TLH: The Curious Case of Dez Bryant's Misuse

[ScipioCowboy]

From the article: "Dez Bryant (in the yellow circle) beats his defender for inside leverage and now has a clear path to the end zone with a trailing defender. Because Romo looked at Murray first, he has drawn all the safety help out of the middle of the field, opening up a potential throw to Dez Bryant. But in this case he can’t get to his second read because Mackenzy Bernadeau is beaten badly by Justin Tuck. Romo has no choice but to get rid of the ball quickly."

This is a point I tried to make during preseason. Good guard play can be the difference between settling for a field goal attempt and being able to step up in the pocket and fire a touchdown pass.

This is why the Brian Waters signing can be a major boon for this offense if he plays anywhere near as well as he did in New England. Waters may flop here. I don't know. I'm not Nostradamus. But we know what we have Bernadeau--a backup who's going to get beat more than you'd like when he's forced into a starting role. Waters has the potential to be much, much more than that.

 

[birdwells1]

The Giants didn't double Dez. They tripled him. And they paid dearly for it.

Dallas has to convert these opportunities into touchdowns, however, or teams will keep doing it. It really opens up the run game, so with Waters back, it's time to pound teams who want to drop linebacker to cover the slant and play a safety over the top of Dez.

No they didn't they too the explosion out of our offense. Tony completed 36 passes for only 263 yards, teams like the Texans, Bengals, and Arizona found ways to get their big play wr's the ball and so should we. I remember them covering Irvin like this and we didn't have an answer for it then and seems like we don't now but hopefully things will change in the Chiefs game.

The article is right we are letting the defense dictate what we are going to do.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

So you are still saying that Dez does not understand the offense?

Sorry but this is still the same boring, predictable offense that will cause issues later. I don't think it's a case of some not knowing the offense. They pass it off as that for their incompetence on designing a game plan.

No, I think that's what you want to hear. Dez understands the offense well enough to play the outside receiver. I don't think he understands it well enough to line him up in the slot of motion him all over the place. If he does, I have not seen that out of him and that would beg the question, why not? Not knowing the offense well enough to be able to do everything all over the field is not the same as not knowing the offense.

 

[birdwells1]

I call BS because if Romo were to force the issue to Dez and threw a pick he would get lambasted for trying to feed him the ball instead of giving what the defense gave him. TR is always in a catch-22

I don't think the article is suggesting forcing the ball into Dez but to come up with creative ways to get him involved and away from the double or bracket coverage.

 

[Oh_Canada]

That's easy to say, if you have a best weapon that understands the offense well enough to motion him to begin with.

This has been the knock on Dez from a lot of the really good football guys for awhile.

Wow-2011 argument brought back to life. Massive fail.

 

[erod]

No they didn't they too the explosion out of our offense. Tony completed 36 passes for only 263 yards, teams like the Texans, Bengals, and Arizona found ways to get their big play wr's the ball and so should we. I remember them covering Irvin like this and we didn't have an answer for it then and seems like we don't now but hopefully things will change in the Chiefs game.

The article is right we are letting the defense dictate what we are going to do.

Yes, they did.

Yards are meaningless. The losing team almost always has more yards than the winning team. It's a useless stat.

The key is to stop false starting and picking up holding calls that kill a drive. And run the football, especially with Waters in there.

You do NOT throw into triple coverage, but if a team wants to play your 10 with only 7 defenders, then good things will happen.

The whole league was sloppy, as were the Cowboys. This approach will not continue to work against Dallas.

 

[StarBoyz83]

He'll be the highest paid decoy in the league next year lol

 

[jrumann59]

I also remember TO motioning to the slot and running up the seam for 3 TDs against the Commanders. I was actually there.

TO with all his warts was a student of the game Dez is not there yet. It took the last part of last season for playbook to click on just his assignments he isn't int he position to learn other peoples assignments.

 

[TheFinisher]

I certainly hope that's not what our offense looks like the rest of the year, because unless we plan on having 6 takeaways on a weekly basis we won't be playing into January. It was sloppy, dink and dunk passing game that was settling way too quickly on the checkdowns.

50 passing attempts for 260 yards is the definition of captain checkdown. Romo cant be so afraid of making the mistake down the field that he stops taking shots all together. Bryant had some one on one matchups that Romo saw, double clutched, and then checked down. He did try Dez once downfield on what should have been a TD, but he under threw him by about 15 yards.

 

[TheFinisher]

TO with all his warts was a student of the game Dez is not there yet. It took the last part of last season for playbook to click on just his assignments he isn't int he position to learn other peoples assignments.

Dez lined up in the slot on multiple occasions last night

 

[Dodger]

It's now obviously clear that Romo will never get the approval of some people. If he plays smart and stays away from trouble, he's playing afraid. If he plays aggressive and risky, throwing into double and triple coverage and giving up picks, he's playing stupid.

By the way, the author is clueless. The object of playing in the NFL is to win games, not make sure that Dez gets the football.

 

[dstovall5]

People can't have it both ways now. I've seen people previously complaining about Romo's gunslinger mentality and throwing into coverage resulting in picks. Well the first game of the season Romo dinks and dunk hardly throwing into coverage, and people still complain! It's fine that people want him throwing into double/triple coverage, but don't piss and moan when he throws an interception is all I gotta say.

 

[kevm3]

We need an OC version of Kiffen/Marinelli who has the freedom to implement their own scheme. Callahan is a play-caller dedicated to the run, but we don't really have the blocking or the running back to be a run focused team. We are stacked at the receiving position.

Why we're doing all of this vanilla stuff when we have the receiving threats we have is beyond me.Also, someone needs to get on Romo's case to speed up the offense. There's no reason for him to run the play clock down to 3 seconds or below nearly every play. What's the point of 'hurry-up' offense when you are not hurrying?

 

[Zordon]

Sorry, but I disagree with this statement. If teams want to continually double and triple team Dez and get burned by Austin, Witten, TWill, and Harris, then so be it. I love it when Dez has great stats, but I love winning more, and I'm sure Dez would agree. I personally think that we should wait a couple games before we say that Dez is being misused. Not every team is going to employ the Gnats strategy...heck I bet KC puts Flowers alone on Dez and then we'll really what he can do.

We didn't win b/c we took advantage of that philosophy, we won b/c of defensive turnovers. Without those turnovers, you're singing a different story about that offense IMO. They need to fix this. It's happened too many times with Dez and I'm past blamely it on his immaturity. There is something fundamentally flawed with the offense.

 

[conner01]

It's now obviously clear that Romo will never get the approval of some people. If he plays smart and stays away from trouble, he's playing afraid. If he plays aggressive and risky, throwing into double and triple coverage and giving up picks, he's playing stupid.

By the way, the author is clueless. The object of playing in the NFL is to win games, not make sure that Dez gets the football.

exactly. i thought romo played a terrific game. take what is given and take the win with it. when you force things you typically force bad things to happen. dez will get his, but the giants had a good plan and exacuted it well. we took what they did'nt do well and won with it.every game won't be like that because every team won't be willing to single austin, witten and who ever is the 3rd wr all game.
williams could have made them pay even more had he played better, but he is learning and you can't learn watching. i think you will see more of harris this week and i think you will see teams get away from going all in on stopping dez

 

[BAT]

We need an OC version of Kiffen/Marinelli who has the freedom to implement their own scheme. Callahan is a play-caller dedicated to the run, but we don't really have the blocking or the running back to be a run focused team. We are stacked at the receiving position.

Why we're doing all of this vanilla stuff when we have the receiving threats we have is beyond me.Also, someone needs to get on Romo's case to speed up the offense. There's no reason for him to run the play clock down to 3 seconds or below nearly every play. What's the point of 'hurry-up' offense when you are not hurrying?

I believe that Callahan had the most potent offense the year he took Raiders to the SB in 2002. The QB, Rich Gannon, was MVP that season to boot with more than 4,600 yards passing. They had Jerry Rice and Tim Brown at WR (HOFers) with Charlie Garner and Tyrone Wheatley (who??) at RB. Raiders did run for over 1,500 yards, but they also threw often for a lot of yards. Callahan's offense ranked #1 in yards and #2 in points scored.

Let's give Callahan more than game before passing judgement.

 

[Cowboy4ever]

The hope is for the others to be effective enough to either A: make the defense come out of the double and play more honest or B: they continue to double and we eat them alive with other targets. This is where the TW dropping some balls really hurts. If he is consistent and is running that deep cross and we are connecting for 15-20 yard pops at a time, the safety will have to stay at home and not go to Dez side or the LB will do nothing but sprint str8 back and Austin or one of the TE will eat them up with 8-10 yard dumps in the middle of the field. The problem with the plan was that TW didn't play consistent in that game. If the Chiefs try to do this Sunday, I believe the Cowboys will make the adjustments to make sure the middle of the field is ours all game or until they change coverage.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Wow-2011 argument brought back to life. Massive fail.

Hey, it's not my argument. It's commentary based on discussion about Dez and Fitzgerald. The comparison was Fitz and Dez and has Dez moved past Fitz. The comments were made that Dez has not because he can not motion and play all of the positions like Fitz can.

It's easy to prove. Lets just see how much the Cowboys motion Dez. That would allow them to free him up so if they do it, that solves the problem. If they don't, then realistically, there must be a reason. At that point, you can remind me about what you remember about 2011 and failing.

 

[mrmojo]

Dez's catches will come, sometimes you just have to take what they give you in order to win. Eventually he will get his once the other parts of the offense become successful (i.e. running game, throwing to TE and slot receivers).

 

[Lonestar94]

I'm just glad we got out with a win, until we start losing games because Dez isn't getting fed the ball I'm not concerned.

Are we too fixated on the 2000 yards 20 touchdowns thing or are we trying to win games?

Dez is just like Julio, will never have the HUGe numbers they are capable of as long as there's other big threats around them. I predict 1400 yds 15 touchdowns for Dez.