Turnovers

[plasticman]

The Cowboys ranked #3 in takeaways during the last 8 games of 2020. It was a key factor in them going 4-4 the last half of the season. They were still ran on.

Interestingly, the same thing happened in 2010. After Jerry fired Wade Phillips and Garrett became the HC, the Cowboys were ranked #1 in takeaways in the last half of that 2010 season as they went 5-3.

I'm not saying it was because of Garrett. My theory is that once a team has almost no chance to make the playoffs it is as if all the pressure is off the players, they go out on the field a lot more loose and they take more risks. I think this may be why the Cowboys improved so much in the second halves of 2010 and 2020.

 

[Bullflop]

If there's one thing I've noticed in the past, it's that our players oftentimes don't buy into the schemes that our staff has employed. I'm confident that simpler schemes have proven to be what our players have best responded to in the recent past. I believe Patrick Surtain holds such an advantage over many of the other CB candidates.

Dan Quinn's scheme fits into the simplistic category far better than those we've had in the recent past. I believe our players will respond to him and his system better than what we've seen in the not so distant past. It's also historically true that his players have taken to him and his ways very quickly. I'm expecting that trend to continue. Hopefully, smarter players will also be introduced into this team as a prerequisite.

 

[darthseinfeld]

I don't know the exact stat- but Dallas was near the top of the league in turnovers forced over the latter part of last season, possibly even #1.

Regardless of exactly what the statistic was - what was the reasoning behind this? I don't really want to hear about the coaching staff emphasizing taking the ball away, we have heard that for darn near a decade and it barely mattered.

Is changing defensive coordinators going to have a negative impact on our ability to take the ball away? Our defense was trash last year, don't get me wrong, but taking the ball away improved significantly. How do we ensure that we continue doing that?

Alot of things aligned. Defense in general started playing better. Part of it is we actually started playing good players. We got 3 FF from Gregory in 10 games. We got 3 FF and 2 INT's from Wilson in 2 games. In that same span we got 3 from Lawrence as well

 

[ghst187]

Diggs and Wilson made the D worth watching second half of the season.
Adding another solid CB and S could really go a long way shoring up the back part of the D.