sureletsrace
Official CZ Homer
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I haven't been posting much lately as I have been pretty busy with work and seeing doctors, as well as lately the mood of this forum has seemingly been down in the dumps. Not that everyone here does not have a right to their feelings.
The Cowboys this year have been very weird to watch. They've won a couple of tough games, and lost a couple of tough games. The schedule for the Cowboys this season is brutal. Along with the annual early bye week, the clumping of the schedule does not play out well for the Cowboys.
Two weeks ago against the Chicago Bears is the first time I've ever completely turned a Cowboys game off. I've always held out hope that there would be a miraculous comeback or at least something worth seeing. A few minutes into the second half my TV went off. I was beyond disgust. I was, for the first time, uninterested in watching my Cowboys.
It's funny, because even though I live in SW Florida, there are a few people that I know that are Cowboys fans. They are much more casual fans than I am though.
Of course, some of them are the "Tony Romo needs to go, Tony Romo doesn't fit this team, Jason Garrett needs to go, Jerry Jones needs to go, the offensive line is a sieve, etc".
But, there are others that say "Hey. It's 4 weeks into the season. The Cowboys are 2-2, they're still in it."
Now, with as fanatical as I can get about the Cowboys, I find it interesting to hear the viewpoints of more casual fans; the fans that do not comb the internet literally every day of the year, whether football is being played or not. It's almost like some of them do not realize what is truly going on behind the scenes. And that's exactly it. They don't.
All of us here on this message board are the fanatical fans. Whether we are homers, realists, happy fans, neck-beards, mouth-breathers, or whatever, we are fanatics. We frequent this site among many other sites all year long. Dissecting information. Breaking down plays. Analyzing potential draft picks. Discussing formations, stats, and play-calling tendencies. Fabricating mock drafts. Dreaming up wild free agency plans. Vying for every tidbit of information from Training Camp. Every twitter post. Every news article. Every roster churn. Every cut. Every addition. Not all fans are as dedicated to their team as we are, optimist or pessimist aside.
I see many issues with this team. The offensive line is not gelling as a cohesive unit yet. I feel that there is much distrust along the line, and it is apparent when watching that they look like 5 individuals playing out there rather than one group. The plus side to this is that it is a fixable problem.
I think that 1 out of the 5 offensive linemen that are starting for this team is a Pro-Bowl level starter, or at least has the potential to be. I feel that the rest of the offensive linemen on the roster range from average to poor in terms of serviceability. That does not mean that the current players we have cannot end up being a decent line. They could end up performing at an average level, which is good enough for Tony Romo to do his thing.
The great thing about an offensive line is that the sum is greater than the parts. When an offensive lineman trusts the guys next to them to pick up blitzes, stunts, make the correct reads, and break off to the next level, it makes his job easier. When he doesn't have to worry about what is happening next to him, he can concentrate on his job. And I don't care what anyone says, as a former offensive lineman, you protect your QB at all costs, even if that makes you blow your own assignment, hold, trip, etc. to try and fix someone else's mistake. These guys care about their QB.
From what little I've reviewed, it looks like the offensive line is tripping over it's own feet, everyone trying to overcompensate for the guy next to them. Sure, there are several plays where one of them just gets one-on-one, man-to-man, whipped. That's going to happen. It's the design of the game. One wrong hand placement, one wrong kick slide, one wrong step, and you're on your back wondering what just happened, meanwhile your QB is picking himself up off the ground after getting his clock cleaned.
I guess what I'm saying about the line is that the potential to get better is there. Will it? I'm not sure. Are we set along the offensive line? Not close. But, this group of guys is able to play at an average level. Let's hope they get to that point sooner rather than later.
The penalties are another thing that concern me. The sloppiness at times this year has been astounding. Now, a lot of that can be laid squarely at the feet of the rotation of men at the C position. When you are a TE or an OT that cannot see the ball get snapped because there are huge guards blocking your view, and you cannot hear your QB's cadence, you're going off of timing. When a new C comes in, if it's thrown off by even a quarter of a second, you're getting false starts all game long. There have been very few defensive penalties, which is great.
Another area of concern, and for me the most crucial and potentially the most problematic now and going forward is Jason Garrett's play-calling. He is a very young head coach and definitely has a lot of learning to do. I don't think there is anyone here that disagrees with that. He surely must know that the predictability of this offense is putting the team at a huge disadvantage. I didn't put a whole lot of stock into it until I saw where in certain situations the run vs pass percentages were staggeringly unbalanced.
Again, surely he must know about this. I highly doubt he comes into a game unprepared and makes play-calls on a whim. I toy with the idea that he is probably over-preparing his gameplan. We all know that he is a highly intelligent guy, and probably goes into each game with a set way of doing things and refuses to deviate from that. I can respect that, but I feel that he needs to learn that sometimes your gut instinct is better than odds and percentages. He seems to be very much a numbers, angles, leverages, and execution guy. He calls a play knowing it should work, but sometimes it just doesn't. Lately, it often doesn't.
This may sound ridiculous, but I'd like to see him prepare a little less for the play-calling aspect of a game and allow his instinct, the tone of the game, and the morale of the players to dictate what play he calls. Go ask Tony Romo what he thinks we should do. Go ask the offensive line on 3rd and 1 if they think they can handle a run right up the gut. They would take it as a personal challenge. If they fail, then the players feel personally responsible, because it was them that said they could do it. I do not think there is a lack of preparedness on Jason Garrett's part. I think it's just the opposite. He has his flaws - I just do not think that his organizational skills, preparation, and focus are among them.
I'd say his biggest flaw is a robotic, machine-like approach to the game. I feel that no emotion or...I don't know what word I'm looking for...you know what I mean...that fire, that swagger, goes in to his in-game decision making. I feel that is important. I feel that he can fix this. So far, he has been excellent on draft day, excellent in camps and practices, excellent with the media, and by all accounts excellent in the damage control of Jerry Jones as well. He has churned this roster and made many, many changes to the team.
There is an aura of professionalism that exudes from this group that was not there 5 years ago. I feel like this team is becoming a team of less-talented-but-harder-working men, than a team of more-talented-spotlight-seekers and paycheck-collecting-immature-children.
Whether some of you are too upset by the results of the first quarter of this season to see it or not, there is a lot to look forward to. This team is becoming younger, more professional, and -hopefully- more successful. When I think of the Dallas Cowboys, I think of a professional, class-act organization full of great football minds, high quality people, and winning.
Even though winning is the be-all-end-all and the most important for most fans, I feel that right now we're two-and-a-half thirds of the way to what the Dallas Cowboys mean to me.
The Cowboys this year have been very weird to watch. They've won a couple of tough games, and lost a couple of tough games. The schedule for the Cowboys this season is brutal. Along with the annual early bye week, the clumping of the schedule does not play out well for the Cowboys.
Two weeks ago against the Chicago Bears is the first time I've ever completely turned a Cowboys game off. I've always held out hope that there would be a miraculous comeback or at least something worth seeing. A few minutes into the second half my TV went off. I was beyond disgust. I was, for the first time, uninterested in watching my Cowboys.
It's funny, because even though I live in SW Florida, there are a few people that I know that are Cowboys fans. They are much more casual fans than I am though.
Of course, some of them are the "Tony Romo needs to go, Tony Romo doesn't fit this team, Jason Garrett needs to go, Jerry Jones needs to go, the offensive line is a sieve, etc".
But, there are others that say "Hey. It's 4 weeks into the season. The Cowboys are 2-2, they're still in it."
Now, with as fanatical as I can get about the Cowboys, I find it interesting to hear the viewpoints of more casual fans; the fans that do not comb the internet literally every day of the year, whether football is being played or not. It's almost like some of them do not realize what is truly going on behind the scenes. And that's exactly it. They don't.
All of us here on this message board are the fanatical fans. Whether we are homers, realists, happy fans, neck-beards, mouth-breathers, or whatever, we are fanatics. We frequent this site among many other sites all year long. Dissecting information. Breaking down plays. Analyzing potential draft picks. Discussing formations, stats, and play-calling tendencies. Fabricating mock drafts. Dreaming up wild free agency plans. Vying for every tidbit of information from Training Camp. Every twitter post. Every news article. Every roster churn. Every cut. Every addition. Not all fans are as dedicated to their team as we are, optimist or pessimist aside.
I see many issues with this team. The offensive line is not gelling as a cohesive unit yet. I feel that there is much distrust along the line, and it is apparent when watching that they look like 5 individuals playing out there rather than one group. The plus side to this is that it is a fixable problem.
I think that 1 out of the 5 offensive linemen that are starting for this team is a Pro-Bowl level starter, or at least has the potential to be. I feel that the rest of the offensive linemen on the roster range from average to poor in terms of serviceability. That does not mean that the current players we have cannot end up being a decent line. They could end up performing at an average level, which is good enough for Tony Romo to do his thing.
The great thing about an offensive line is that the sum is greater than the parts. When an offensive lineman trusts the guys next to them to pick up blitzes, stunts, make the correct reads, and break off to the next level, it makes his job easier. When he doesn't have to worry about what is happening next to him, he can concentrate on his job. And I don't care what anyone says, as a former offensive lineman, you protect your QB at all costs, even if that makes you blow your own assignment, hold, trip, etc. to try and fix someone else's mistake. These guys care about their QB.
From what little I've reviewed, it looks like the offensive line is tripping over it's own feet, everyone trying to overcompensate for the guy next to them. Sure, there are several plays where one of them just gets one-on-one, man-to-man, whipped. That's going to happen. It's the design of the game. One wrong hand placement, one wrong kick slide, one wrong step, and you're on your back wondering what just happened, meanwhile your QB is picking himself up off the ground after getting his clock cleaned.
I guess what I'm saying about the line is that the potential to get better is there. Will it? I'm not sure. Are we set along the offensive line? Not close. But, this group of guys is able to play at an average level. Let's hope they get to that point sooner rather than later.
The penalties are another thing that concern me. The sloppiness at times this year has been astounding. Now, a lot of that can be laid squarely at the feet of the rotation of men at the C position. When you are a TE or an OT that cannot see the ball get snapped because there are huge guards blocking your view, and you cannot hear your QB's cadence, you're going off of timing. When a new C comes in, if it's thrown off by even a quarter of a second, you're getting false starts all game long. There have been very few defensive penalties, which is great.
Another area of concern, and for me the most crucial and potentially the most problematic now and going forward is Jason Garrett's play-calling. He is a very young head coach and definitely has a lot of learning to do. I don't think there is anyone here that disagrees with that. He surely must know that the predictability of this offense is putting the team at a huge disadvantage. I didn't put a whole lot of stock into it until I saw where in certain situations the run vs pass percentages were staggeringly unbalanced.
Again, surely he must know about this. I highly doubt he comes into a game unprepared and makes play-calls on a whim. I toy with the idea that he is probably over-preparing his gameplan. We all know that he is a highly intelligent guy, and probably goes into each game with a set way of doing things and refuses to deviate from that. I can respect that, but I feel that he needs to learn that sometimes your gut instinct is better than odds and percentages. He seems to be very much a numbers, angles, leverages, and execution guy. He calls a play knowing it should work, but sometimes it just doesn't. Lately, it often doesn't.
This may sound ridiculous, but I'd like to see him prepare a little less for the play-calling aspect of a game and allow his instinct, the tone of the game, and the morale of the players to dictate what play he calls. Go ask Tony Romo what he thinks we should do. Go ask the offensive line on 3rd and 1 if they think they can handle a run right up the gut. They would take it as a personal challenge. If they fail, then the players feel personally responsible, because it was them that said they could do it. I do not think there is a lack of preparedness on Jason Garrett's part. I think it's just the opposite. He has his flaws - I just do not think that his organizational skills, preparation, and focus are among them.
I'd say his biggest flaw is a robotic, machine-like approach to the game. I feel that no emotion or...I don't know what word I'm looking for...you know what I mean...that fire, that swagger, goes in to his in-game decision making. I feel that is important. I feel that he can fix this. So far, he has been excellent on draft day, excellent in camps and practices, excellent with the media, and by all accounts excellent in the damage control of Jerry Jones as well. He has churned this roster and made many, many changes to the team.
There is an aura of professionalism that exudes from this group that was not there 5 years ago. I feel like this team is becoming a team of less-talented-but-harder-working men, than a team of more-talented-spotlight-seekers and paycheck-collecting-immature-children.
Whether some of you are too upset by the results of the first quarter of this season to see it or not, there is a lot to look forward to. This team is becoming younger, more professional, and -hopefully- more successful. When I think of the Dallas Cowboys, I think of a professional, class-act organization full of great football minds, high quality people, and winning.
Even though winning is the be-all-end-all and the most important for most fans, I feel that right now we're two-and-a-half thirds of the way to what the Dallas Cowboys mean to me.
