the stadium, I knew the 2nd one wasn't his fault but other two I just had no answers for. I got home, watched the broadcast of the game and felt a little better, then the all 22 film arrived in my email inbox and after watching it I felt much much better. Now, don't get me wrong, he messed up big time, and there is no doubt we win this game if he's not out there throwing picks. But here is the key thing about all that, only one of those was a mental mistake. The first one. We ran a play that every team in the league runs some variation of, a playaction pass with a comeback on the weak side. The idea is suck the WLB in, and get the ball over him for an easy completion. Bobby Carpenter just wasn't fooled, and as Romo said after game 1 "too reactionary, I should have made sure." He has a tendency to do this once he thinks he's got the defense figured out, he stops making post snap reads, tries to rely only on pre snap. Failing to make sure what he saw pre snap was the same thing they are doing post snap is what is getting Romo beat right now. And you can bet more teams are gonna start doing this. The second interception wasn't his fault, the WR HAS to cross the corners face, its the cardinal rule of running a slant. Think back to the game against the panthers a few years back we won because Newman stepped in front of a slant route and housed it. The broadcast crew was just trashing Steve Smith for not crossing Newmans face, he saw Newman take inside leverage and broke off his route. Robinson did basically the same thing. The third pick was a physical mistake, the easiest for a coach to forgive. Romo absolutely made the right decision with the ball, 3 more yards on that thing and there are DBs tackling Witten on the other side of the 50. Two things contributed to the throw being short, one Romo is still injured and I have noticed he doesn't have quite the zip he usually does. And second, he threw off his back foot because Suh was about to crush him into a little puddle. We very rarely see Romo throw off of his back foot, so I'm willing to forgive on that one, especially considering he's trying to protect a broken rib while one of the meanest dudes in football is coming to eat his face off. Also wanna throw in that if somebody tackles Carp or Houston, we most likely win this game. Way way too many missed tackles on those returns.
Last thing I'll say about Romo, and I think I saw it mentioned somewhere here this week, I hope everyone realizes that the reason there is so much hate for Romo is because he's so good. Keep that in mind when you're saying he sucks, he doesn't suck, if he sucked you wouldn't care that he played poorly because it would be just another week where our starting QB sucks. He's a very very good QB, so when he lets you down it hurts worse.
Felix Jones:
Don't know why this guy is starting, clearly the best runner on this team is Sean Lissemore
Ok, seriously, Felix looked really good in the first half, and I believe if he didn't get injured early in the second half, we win this game. One of these days this guy is gonna have a game that drops jaws around the league, count on it.Demarco Murray:
He's getting there, but I still see a lot of Reggie Bush in him. He still thinks he's faster and more agile than everyone else out on the field like he was in college. He missed a few holes Sunday that would have been huge gains, when/if he learns to run it inside he's gonna be very dangerous.
Phil Costa:
This guy is just flat out a really good center. When we play a 3-4 team, he blows the NT off the ball, when we play a 4-3 team he doubles on of the tackles and releases and consistently gets a hat on a LB or DB. He struggles on sweeps, it seems it takes him too long to get out of his stance and turn. Personally, if I was designing plays I would alleviate that by changing the blocking scheme so he doesn't have to do that, he could go forward instead. Either way, he's playing very well aside from the snap issue last Monday night.
Bill Nagy:
I know a lot of people have been asking about this guy, and this was my first time to really evaluate him. He's very athletic and knows how to play his position. He was beating Corey Williams almost every snap, and flat blew him off the ball a few times. He was turning him away from the play, down blocking him, and stonewalling him all game long. When asked to block in space he nailed it every time except once, he didn't get a good block on the John Phillips screen pass, and the guy he attempted to block made the tackle. We got a keeper here I think, we'll see as the season wears on and teams have more tape on him. But as of now he's looking really good.
Tyron Smith:
Not even gonna waste my time with a long report, studying him is booooooring, he wins, pretty much every time. He's got little stuff to work on, but Tyron Smith is the next great Dallas lineman.
Rob Ryan:
I think I'm starting to develop another man crush. I love the way this guy designs and calls defense. Twisting, stunting, looping, personnel, he uses whatever he has at his disposal and it's working. I've been trying to get a bead on this defense, to learn our tendencies and tricks.....I just have no clue. Sometimes it's almost like he calls plays by throwing a dart at the playsheet, or he puts colors next to plays and asks some pretty chick in the stand to pick a color. As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme, reason, or tendency in his play calling...and I love it.
Sean Lissemore:
Another guy I've been asked to watch, it's so much harder to evaluate DL than any other position I think. As I've said before, I immediately go to what the OL did wrong instead of what the DL did right. Being an OL coach, I feel like it doesn't matter what a defensive lineman does, if the offensive lineman does his job with the proper technique he wins every time. That being said, a lot of offensive lineman are doing the wrong thing trying to block Lissemore, he pushes the pocket quite well and that play he made to stop Best for a loss was incredible. His athletic ability is outstanding, he is an excellent 3rd DE/2nd DT. I'm looking forward to watching him progress.
I could probably type a few thousand more words about this game, one of the big benefits of games like these are all the teaching opportunities it brings, Garrett and his staff can look at their play calling, Romo gets to see on tape how much teams are trying to fool him pre snap now, Murray gets to see how many yards he left on the table, etc. I think the future is very bright in Dallas.
