Recommended Tony Romo's 3 Interceptions

[jobberone]

So, the whole purpose of this game is to get stats and winning be damned.

Sorry, stats say Dallas has the #9 defense in the league. You believe that?

The most experienced sailor needs charts to sail the seas. The best charts do not a sailor make.

 

[Ring Leader]

Just when we a needed a little lift.....BAM. Little brother to the rescue. Only this clown could trump Romo's hideous week 1 performance. UnbELIevable.

 

[Pessimist_cowboy]

Just when we a needed a little lift.....BAM. Little brother to the rescue. Only this clown could trump Romo's hideous week 1 performance. UnbELIevable.

Hey hey but he beat Brady twice all by himself !!!! He's a hall of famer !!

 

[TwoDeep3]

No, stats give an indicator as to who is helping their team and who is hurting it.

Winning is typically having a group of guys, as an aggregate, with better stats then the group of guys wearing the other uniform.

For example, Romo's 3 INTs cost us the game yesterday. Those are stats.



Stats with ridiculously small sample sizes however, are useless.

Winning is a group of guys who outscore the other group of guys. If nothing else convinces you stats are meaningless, no running back held the season rushing title of most yards and their team won the Super Bowl. None.

Until Emmitt did it twice.

So what did stats say in that case? It can't happen.

There are lies
Damned lies
and people who use stats

 

[wileedog]

Winning is a group of guys who outscore the other group of guys. If nothing else convinces you stats are meaningless, no running back held the season rushing title of most yards and their team won the Super Bowl. None.

Until Emmitt did it twice.

So what did stats say in that case? It can't happen.

There are lies
Damned lies
and people who use stats

Cherry picking a stat and using it to prove a point is the exact opposite of how stats should be used.

Dan Marino also never won a Superbowl. His stats say he was a great QB, and any correlating eye test confirms that.

So there must be another reason that he never won a SB other than he was a bad QB. For those who were fortunate enough to watch him in his career, stats help make that argument.

 

[xwalker]

1. Play Action Pass from 12 personnel - Hanna/Witten are your TEs with Murray as your single back. Dez and Williams as your WRs with close splits to the formation. Both Hanna and Witten stay in to block the edges and Dez runs a crossing route underneath as Williams runs the post so you have only 2 guys out on routes w/ Murray as a check down.

Two things, the call is on 1st and 10 and Romo sells the fake by turning his head to Murray. This in turn is good and bad, good in that he gets the defense to flow to his right to key on the run, but bad because he loses sight of the defenders in front of him and also losing reads on Dez and Williams on their routes.

Which brings me to my opinion on this play. As Romo looks down field, Williams is making his break behind the traffic towards the left pylon. By the way that the play quickly unfolded, it looks to me like Romo had pre-determined his throw to Dez pre-snap. If Romo had just scanned the field a tick longer he may have seen the SS drop right in front of Dez and moved on to his next progression which should have been Williams or the check down to Murray.

2. Play Action Pass from S11 personnel - Witten/Murray w/ Dez, Beasley, and Harris as your receivers. Witten stays in to block then leaks out still covered. While Beasley runs a flat route, Dez a crossing route in the back of the end zone, and Harris runs a sluggo. Murray helps with blocking as well.

Again it's 1st and goal here, and Romo sells the fake again by turning his head to Murray. After the fake Romo wants to hit Harris but sees both LBs eyeing him down. I think he doesn't trust himself to fit the ball to Harris behind the LBs and then Murray's man has Romo scrambling to the right. Whether it was a bad throwaway or poor decision by Romo whatever that was it was ugly.


3. Play Action Pass from 13 personnel - Witten/Hanna/Escobar as your TEs and Murray as your single back. Dez is your lone WR that runs a skinny post and Witten goes out on a pattern too. (couldn't tell what is was) Hanna and Escobar stay in as blockers but Escobar and Murray are the check downs this time.

1st and 10 again - see the pattern yet? Romo again sells the fake with his head turn but this time he quickly snaps it back to scan the field. The problem is that Romo never sees the backside corner drop into the deep center of the field. Romo never accounted for him and unloads the ball to Dez hoping that Dez can make the circus catch.


Here's my extended analysis on these particular plays. All of them were PA passes and they were all called on 1st and 10. In the offseason Tony's stats when throwing PA passes was posted here and everyone was screaming for more PA passes because we rarely ran them. Well PA passes are great, but one of the big issues when trying to run them is to, #1 sell the fake to the defense to suck them in, and #2 make an easy completion for your QB.

Let me talk about #1. PA pass fakes is an art form that must be perfected at the NFL level. It's just not about going through the motions. First and foremost the QB has to sell the fake to the runner. If the QB keeps his vision down field and doesn't really sell the fake then the LB are going to drop in their zones and read pass all day. You can always sell the fake in other ways too, with the OL, by going low hat or use a pulling OG but you invite yourself to quick QB pressure. On play 1, I don't think Williams was ever part of his progression because as soon as Romo got to his landmark he set his feet and unloaded the ball into triple coverage. As Romo turns his head to sell the fake, he doesn't see the SS drop right in front of Dez or that the FS commits to Dez from behind. On Play 2 it seems like Romo doesn't trust himself more than anything as he sees Harris but doesn't pull the trigger. On Play 3, Romo never accounts for the backside corner #20 dropping into the deep center as help. Cowboys are in a heavy run formation and the 49ers are in their base defense, in hindsight they probably should have ran there as they have the personnel advantage to run there vs the 49ers base defense.

On with #2, making the easy completion for your QB. PA passes are designed to suck the defense in order to get your play makers behind them. And while Dallas was able to get the 49ers to commit on 2 of 3 PA calls, they failed to make the easy completions. Play 1 is a basic Hi/Lo concept where you want the far S to commit to the crosser or the skinny post and whichever he commits to you go the opposite. Play 2 was more of the QB not trusting himself to get the ball in a window. And Play 3 was a play call that was probably doomed from the beginning because of the defense on the field.


So where do we go from here? I simply don't know because the sample size is too small. The Cowboys ran more PA passes and Romo was fine on those but they were on different downs and distances. Maybe scrap the idea on 1st downs and go with a run or straight up pass play instead?

Maybe tweak the passing concepts to make the reads easier for Romo so that he can make the correct read when he hits his landmark on the fake?

Maybe send more route runners out at the expense of less protection? That's a risky proposition considering Romo could get rattled pretty easy with one good hit.

As the season goes on though, we will see how Linehan and Romo fix these issues.

Excellent post.

They need to just eliminate that play action next week and wait until Romo shakes off the rust. If they have to run play action, it should be with a roll out to some easy 5 to 10 yard throws, not 20 yards in the middle of the field.

What I would really like to see is Romo in a Pistol formation which is just a short shotgun with the RB directly behind him. That would allow them to keep all running plays as options in that formation instead of the RB lined up to the side of the QB like they do in the shotgun. Romo is obviously more comfortable in the shotgun. He would only have to take a step or so back from the Pistol to be right back in his normal shotgun spot. They did use this formation a couple of times in 2013.

 

[wileedog]

And while I truly like Romo, and believe he has kept this ship from sinking too many times, I also believe there is an aspect to his mental make-up which causes him to press, to believe he can do anything he sees, and thus is one of the reasons this team loses. I have argued that point and been told I am a hater.
.

Whatever our disagreement on stats, I don't begrudge you this point at all. I've never thought Romo was a guy like Payton or Brees who can just throw the whole team on his back and still expect to go deep in the playoffs every year, and for the exact reason you say.

Unfortunately that is exactly the way this team is currently built.

 

[CyberB0b]

Excellent post.

They need to just eliminate that play action next week and wait until Romo shakes off the rust. If they have to run play action, it should be with a roll out to some easy 5 to 10 yard throws, not 20 yards in the middle of the field.

What I would really like to see is Romo in a Pistol formation which is just a short shotgun with the RB directly behind him. That would allow them to keep all running plays as options in that formation instead of the RB lined up to the side of the QB like they do in the shotgun. Romo is obviously more comfortable in the shotgun. He would only have to take a step or so back from the Pistol to be right back in his normal shotgun spot. They did use this formation a couple of times in 2013.

I am really starting to question Romo's football intelligence at this point. We have heard multiple times that he has checked out of runs and then had disastrous results in the passing game for a few years now. I think it's time to take away his options presnap, but there isn't much they can do to fix his post snap mistakes. Your post immediately brought this to mind for me:



"You can't go broke taking a profit". I don't think Romo really gets this concept.

 

[Idgit]

All right all. I apologize for my contribution in allowing this thread to stray from it's topic. Let's all agree to keep the personal stuff out and keep on truckin' on an otherwise really, really good topic.

 

[TheDude]

Well, as a stat guy by trade and degree, IMO stats really break down in football as there are too many variables (players, calls, formations, opponent reactions, down/distance scenario, penalty, etc, etc) to pinpoint a given success or failure with great accuracy. Many of the stats are too subjective. Also, team make-up seems to change very frequently. Footbal is not baseball where larger sample size and 1-1 matchups are more easily obtained.

That said, there has been some very good detailed work on trends and correlation strength. Overall, the numbers do show that being an efficient pasing team and defending the pass correlates to higher Winning %. However, it doesn't really say how all of those situations are born or comprised of different teams/schemes/talent/score/etc.

For example, everyone can find stats that say Romo is a better passer than Kaepernick or Wilson (I make this assumption form bias and reading some comparative stats here and other places). For example:

• Romo has the highest 4th Qtr Rating in NFL history at 101.1 (as of beginning of 2014). Sunday it was 107.7 in the 4th qtr on 14 passes. Last year it was 105.6. The inferrence can be made that he knocked the rust off as the game went on and all may be well.
  • Romo had a 79.4 rating in the 3rd qtr on 4-9 passing
  • Romo threw for 281 yards total
• Kaepernick had a 4th qtr rating of 100 in the 4th qtr throwing 2 passes.
  • He had a 47.9 rating in the 3rd qtr - throwing 8 passes completing 3
  • He threw for 201 yards total
• Russell Wilson had a 142.7 4th qtr rating with 4-4
  • He threw for 191 yards
• I can also say that 13/14 QBs posting an overall QBrating >95 won (Robert griffen was 12th at 96.7)
  • I can infer that teams not defending the pass well have a higher propencity to lose (so that is holding)
• 8 players were >100 yds rushing and were 6-8 Murray and West being on the losing teams

All of that is interesting, but each game unfold differently.

Could it be rust from Romo? sure. But the eyeball test raised more concerns than quelling them. These INTs werent heaving hail mary/punt to end the half (Balt 2008), they weren't Witten kick INTs, they were more uncertainty and lobs.

My concern with Romo all along was that he modeled himself after Farve - but never had that arm strength. Once the escapability goes, he cannot rely on the arm alone to make those throws. You dont need a canon - hello Manning. But Manning throws the ball quickly and throws receivers open with those floaters. Holding it a split second and waiting for
seperation is not a luxury Romo can afford as he ages.

Also, it should be noted that the defense greatly benefitted from SF letting off the gas. They went into ball control mode and tried to hold the clock to keep their defense fresh. They lost 2 starting secondary players and were short Bowman, Smith, etc. Kaepernick threw 10 passes in the second half and 2 in the 4th qtr. One huge pass was called back on a off PI. Not impressed with the defense - outside of McClain

In summation, stats are interesting and fun, but not universally telling in Football.

 

[xwalker]

Well, as a stat guy by trade and degree, IMO stats really break down in football as there are too many variables (players, calls, formations, opponent reactions, down/distance scenario, penalty, etc, etc) to pinpoint a given success or failure with great accuracy. Many of the stats are too subjective. Also, team make-up seems to change very frequently. Footbal is not baseball where larger sample size and 1-1 matchups are more easily obtained.

That said, there has been some very good detailed work on trends and correlation strength. Overall, the numbers do show that being an efficient pasing team and defending the pass correlates to higher Winning %. However, it doesn't really say how all of those situations are born or comprised of different teams/schemes/talent/score/etc.

For example, everyone can find stats that say Romo is a better passer than Kaepernick or Wilson (I make this assumption form bias and reading some comparative stats here and other places). For example:

• Romo has the highest 4th Qtr Rating in NFL history at 101.1 (as of beginning of 2014). Sunday it was 107.7 in the 4th qtr on 14 passes. Last year it was 105.6. The inferrence can be made that he knocked the rust off as the game went on and all may be well.
  • Romo had a 79.4 rating in the 3rd qtr on 4-9 passing
  • Romo threw for 281 yards total
• Kaepernick had a 4th qtr rating of 100 in the 4th qtr throwing 2 passes.
  • He had a 47.9 rating in the 3rd qtr - throwing 8 passes completing 3
  • He threw for 201 yards total
• Russell Wilson had a 142.7 4th qtr rating with 4-4
  • He threw for 191 yards
• I can also say that 13/14 QBs posting an overall QBrating >95 won (Robert griffen was 12th at 96.7)
  • I can infer that teams not defending the pass well have a higher propencity to lose (so that is holding)
• 8 players were >100 yds rushing and were 6-8 Murray and West being on the losing teams

All of that is interesting, but each game unfold differently.

Could it be rust from Romo? sure. But the eyeball test raised more concerns than quelling them. These INTs werent heaving hail mary/punt to end the half (Balt 2008), they weren't Witten kick INTs, they were more uncertainty and lobs.

My concern with Romo all along was that he modeled himself after Farve - but never had that arm strength. Once the escapability goes, he cannot rely on the arm alone to make those throws. You dont need a canon - hello Manning. But Manning throws the ball quickly and throws receivers open with those floaters. Holding it a split second and waiting for
seperation is not a luxury Romo can afford as he ages.

Also, it should be noted that the defense greatly benefitted from SF letting off the gas. They went into ball control mode and tried to hold the clock to keep their defense fresh. They lost 2 starting secondary players and were short Bowman, Smith, etc. Kaepernick threw 10 passes in the second half and 2 in the 4th qtr. One huge pass was called back on a off PI. Not impressed with the defense - outside of McClain

In summation, stats are interesting and fun, but not universally telling in Football.

The problem with passing efficiency wins game stats is that people try to invert that to conclude that the run game has minimal importance.

In reality we know that the run game threat has a big effect on passing. If defenses use 8 men in the box then the passing game benefits even if the total run yardage is contained. If the run threat was not important then LBs and Safeties would all be replaced by CBs but that's difficult to show with stats.