jday
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I was a weird kid. The only difference now is I’m not a kid anymore. Part of my difference as an individual is I was homeschooled from first grade to halfway through fifth grade. That’s right; my parents dropped me into a small country public school district (where everyone knew everyone, for the exception of me, from kindergarten to that present) about a month before Christmas break. In hindsight, there timing could not have been much worse. Unfortunately, that stigmatism followed me all the way through my formative years until I joined the Army.
As a result of lacking in friends, in my younger days I spent a good portion of my time entertaining myself. One form of entertainment I indulged in happened to involve killing stuff. Bugs, turtles, rabbits, squirrels, birds, snakes…all manner of God’s creatures were not safe from young JDay and his BB gun…or magnifying glass, were you an ant. Yeah…regrettably, I was that kid.
One summer day, whilst looking for something new to kill in my way-out-in-the-country back yard, I happened upon a sparrow. Sure enough, as fate would have it, I leveled my sights on this poor defenseless creature and released a small dose of my wrath at the world around me in the form of a BB. Lost in its death throws, I watched as it tumbled down the tree to the ground and flopped around for a few seconds before finding peace in her everafterlife.
How did you know it was a “her,” you might inquire?
So glad you asked.
Shortly thereafter, on that same day, I detected the incessant and insistent chirp of hungry baby birds. Following the sound, I climbed the same tree were my bullet had found the now deceased bird earlier. In a nest not too far up I found two baby birds squawking their protest to hunger.
At the time, it did not immediately occur to me that perhaps these youngsters where the offspring of the bird I slayed. So, leaving the nest undisturbed, I climbed back down and posted vigil over that tree to see if their parents would return. I waited all day, yet the chirping continued….and continued into my sleep that night, polluting my dreams and leading to a fitful night of dreadful sleep (or lack thereof, as it were).
The next morning I sprinted from my bed to the base of that tree to see if the chirping persisted. Indeed it did…only weaker…less frequent…and not quite as adamant. With a heavy and sunken heart, I climbed the tree and instantly knew that I was the reason for these two little defenseless orphans. My shame knew no bounds. In that moment, I was changed irrevocably forever.
From that second of realization, I had a profound and prolific respect for life in all its many forms and vowed never to take it needlessly or wantonly again. In other words, if I killed it, my intentions had better be to eat it…a biting mosquito, an intruder in my home or an insurgent overseas being the only obvious exception to that rule.
Fortunately, my family had a little experience raising birds. We kept White and African Ringneck Doves, so we had the resources to take care of these young birds. I relocated the nest into one of our empty bird cages my father had built and committed myself to being a surrogate-mom of sorts, raising these young Sparrows myself. Using an eye dropper, I would take softened watered down bread and slowly but surely feed them.
Within a few days, one of the birds succumbed to illness; I was likely too late in my efforts in terms of nourishing. However, the other bird made an amazing recovery. Throughout that entire summer I cared for that bird and actually had it to the point where it could fly across my room to perch on my shoulder. Towards the end of that summer, one of my brother’s dogs got ahold of it and broke one of its toes, which became infected and eventually led to its demise.
I was emotionally devastated, because at the end of the day, I couldn’t really blame the dog; after all, that was in the dog’s nature. Furthermore, had I not shot the bird’s mother in the first place, several generations of Sparrows would have lived on uninterrupted. My bullet, ultimately, severed that chain. And to this day, I struggle to even kill bugs, preferring instead to relocate them outside should they venture into my home.
Yesterday, I waxed long and poetic about the virtues of offensive balance in the NFL and how the Cowboys are setup exceptionally to implement this brand of attack, featuring league-leading talent at every level of their offense; Quarterback, Running Back, Receivers and, of course, that amazing offensive line. As somewhat of a teaser for today, I ended with the question of rather or not the Cowboys defense is prepared for this shift from pass-happy to balance from the opposition in the upcoming season. This may not come as a surprise to those who accuse me of being a homer, but I actually do believe the Cowboys defense will be just fine…perhaps, even better than “just fine.”
There is a popular narrative that suggest that the Cowboys defense is not very good. Part of the problem was how they played against Aaron Rogers on the national stage in the playoffs last year, allowing the Packers to put up 34 points in total, 21 of which came in the first half. But that game was not a fair microcosm of how the Cowboys defense played throughout the year. During the season, the Cowboys fielded the #1 rush defense, allowing only 83.5 yards rushing per game.
Nevertheless, as a result of the defense shouldering the lion share of the blame in that fateful loss to the Packers in the playoffs, the local and nationally held perception is that the Cowboys defense was largely carried by their offense throughout the season.
There is certainly some truth to that. Without the potency of the Cowboys’ offense putting up points in bunches, opposing teams would likely have ran the ball more. But since, more often than not, teams were playing from behind, they were not as insistent on maintaining balance, needing instead to yield as much production per second from the game-clock as was possible. In other words, running the ball and by extension the clock down, was in many ways counter-productive for the opposition.
What the national and local media is missing, I believe, is that very little about the offense has changed from this year to the upcoming season. In fact, should Zeke and Dak make the jump from their first year to their second year with the benefit of a full offseason, dodging a sophomore-slump hangover, the Cowboys offense as a whole enjoys some luck on the health front and the offensive line experiences no ill-effects from the departure of Leary and Free, this Cowboys offense, as hard as it may be to believe for some, could actually be even better than what it was last year. Let that sink in.
With that said, one could surmise that once again as dead-set on being balanced as a team may want to be against our beloved Cowboys in the upcoming season, unless they can hold the Dak-led offense in check, they will, just like last season, have to abandon their gameplan and play to win through the air, hoping to salvage as much time on the game clock as possible.
This task, in my opinion, will prove to be close to impossible for the majority of the league. The opposition will be attempting to keep pace with a dynamic and close to unstoppable duo of Dak & Zeke, behind perhaps the best offensive line in the game, supplemented by a ridiculous and embarrassment of riches in skill players that include the likes of Dez, Beasley, Witten, and the new Mouseketeer, Switzer. Switzer’s addition, as I intimated in yesterday’s submission, will provide value well beyond his individual production, as the Cowboys now have quite possibly the most deadly combination of 4 receivers and 1 running back in the league.
The next question the national pundits ask is how effective was the front office in replacing the production of their defensive Free Agent losses, which included most notably Claiborne, Carr and Church. Truth be told, that remains to be seen. But looking beyond that fair question, there is hope. It has long been discussed ad nauseam that both Carr and Claiborne were more comfortable in man as opposed to zone coverage. As a result, rather than attempting to fit square pegs in a circle hole, Marinelli altered his scheme to exercise their collective strengths with varied degrees of success.
As a direct result of snagging several zone-savvy players in the draft, Marinelli will be afforded the ability to implement more zone coverage which should afford more time to his front four to get to the opposing quarterback. This year’s draft selections has Marinelli’s approach written all over it. Every corner and safety, per their scouting report, excelled in zone for their perspective colleges. But that’s not the only similarity you will find between Awuzie, Lewis, and Woods. Beyond a common attitude, intellect and approach to the game of football, these three also share a desire for taking the football away. Their college stats (for the exception of Woods) don’t necessarily back up that assertion, however, I believe with take-aways being the defenses unified focus going into the season, with a sprinkle of Marinelli-magic on the side, and the added benefit of playing with leads on the scoreboard, that could very well change for every player on the Cowboys defensive roster; not just the rookies.
That, I believe, was the predominant focus of the Cowboys offseason for the defense. Leaving 2016 in their perspective rear-view, the Cowboys front office knew the best way they could help the team overall is to figure out ways to get extra possessions for that high-powered offense. Like Dak Prescott, the front offices has for some time now displayed an exceptional self-awareness. They know their strengths. They acknowledge their weaknesses. And they know if they can simply achieve a two possession lead, supplemented by a defense geared towards taking the ball away, they will be borderline-unstoppable.
Rather than seek to shut down opposing offenses, they will attempt to bait them into airing out with a continuation of the bend-don’t break defense. In summation, a 10 point lead plus a turnover or two likely equals a win for our Cowboys, regardless of what else may occur within the confines of the opening and closing whistle.
But that, my dear friends, is nowhere close to being the principal reason I feel the Cowboys are prepared better than most of the league to shut down the opposing ground attack of the Cowboys foes. First and foremost, let’s consider that defensive line.
Yesterday I pointed out that, unlike the majority of the league, in favor of top end speed, the Cowboys seem to hold in high regard the physical and athletic qualities of size and power complemented by a quick first step in their defensive line personnel. Across the board, you will find the majority of their depth chart have these qualities in common. While this may mean that the Cowboys don’t lead the league in sacks or QB pressures, they will certainly be one of the more difficult teams for offensive lines to consistently push around for four quarters, hoping a ground attack materializes.
Behind that defensive line, features one certain run stopper in Sean Lee (provided he can stay healthy) and a potential game changer in Jaylon Smith. Hitchins and Wilson, while perhaps liabilities in coverage, have displayed a knack for sifting through traffic, as well, to snuff out runs.
In the Cowboy secondary there is a staggering similarity between the 3 aforementioned secondary additions along with the personnel the Cowboys opted to keep from last year’s defensive iteration: solid wrap-up tackles for loss to minimal gain. Chidobe, Jourdan, and Xavier are all three sound and aggressive wrap-up tacklers. By many, this may be seen as me talking from both sides of mouth, so-to-speak, but where opposing secondary’s will struggle to contend with the power of the Cowboys ground attack, the Cowboys secondary will excel. Though mostly diminutive in size, as corners and safeties go, this group plays with a fearless and aggressive approach to the game; they hit without regard for their own personal safety, as if to say, you may have won on that play, but you most definitely will feel me tomorrow.
Much has been made of no NFCE team ruling our divisional roost for more than 1 year in a row since the Eagles did it in 2004-2005. Another alarming fact that has been discussed is the fact that for some time now every Cowboys successful season has been followed by a catastrophic one. There isn’t much I can point out to combat those disturbing trends, save one: youth…across the roster, the Cowboys are stocked with youth.
If you go back to those same seasons, more often the not, they were derailed by strings of injuries to our starters, on both sides of the ball. It goes without saying, but the younger a team is overall, the more immune to injuries it tends to be. Obviously, losing Tony Romo, in many of those years, was the equivalent of a season long death sentence. Now with Dak at the helm, sporting a body more suited for taking the type of hits that often led to missed games for Romo, the Cowboys have less to fear in that particular regard. And the same could be said of this young group team-wide.
So, clearly, there is an element of luck that will decide how this team fairs in the upcoming season. But that fickle mistress, in truth, is a big part of every season’s outcome…sometimes you’re the Sparrow and sometimes you’re the weird kid with a BB gun. Oddly enough, I suspect the Cowboys will be the latter.
Thoughts?
As a result of lacking in friends, in my younger days I spent a good portion of my time entertaining myself. One form of entertainment I indulged in happened to involve killing stuff. Bugs, turtles, rabbits, squirrels, birds, snakes…all manner of God’s creatures were not safe from young JDay and his BB gun…or magnifying glass, were you an ant. Yeah…regrettably, I was that kid.
One summer day, whilst looking for something new to kill in my way-out-in-the-country back yard, I happened upon a sparrow. Sure enough, as fate would have it, I leveled my sights on this poor defenseless creature and released a small dose of my wrath at the world around me in the form of a BB. Lost in its death throws, I watched as it tumbled down the tree to the ground and flopped around for a few seconds before finding peace in her everafterlife.
How did you know it was a “her,” you might inquire?
So glad you asked.
Shortly thereafter, on that same day, I detected the incessant and insistent chirp of hungry baby birds. Following the sound, I climbed the same tree were my bullet had found the now deceased bird earlier. In a nest not too far up I found two baby birds squawking their protest to hunger.
At the time, it did not immediately occur to me that perhaps these youngsters where the offspring of the bird I slayed. So, leaving the nest undisturbed, I climbed back down and posted vigil over that tree to see if their parents would return. I waited all day, yet the chirping continued….and continued into my sleep that night, polluting my dreams and leading to a fitful night of dreadful sleep (or lack thereof, as it were).
The next morning I sprinted from my bed to the base of that tree to see if the chirping persisted. Indeed it did…only weaker…less frequent…and not quite as adamant. With a heavy and sunken heart, I climbed the tree and instantly knew that I was the reason for these two little defenseless orphans. My shame knew no bounds. In that moment, I was changed irrevocably forever.
From that second of realization, I had a profound and prolific respect for life in all its many forms and vowed never to take it needlessly or wantonly again. In other words, if I killed it, my intentions had better be to eat it…a biting mosquito, an intruder in my home or an insurgent overseas being the only obvious exception to that rule.
Fortunately, my family had a little experience raising birds. We kept White and African Ringneck Doves, so we had the resources to take care of these young birds. I relocated the nest into one of our empty bird cages my father had built and committed myself to being a surrogate-mom of sorts, raising these young Sparrows myself. Using an eye dropper, I would take softened watered down bread and slowly but surely feed them.
Within a few days, one of the birds succumbed to illness; I was likely too late in my efforts in terms of nourishing. However, the other bird made an amazing recovery. Throughout that entire summer I cared for that bird and actually had it to the point where it could fly across my room to perch on my shoulder. Towards the end of that summer, one of my brother’s dogs got ahold of it and broke one of its toes, which became infected and eventually led to its demise.
I was emotionally devastated, because at the end of the day, I couldn’t really blame the dog; after all, that was in the dog’s nature. Furthermore, had I not shot the bird’s mother in the first place, several generations of Sparrows would have lived on uninterrupted. My bullet, ultimately, severed that chain. And to this day, I struggle to even kill bugs, preferring instead to relocate them outside should they venture into my home.
Yesterday, I waxed long and poetic about the virtues of offensive balance in the NFL and how the Cowboys are setup exceptionally to implement this brand of attack, featuring league-leading talent at every level of their offense; Quarterback, Running Back, Receivers and, of course, that amazing offensive line. As somewhat of a teaser for today, I ended with the question of rather or not the Cowboys defense is prepared for this shift from pass-happy to balance from the opposition in the upcoming season. This may not come as a surprise to those who accuse me of being a homer, but I actually do believe the Cowboys defense will be just fine…perhaps, even better than “just fine.”
There is a popular narrative that suggest that the Cowboys defense is not very good. Part of the problem was how they played against Aaron Rogers on the national stage in the playoffs last year, allowing the Packers to put up 34 points in total, 21 of which came in the first half. But that game was not a fair microcosm of how the Cowboys defense played throughout the year. During the season, the Cowboys fielded the #1 rush defense, allowing only 83.5 yards rushing per game.
Nevertheless, as a result of the defense shouldering the lion share of the blame in that fateful loss to the Packers in the playoffs, the local and nationally held perception is that the Cowboys defense was largely carried by their offense throughout the season.
There is certainly some truth to that. Without the potency of the Cowboys’ offense putting up points in bunches, opposing teams would likely have ran the ball more. But since, more often than not, teams were playing from behind, they were not as insistent on maintaining balance, needing instead to yield as much production per second from the game-clock as was possible. In other words, running the ball and by extension the clock down, was in many ways counter-productive for the opposition.
What the national and local media is missing, I believe, is that very little about the offense has changed from this year to the upcoming season. In fact, should Zeke and Dak make the jump from their first year to their second year with the benefit of a full offseason, dodging a sophomore-slump hangover, the Cowboys offense as a whole enjoys some luck on the health front and the offensive line experiences no ill-effects from the departure of Leary and Free, this Cowboys offense, as hard as it may be to believe for some, could actually be even better than what it was last year. Let that sink in.
With that said, one could surmise that once again as dead-set on being balanced as a team may want to be against our beloved Cowboys in the upcoming season, unless they can hold the Dak-led offense in check, they will, just like last season, have to abandon their gameplan and play to win through the air, hoping to salvage as much time on the game clock as possible.
This task, in my opinion, will prove to be close to impossible for the majority of the league. The opposition will be attempting to keep pace with a dynamic and close to unstoppable duo of Dak & Zeke, behind perhaps the best offensive line in the game, supplemented by a ridiculous and embarrassment of riches in skill players that include the likes of Dez, Beasley, Witten, and the new Mouseketeer, Switzer. Switzer’s addition, as I intimated in yesterday’s submission, will provide value well beyond his individual production, as the Cowboys now have quite possibly the most deadly combination of 4 receivers and 1 running back in the league.
The next question the national pundits ask is how effective was the front office in replacing the production of their defensive Free Agent losses, which included most notably Claiborne, Carr and Church. Truth be told, that remains to be seen. But looking beyond that fair question, there is hope. It has long been discussed ad nauseam that both Carr and Claiborne were more comfortable in man as opposed to zone coverage. As a result, rather than attempting to fit square pegs in a circle hole, Marinelli altered his scheme to exercise their collective strengths with varied degrees of success.
As a direct result of snagging several zone-savvy players in the draft, Marinelli will be afforded the ability to implement more zone coverage which should afford more time to his front four to get to the opposing quarterback. This year’s draft selections has Marinelli’s approach written all over it. Every corner and safety, per their scouting report, excelled in zone for their perspective colleges. But that’s not the only similarity you will find between Awuzie, Lewis, and Woods. Beyond a common attitude, intellect and approach to the game of football, these three also share a desire for taking the football away. Their college stats (for the exception of Woods) don’t necessarily back up that assertion, however, I believe with take-aways being the defenses unified focus going into the season, with a sprinkle of Marinelli-magic on the side, and the added benefit of playing with leads on the scoreboard, that could very well change for every player on the Cowboys defensive roster; not just the rookies.
That, I believe, was the predominant focus of the Cowboys offseason for the defense. Leaving 2016 in their perspective rear-view, the Cowboys front office knew the best way they could help the team overall is to figure out ways to get extra possessions for that high-powered offense. Like Dak Prescott, the front offices has for some time now displayed an exceptional self-awareness. They know their strengths. They acknowledge their weaknesses. And they know if they can simply achieve a two possession lead, supplemented by a defense geared towards taking the ball away, they will be borderline-unstoppable.
Rather than seek to shut down opposing offenses, they will attempt to bait them into airing out with a continuation of the bend-don’t break defense. In summation, a 10 point lead plus a turnover or two likely equals a win for our Cowboys, regardless of what else may occur within the confines of the opening and closing whistle.
But that, my dear friends, is nowhere close to being the principal reason I feel the Cowboys are prepared better than most of the league to shut down the opposing ground attack of the Cowboys foes. First and foremost, let’s consider that defensive line.
Yesterday I pointed out that, unlike the majority of the league, in favor of top end speed, the Cowboys seem to hold in high regard the physical and athletic qualities of size and power complemented by a quick first step in their defensive line personnel. Across the board, you will find the majority of their depth chart have these qualities in common. While this may mean that the Cowboys don’t lead the league in sacks or QB pressures, they will certainly be one of the more difficult teams for offensive lines to consistently push around for four quarters, hoping a ground attack materializes.
Behind that defensive line, features one certain run stopper in Sean Lee (provided he can stay healthy) and a potential game changer in Jaylon Smith. Hitchins and Wilson, while perhaps liabilities in coverage, have displayed a knack for sifting through traffic, as well, to snuff out runs.
In the Cowboy secondary there is a staggering similarity between the 3 aforementioned secondary additions along with the personnel the Cowboys opted to keep from last year’s defensive iteration: solid wrap-up tackles for loss to minimal gain. Chidobe, Jourdan, and Xavier are all three sound and aggressive wrap-up tacklers. By many, this may be seen as me talking from both sides of mouth, so-to-speak, but where opposing secondary’s will struggle to contend with the power of the Cowboys ground attack, the Cowboys secondary will excel. Though mostly diminutive in size, as corners and safeties go, this group plays with a fearless and aggressive approach to the game; they hit without regard for their own personal safety, as if to say, you may have won on that play, but you most definitely will feel me tomorrow.
Much has been made of no NFCE team ruling our divisional roost for more than 1 year in a row since the Eagles did it in 2004-2005. Another alarming fact that has been discussed is the fact that for some time now every Cowboys successful season has been followed by a catastrophic one. There isn’t much I can point out to combat those disturbing trends, save one: youth…across the roster, the Cowboys are stocked with youth.
If you go back to those same seasons, more often the not, they were derailed by strings of injuries to our starters, on both sides of the ball. It goes without saying, but the younger a team is overall, the more immune to injuries it tends to be. Obviously, losing Tony Romo, in many of those years, was the equivalent of a season long death sentence. Now with Dak at the helm, sporting a body more suited for taking the type of hits that often led to missed games for Romo, the Cowboys have less to fear in that particular regard. And the same could be said of this young group team-wide.
So, clearly, there is an element of luck that will decide how this team fairs in the upcoming season. But that fickle mistress, in truth, is a big part of every season’s outcome…sometimes you’re the Sparrow and sometimes you’re the weird kid with a BB gun. Oddly enough, I suspect the Cowboys will be the latter.
Thoughts?
i was thinking the same thing