We rank 6th in total defense

[percyhoward]

Teams are taking no chances and are for the most part are running the ball and running 3 step drops. We give up big plays off of play action and similar misdirection but outside of a handful of drives teams are conservative.

This is probably why we have the third-lowest TD percentage allowed, which also (artificially) improves our defensive passer rating. That, and teams have no problem running on us in the red zone.

 

[percyhoward]

No sacks and no turnovers.

I wanted 50 sacks and we'll be lucky to get 30.

The turnovers are fluky, but QB strips and INTs come from pressure.

24th in sack percentage, 27th in interception percentage, 31st in recovered fumbles per drive.

And remember, this is the most rested defense in the NFL.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The stats are for losers...the only stat that makes a difference to winning or losing is scoring offense and scoring defense. The rest of the stats are just for fantasy football.

I wouldn't care if we ranked last in total yards on offense and defense if we led the league in scoring offense and defense then we wouldn't be talking about the stupid draft right now.

I love how you write this over the interwebs from your computer and all that entails. Egg counters rule the world, holmes.

 

[Beast_from_East]

The stats are for losers...the only stat that makes a difference to winning or losing is scoring offense and scoring defense. The rest of the stats are just for fantasy football.

I wouldn't care if we ranked last in total yards on offense and defense if we led the league in scoring offense and defense then we wouldn't be talking about the stupid draft right now.

Good point bro, and here are the numbers...........

Offensive scoring.......29th

Defensive scoring......16th

Basically we have a middle of the pack defense and a horrendous offense.................and some think we are going to win 4 out of 5

 

[Macnalty]

22nd ranked defense, not 28th.

18th in pass defense seems reasonable and so does 26th against the run.

We didn't really stop Eli in the first game, were terrible against the Falcons and the Patriots.

I think that believing that a good #2 QB is out there and they're not hard to find is a bit naïve. 16 teams in this league can't find good #1 QB's, but much good #1 and #2 QB's. I can see why they liked Weeden...great arm and threw with accuracy. Also came from Chudzinski's offense which was similar. Gave him a year off and figured he could sit and learn.

I have bigger issues with the pet cats we have like Hayden and in particular, Barry Church. Last year the pet cat was Claiborne. We insisted on starting him even though he stunk. Then he got injured and the pass defense improved with the less heralded Sterling Moore taking over.

I have the NFL redzone and you might also, we really do have a reasonable defense when watching all the teams playing. Lots of warts on even the good teams defensively. IMO

Hayden much more than Church in my mind.
Weeden they must've seen the mental side of things with him... no reasonable explanation we should of been bringing in the Kellen Moore's earlier.



YR

Hayden is just a guy, and unfortunately so is Church. Not sure why we have not been able to replace Hayden with an upgrade. I realized the safety spot is one most teams are deficit so they are rare and expensive with experience.

 

[Risen Star]

This is probably why we have the third-lowest TD percentage allowed, which also (artificially) improves our defensive passer rating. That, and teams have no problem running on us in the red zone.

It's also probably why, despite all your fine work Percy...I do enjoy reading your stuff, you can not rely solely on stats. God gave everyone a brain. Watch the games and use it. We've all seen stats that don't make sense. Sometimes they outright lie to you.

 

[Aven8]

That's a fair point. Garrett hasn't shown he can develop QBs.

Would you trade a pick for Sean Payton?

You betcha. We just got 3 #1's this past year so call it a wash. He would put this team over the top, has a great relationship with the Jones, and has a little of Parcells accountability in him.

 

[khiladi]

And Garrett's offense was supposedly top five when he was in total control, but those were yards and we were averaging anywhere etween 18 and plus 20 via scoring..

So of your a Garrett homer and blame the defense despite its ranking, don't bring up Garrett's alleges top 5 offense, despite sucking in scoring and being awful in the red zone.

We are just bad philosophically and scheme wise..

 

[LatinMind]

This defense is giving up more points to opposing offenses than it did last year -- it's just facing fewer drives. Our offense leads the league in time of average possession by huge margin. There is more TOP separating 1st and 2nd place than there is separating 2nd place from 10th place.

Time of average possession
Offense
1. Dallas 3:20
2. Atlanta 3:02
3. San Diego 2:56
4. Minnesota 2:54
5. Cincinnati 2:53
6. Washington 2:53
7. Chicago 2:52
8. Arizona 2:49
9. Seattle 2:49
10. Detroit 2:46

If you look at points allowed per drive, our defense is basically performing at last year's level, just without all the takeaways.

Dallas Defense
Points allowed per drive
2015 1.96 (17th)
2014 1.89 (16th)

Dallas Defense
Takeaways per drive
2015 .062 (32nd)
2014 .172 (1st)

The offense looks like this...
Dallas Offense
points per drive
2015 1.73 (24th)
2014 2.62 (2nd)

...because of this:
Dallas Offense
team pass rating
2015 82.2 (26th)
2014 110.9 (1st)

Thats fine to post stats, but when you do that you show the holes in what ur trying to say. Ur saying Dallas defense has gone up against fewer drives because of the TOP. Well that means the avg pts per drive are going to be higher than normal because of the fewer drives. And Dallas wins TOP in almost every game because they dont run a hurry up like 80% of the nfl. They run the traditional offense not full of gimmicks. Their play clock lives in the 3 second range all the time before they snap the ball.

 

[percyhoward]

It's also probably why, despite all your fine work Percy...I do enjoy reading your stuff, you can not rely solely on stats. God gave everyone a brain. Watch the games and use it. We've all seen stats that don't make sense. Sometimes they outright lie to you.

Thanks, I think. Just take what you can use, and if a stat seems to disagree with the eye test, try to figure out why.

 

[Nightman]

It's also probably why, despite all your fine work Percy...I do enjoy reading your stuff, you can not rely solely on stats. God gave everyone a brain. Watch the games and use it. We've all seen stats that don't make sense. Sometimes they outright lie to you.

He was telling us last week that our running game was better this year based on a couple obscure stats.

Overall we were 9th in rushing, now we are down to 16th and a lot closer to the bottom than to the top.

His stats didn't pass the eye test.

 

[Carson]

Stats are nice.

But our defense is the least clutch defense in the NFL. Problem #1

 

[percyhoward]

And Dallas wins TOP in almost every game because they don't run a hurry up like 80% of the nfl. They run the traditional offense not full of gimmicks. Their play clock lives in the 3 second range all the time before they snap the ball.

Our offense leads the NFL in TOP per drive because that's what the coaches want it to do. Our offense for a good part of the season has consisted either of runs or glorified "runs" in the form of short passing. Big plays, especially long TD passes, have been few and far between. So the offense has been plodding along, moving the chains, then screeching to a halt in the red zone. Ball control doesn't win football games when you can't score touchdowns.

Thats fine to post stats, but when you do that you show the holes in what ur trying to say. Ur saying Dallas defense has gone up against fewer drives because of the TOP. Well that means the avg pts per drive are going to be higher than normal because of the fewer drives.

There's no reason to think that if this defense had been facing more drives, it would have performed better. That makes no sense at all.

 

[percyhoward]

He was telling us last week that our running game was better this year based on a couple obscure stats.

Overall we were 9th in rushing, now we are down to 16th and a lot closer to the bottom than to the top.

His stats didn't pass the eye test.

We've had no downfield passing threat for most of the season, so we aren't seeing a lot of two-high safeties.. That has a huge effect on yards per carry, especially on 1st and 10. The running game thrived on 1st and 10 last year because defenses had to pick their poison. That's all gone now, and we were running into 8-man boxes during that losing streak. IOW, we lost the advantage of keeping defenses guessing and of making them cover the whole field. In situations where the defense absolutely knows what coming (shot yardage and goal line), we're actually better than last year. That's a good indication that the problem with the offense probably isn't the running game.

A lot of people see us losing games, underestimate the role of the passing game in last year's rushing numbers, and incorrectly assume that we aren't running as well this year.

 

[Nightman]

We've had no downfield passing threat for most of the season, so we aren't seeing a lot of two-high safeties.. That has a huge effect on yards per carry, especially on 1st and 10. The running game thrived on 1st and 10 last year because defenses had to pick their poison. That's all gone now, and we were running into 8-man boxes during that losing streak. IOW, we lost the advantage of keeping defenses guessing and of making them cover the whole field. In situations where the defense absolutely knows what coming (shot yardage and goal line), we're actually better than last year. That's a good indication that the problem with the offense probably isn't the running game.

A lot of people see us losing games, underestimate the role of the passing game in last year's rushing numbers, and incorrectly assume that we aren't running as well this year.

No, our eyes and the raw numbers indicate that our running game is nowhere near as good as last year.

 

[khiladi]

I agree with Percy's contention at the gist of it.

We have by design, been conservative on offense. The model was to play it safe and hope the defense produces TOs and from there try and score based on field position..

But where does the blame lie?

That put's a tremendous amount of pressure on defense, particularly if the opposing offense is not threatened at all by your ability to score and doesn't need to force the issue. What complicated the problem was we played conservatively on defense as well, not even trying to force mistakes.

This was the same formula in 2010, with the exception the defense did produce TOs at 20 in the last 8 games, but that's because Jerry went ballistic and the defense had nothing to lose because they were out of play-off contention and they were aggressive. They also showed an ability to create TOs in the beginning of the season by generating 10 in 8 games.

Our offensive scheme sucks. Romo makes it run. And it's idiotic in today's offensive oriented league one tries to win in this manner. Even in our conservative approach, we turned to ball over because we were predictable. It happens every year.

Our conservative approach may work every now and then against bad teams, but as soon as you face a legitimate opponent, your blown out of the water.

 

[khiladi]

I also find it comical that certain homers would bash guys like Jamie Winston as sucking and Chip Kelly as not being able to coach, while they proclaimed how Bradford sucked, yet they are all pulling out wins. But when Dallas loses 8 straight, it's because we lost our key players like Romo.

But I thought Winston and Bradford and Kelly sucked and guys like Cam Newton were over-rated and so on...

 

[LatinMind]

Our offense leads the NFL in TOP per drive because that's what the coaches want it to do. Our offense for a good part of the season has consisted either of runs or glorified "runs" in the form of short passing. Big plays, especially long TD passes, have been few and far between. So the offense has been plodding along, moving the chains, then screeching to a halt in the red zone. Ball control doesn't win football games when you can't score touchdowns.


There's no reason to think that if this defense had been facing more drives, it would have performed better. That makes no sense at all.

Now ur talking or typing out of both ends. Not surprising

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Hayden is just a guy, and unfortunately so is Church. Not sure why we have not been able to replace Hayden with an upgrade. I realized the safety spot is one most teams are deficit so they are rare and expensive with experience.

1-tech is nice to have and we had Terrell McClain there until he got hurt. The problem with Dallas is they have done very little to address the safety position since they drafted Roy Williams. Ever since Woodson got hurt, our safeties have been the likes of Lynn Scott, Tony Dixon, Keith Davis, Ken Hamlin, Alan Ball, Abram Elam and Gerald Sensabaugh. I don't think Sensabaugh and Hamlin were world beaters, but they were the best of the bunch and usually they were paired with a god awful counterpart.





YR

 

[percyhoward]

Now ur talking or typing out of both ends. Not surprising

Translation?