Werder: Dallas Cowboys have lowered the bar

[Beast_from_East]

Just ask yourself this question....

"Has one single player been benched or even admonished by Wade during this 1-3 start?"

(Bigg was benched by HH, not Wade so he doesnt count)


The answer is no...........why???

 

[Idgit]

..Still, I don't understand why people are discounting the value of disciplined coaching. Lots of teams will bench players who make mistakes, or at least create an environment where the players are scared to deviate from anything other than disciplined. Wade doesn't have that power really because Jerry wouldn't allow it. I think that's why so many frustrated fans actually don't blame it on Wade. Either way...there's no true accountability here and I think that focus needs to come from the top...

That's a nice story. The answer to your question is simple. People discount the value of disciplined coaching because there's very little actual evidence that Wade lacks discipline and that that's why his team is losing. None of us know anything beyond what is packaged for fan consumption, and all of that is pretty obviously pasteurized to protect the players. We also discount it because there's no way to measure 'discipline' and correlate it with 'victories.'

What *I* don't understand, and what I asked before, is why we don't just look at the correlation between our turnovers and our wins and losses. That's a much better correlation, and it's been very evident this year. It's a function of both the players executing and of coaching, and it's perfectly correctible.

It doesn't mean our coaches are bad. Or our GM screwed up, or that we need new players. It does mean we have to make some changes in how we approach the game, and in some of the decisions we make on offense, and probably some changes to how we're playing our coverage on defense. It's the most obvious manifestation of the mental errors and poor decisions we make that are killing us, and fixing it means the team is able to compete, this year, with the staff and players that we've got.

Why can't the obvious answer be an acceptable answer for once? I don't get it. You can point to the games where we're giving the ball away and not taking it away and we lose. And you can see where we don't give it away and we take it away and win. That same thing has been happening everywhere across the league for as long as stats have been kept. I think the statistical sample is large enough by now.

 

[Idgit]

Just ask yourself this question....

"Has one single player been benched or even admonished by Wade during this 1-3 start?"

(Bigg was benched by HH, not Wade so he doesnt count)


The answer is no...........why???

How do we know nobody's been admonished?

And, when you get a chance, can you explain why benching Bigg doesn't count? You think Wade wanted him in and HH wanted him out or something?

Not so sure either of those questions is all that relevant.

 

[Idgit]

Hate Werder if you want, but he NAILED Wade and Jerry and the star players on this team with that article.[/I]"

The last time anything in the Werder family nailed anything, it was Ed's Uncle-Dad doing the nailing.

Ed, as he usually does, missed this time.

 

[Idgit]

Crap. I'm pulling a SilverBear in this thread, huh?

 

[birdwells1]

It says a lot about the leadership on this team when Keith Brookings can come in from Atlanta (who has never won anything) and almost instantly become the defensive leader and team spokesman.

 

[Rudy]

Wonder why, if Spears is such an easy interview, he didn't use any of the stuff Spears gave him about what it's like in a Wade lockerroom after a loss. Probably Werder forgot to ask him. Or else maybe it wasn't all that useful in making the point he wanted to make. I'm curious.

It's Werder finally naming his sources! Call QBCoach!

 

[dfense]

Parcells never won a damn thing in Dallas. He couldn't draft an offensive lineman to save his life. His tactics however different, actually won less than Philips has.

His passive 3-4 dfense and refusal to adjust it to players strengths drove me nuts. Doesn't anyone remember that? Parcells brought some disipline to the team when he arrived, but not much else.

 

[JohnnyHopkins]

"One of the primary functions of the head coach is to create the proper focus and mindset for his players to succeed each week. Phillips seems to do this poorly. If the Cowboys only play with ferocity and expertise when they sense they must for survival, Wade Phillips is failing to have his team meet its weekly challenge."

There are other parts of the article that I agree with, but this is a good version of why Wade is not the right head coach of this team in a nutshell.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Sorry if it has been posted, I didn't see it.

I hate Werder, but it's a pretty good article.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/columns/story?columnist=werder_ed&id=5684558

I hate werder. but I agree with his assessment on phillips.

I agree that BP didn't make winning fun, because he didn't want his kids to settle. he always pointed out the negative and that wears on players sometimes.

but this team I have argued in the past doesn't hate losing. champions hate losing more than they like winning. everybody likes to win. however good players, championship teams hate to lose. losing scares them and they focus, they work harder, they do anything to pull out a game.

we do the opposite. we do anything to lose a game.

 

[TNCowboy]

Parcells never won a damn thing in Dallas. He couldn't draft an offensive lineman to save his life. His tactics however different, actually won less than Philips has.

His passive 3-4 dfense and refusal to adjust it to players strengths drove me nuts. Doesn't anyone remember that? Parcells brought some disipline to the team when he arrived, but not much else.

Look at the players Parcells was trying to win with vs. what we have now. Our best players now were untested youngsters when Parcells had them.

Parcells totally rebuilt one of the league's worst rosters. The changing game had passed him by somewhat, but he still had an eye for talent. Every Cowboy fan should have nothing but gratitude for him.

 

[Aven8]

Parcells never won a damn thing in Dallas. He couldn't draft an offensive lineman to save his life. His tactics however different, actually won less than Philips has.

His passive 3-4 dfense and refusal to adjust it to players strengths drove me nuts. Doesn't anyone remember that? Parcells brought some disipline to the team when he arrived, but not much else.

Dude you're nuts. Parcells made this 'bowl of crap' a team. We went 5-11 three times in a row before he got here. He had to totally overhaul this entire team from top to bottom, and change the culture. Now I'm not saying coaching hadn't passed him by, but he did build this team into a competitor.

Now we have this cream puff Wade who has worn out his welcome...we need a change quickly.

 

[Kangaroo]

Look at the players Parcells was trying to win with vs. what we have now. Our best players now were untested youngsters when Parcells had them.

Parcells totally rebuilt one of the league's worst rosters. The changing game had passed him by somewhat, but he still had an eye for talent. Every Cowboy fan should have nothing but gratitude for him.

Funny how people try to throw out Parcells record here when he rebuilt a team that was devoid of talent

 

[Stash]

I typically have little use for Ed Werder and the sensationalistic reporting that the machine which is ESPN encourages. But I think he's on point with several issues he mentions.

You cannot make losing easy or acceptable, which is what I believe Phillips has done. He has created a culture at Valley Ranch in which he insulates everybody from criticism, never singles anybody out for blame, refuses to hold players accountable and has convinced his team that the media is the cause of any problems. When Leonard Davis admitted he is at fault for playing badly and was deservedly, albeit belatedly, benched, Phillips soothed him with praise, referring to him as a Pro Bowl player and returning him to his starting job.

By all accounts, Davis was benched in the second quarter and returned later as a completely different player. Perhaps Davis learned something from being embarrassed. What Phillips should have deduced from that experience, if not somewhere earlier in his three decades of coaching professional football, is that every player must be allowed to earn his playing time and his opportunity to perform.

He should apply it to Marion Barber, who for some reason remains an honorary starter even though Felix Jones is the player the Cowboys have decided should touch the ball twice as often. Through performance, Jones has earned the right to start, and he should. Never mind what it means for the reputation of the general manager who overpaid Barber or that Barber might sniff and be upset.



Cowboys management thinks it is unimportant which player starts as long as the better player is getting the ball the correct number of times. I disagree. I think it's important for players to know they are going to get exactly what they earn. For the lesser players to be motivated to develop, they must believe devoutly they can compete on an even playing field against a player with a bigger paycheck and higher draft status.

That is how Tony Romo and Miles Austin made the transition from undrafted free agents to among the richest players in the game, a process that began under Parcells.

I see all too often people say that it doesn't matter who starts. I completely agree with what Werder is getting at here, players should be rewarded for performance and criticized/demoted/punished for the lack thereof.

The standard of success has been lowered in Dallas. It's ridiculous that Marc Colombo was defended after he received what proved to be a game-turning penalty for celebrating a touchdown that didn't even tie a game the Cowboys were playing at home in the fourth quarter against a perceived lesser opponent.

I don't know if this point was brought up by someone else, but it occurred to me.

Does anyone think that Colombo had a great game?

A game worthy of spiking a football?

I don't.

To me, Colombo had a game to forget and deserved nothing more that to keep a low profile and try to improve for the next game.

Instead, he somehow thinks he deserves to celebrate.

 

[john van brocklin]

That's a nice story. The answer to your question is simple. People discount the value of disciplined coaching because there's very little actual evidence that Wade lacks discipline and that that's why his team is losing. None of us know anything beyond what is packaged for fan consumption, and all of that is pretty obviously pasteurized to protect the players. We also discount it because there's no way to measure 'discipline' and correlate it with 'victories.'

What *I* don't understand, and what I asked before, is why we don't just look at the correlation between our turnovers and our wins and losses. That's a much better correlation, and it's been very evident this year. It's a function of both the players executing and of coaching, and it's perfectly correctible.

It doesn't mean our coaches are bad. Or our GM screwed up, or that we need new players. It does mean we have to make some changes in how we approach the game, and in some of the decisions we make on offense, and probably some changes to how we're playing our coverage on defense. It's the most obvious manifestation of the mental errors and poor decisions we make that are killing us, and fixing it means the team is able to compete, this year, with the staff and players that we've got.

Why can't the obvious answer be an acceptable answer for once? I don't get it. You can point to the games where we're giving the ball away and not taking it away and we lose. And you can see where we don't give it away and we take it away and win. That same thing has been happening everywhere across the league for as long as stats have been kept. I think the statistical sample is large enough by now.

Idgit , good insight.
What are your thoughts on the penalty issue that this team is having ?
Do you believe that there is any corralation between penalties and disipline ?

Thanks

 

[craig71]

Parcells never won a damn thing in Dallas. He couldn't draft an offensive lineman to save his life. His tactics however different, actually won less than Philips has.

His passive 3-4 dfense and refusal to adjust it to players strengths drove me nuts. Doesn't anyone remember that? Parcells brought some disipline to the team when he arrived, but not much else.

I wasn't a big fan of Parcells and his close to the vest style. However, in the broader sense, Parcells did a great thing for this organization. He brought with him "credibility" and he instilled that "credibilty" into this team. Crediblilty was, for the most part, non-existent prior to Parcells arrival in Dallas.

Craig

 

[Idgit]

Idgit , good insight.
What are your thoughts on the penalty issue that this team is having ?
Do you believe that there is any corralation between penalties and disipline ?

Thanks

Thanks. On penalties, the stats are supposed to say that there's very little correlation between infractions, penalty yards, and wins or losses. That said, we definitely lost at least one game this year due to an avoidable penalty. I don't care what the stats say in that regard. That holding call in WAS lost the game.

In general, I lump certain penalties in the class of mental errors that I think also plays a huge roll in us losing games. Mental errors get us when we don't recognize a twist, or take the wrong guy on a DL stunt, or our WRs screw up a release on the line, or jump offsides when they're excited b/c they finally get a coverage they were looking for. Sometimes the mental errors result in penalties. Sometimes they don't, but they always hurt us, and they happen way too often right now.

Other penalties happen when the team is being aggressive, or are smart penalties that happen when somebody grabs someone when they get beat. I don't mind those, because usually they're a side effect of playing aggressively. Technically, I guess Barron's holding penalty has to be considered one of these, but I won't forgive him because he committed three of them, and because he was beaten immediately off of the first step. So he can bite me. At some point, you're not just getting beat, you can't compete and so you have to resort to flailing.

 

[CCBoy]

In what world do the players judge their peers by how much they talk to the media? We know for a fact that the players love Barber, and he doesn't ever talk to these losers.

So no, Werder, you being frustrated that the players avoid you after losses means nothing to the team. Nothing whatsoever.

Werder is basically a more tenured JFE. He's hated for years that we haven't sucked like he thinks we should. This is the exact same type of thing he's said since Parcells left, only it looks better now because we're losing. But the stopped clock being right twice a day doesn't make it an accurate timepiece.

Hey, Dog...I love you brother, for this post alone.:vikings:

 

[CCBoy]

Thanks. On penalties, the stats are supposed to say that there's very little correlation between infractions, penalty yards, and wins or losses. That said, we definitely lost at least one game this year due to an avoidable penalty. I don't care what the stats say in that regard. That holding call in WAS lost the game.

In general, I lump certain penalties in the class of mental errors that I think also plays a huge roll in us losing games. Mental errors get us when we don't recognize a twist, or take the wrong guy on a DL stunt, or our WRs screw up a release on the line, or jump offsides when they're excited b/c they finally get a coverage they were looking for. Sometimes the mental errors result in penalties. Sometimes they don't, but they always hurt us, and they happen way too often right now.

Other penalties happen when the team is being aggressive, or are smart penalties that happen when somebody grabs someone when they get beat. I don't mind those, because usually they're a side effect of playing aggressively. Technically, I guess Barron's holding penalty has to be considered one of these, but I won't forgive him because he committed three of them, and because he was beaten immediately off of the first step. So he can bite me. At some point, you're not just getting beat, you can't compete and so you have to resort to flailing.

Good stuff here. I tend to view penalties attached to large field changes. When real estate changes in chunks of forty to seventy yards, my eye brows go into action. As when the Titans scored on their opening drive and their very last drive for a score, following a pair of additional penalties as well. Those are significant. Other penalties, unless the last drives in a game, can somehow be overcome.

 

[DanteEXT]

I see all too often people say that it doesn't matter who starts. I completely agree with what Werder is getting at here, players should be rewarded for performance and criticized/demoted/punished for the lack thereof

And Davis was benched. It's not uncommon for a starter to get benched during a game, and be right back out there the next week as the starter.

As far as Werder and his

When Leonard Davis admitted he is at fault for playing badly and was deservedly, albeit belatedly, benched, Phillips soothed him with praise, referring to him as a Pro Bowl player and returning him to his starting job.

goes, I wouldn't say he "soothed him with praise" he just stated he played better when he had to go back in. I brought over the transcript:


Do you think the team plays stupid?
We made some mistakes, but we had few mental errors offensively. We have a few technique errors on defense and unfortunately some penalties .. those aren’t smart.

Right guard?
Leonard was having a tough time early. We brought Leonard back and he played much better.

Is he still starter?
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was mainly for pass rush because Montrae is a really good pass protector. But we got him settled down. The guy beat him on an inside move several times and we got him on the sideline and talked to him and settled him down.

So it’s an easy decision to keep him as a starter?
Oh yes. He’s a pro bowl player, and he played a lot better when we put him back out there.

Has Davis been to the Pro Bowl? Yep, so he is a pro bowl player (maybe not at this moment in time but it's technically a true statement). Did he play better when he was put back in the game? Yep, not great but was better.

I see nothing wrong with Phillips response to the questions. He showed that he believes in his players and their ability to correct their mistakes.