What Tim MacMahon Didn't Tell You About the Deep Ball

[percyhoward]

This post is a response to Tim MacMahon's ESPNDallas.com article "Deep balls to Dez have been duds."

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowboys/post/_/id/4721818/deep-balls-to-dez-have-been-duds

MacMahon says that Romo is 4-of-18 when targeting Dez on passes that traveled at least 25 yards in the air this season with no touchdowns, and that "Romo clearly can’t miss on that many big-play opportunities."

What MacMahon didn't look at, or looked at, but didn't consider important, was the rest of Romo's 20+ yard throws. He's thrown 7 touchdowns without an interception for a rating over 130.

Romo's throws of 20+ yards in the air
18 of 51 599 yd 7 td 1 int 111.8

Breakdown by target
Bryant 4 of 19 198 yd 0 td 1 int 48.6
Williams 7 of 15 237 yd 3 td 0 int 132.6
Witten 5 of 11 116 yd 2 td 0 int 123.5
Austin 0 of 3 0 0 0 39.6
Harris 1 of 2 24 yd 1 td 0 int 133.3
Escobar 1 of 1 24 yd 1 td 0 int 158.3

Romo's throws of 20+ yards in the air
to Dez
4 of 19 198 yd 0 td 1 int 48.6
to everyone else
14 of 32 402 yd 7 td 0 int 130.2

Keep in mind that anything over 40% completion rate on 20+ yard throws is very good.

 

[WPBCowboysFan]

SO Romo's apparent missing on more deep balls this year is just perception? Or has he been better at it in the past?

 

[percyhoward]

SO Romo's apparent missing on more deep balls this year is just perception? Or has he been better at it in the past?

2013: 18 of 51 35.3% 599 yd 11.7 ypa 7 td 1 int 111.8
2012: 22 of 70 31.4% 823 yd 11.8 ypa 9 td 5 int 87.1
2011: 32 of 61 52.5% 1166 yd 19.1 ypa 13 td 2 int 123.8
2009: 16 of 45 35.6% 585 yd 13.0 ypa 6 td 2 int 104.9
2008: 21 of 59 35.6% 826 yd 14.0 ypa 8 td 3 int 102.2

Best year was when he was throwing to Dez and Robinson.

 

[foofighters]

Dez is a beast but did TO make Romo look better than he was? Romo's throwing motion looks hampered this year and he doesn't look comfortable running anymore. Is he having back/rib issues that we don't know about?

 

[punchnjudy]

He's still just 11 of 37 to his wide receivers. When people discuss a QB's ability to connect on deep balls, they're usually not talking about 20 yard passes to a TE.

 

[Next Years Champ]

Dez is a beast but did TO make Romo look better than he was? Romo's throwing motion looks hampered this year and he doesn't look comfortable running anymore. Is he having back/rib issues that we don't know about?

I think he's just had alot of. Injuries and he's been hit a lot.

So Im thinking he is trying at times to improvise more but it's not working.

 

[percyhoward]

He's still just 11 of 37 to his wide receivers. When people discuss a QB's ability to connect on deep balls, they're usually not talking about 20 yard passes to a TE.

To WR not named Dez Bryant, he's 8 of 20 (which is a good percentage) for 261 yards, 4 TD and no INT. That's a 127.1 rating.

 

[percyhoward]

Is he having back/rib issues that we don't know about?

Issues that only affect the throws to Dez?

 

[Picksix]

He's still just 11 of 37 to his wide receivers. When people discuss a QB's ability to connect on deep balls, they're usually not talking about 20 yard passes to a TE.

In the past, yes. But in today's NFL, the TE is much more a downfield threat. Guess it depends on what you consider a "deep" ball. TE's typically aren't running fly patterns, or what we used to call bombs, but you take guys like Graham, Gates, Gronkowski, Thomas, etc...they're still much more involved with the vertical game.

 

[ChooChoo73]

Romo hardly ever throws bombs. using 25 yards or more doesn't really show me the truth about the long ball. I don't see lots of bombs. I see controlled stuff down the sideline that's more of a bullet than the bomb. His long ball looks like crap this year to me. Part of it seems so because they don't throw many deep deep passes.

 

[OhSnap]

Nice post. It takes allot of picking to call this offense a bad offense. The intangible part that always gets over looked is how well the other teams defense SUDDENLY starts playing when they see their offense chopping up the Cowboys defense. There shouldn't be any articles dissecting Romo' play when the defense gives up 34 points in 30 minutes of football.

 

[punchnjudy]

To WR not named Dez Bryant, he's 8 of 20 (which is a good percentage) for 261 yards, 4 TD and no INT. That's a 127.1 rating.

Also a small sample size.

Dez has been open on at least several of those deep passes and Tony has flat missed him. That he had success earlier in the year with Williams and one pass to Harris doesn't change that.

 

[LatinMind]

Why do people keep trying to justify Romos underthrowing deep ball with stats? Dont you people watch the game? If you watch the game you can clearly see the majority of his throws he is being helped with very good catches. Not all of them, but most of them.

 

[khiladi]

I'm a huge Romo fan, but he underthrew or overthrew Dez last game a couple times. But I blame it more on our bi-polar offensive geniuses, who have no idea what they want to do. They played two total games where the offense was aggressive and have never been good at establishing rhythm for Romo. You can't expect Romo to be be dropping 4 yard passes all season long and then have him go aggressive suddenly and expect timing to be perfect on deep throws. Dallas needs to consistently put the pedal to the medal, of course without abandoning the run.

 

[foofighters]

Issues that only affect the throws to Dez?

No, the deep ball. Which is what this thread about...

 

[big dog cowboy]

What MacMahon didn't look at, or looked at, but didn't consider important, was the rest of Romo's 20+ yard throws. He's thrown 7 touchdowns without an interception for a rating over 130.

Just saying........There were 2 passes to Dez both over 25 yards last week so poorly underthrown if Dez doesn't fight the DB both would have been picked.

 

[percyhoward]

Just saying........There were 2 passes to Dez both over 25 yards last week so poorly underthrown if Dez doesn't fight the DB both would have been picked.

I'm talking about all 51 attempts of 20+ yards.

I think the misconception is that 30+ yard throws made a big difference last year. They didn't really, and the reasons they didn't are that is 1)the efficiency on such passes isn't that much different this year, and 2) they only make up a small percentage of total attempts in the first place.

Bombs (30+ yards in air)
2013: 4 of 16 236 1 td 1 int 74.0 (3.1% of all attempts)
2012: 10 of 29 441 yd 5 td 3 int 82.9 (4.5% of all attempts)

All other attempts
2013: 321 of 492 3316 28 td 8 int 96.7
2012: 415 of 619 4462 23 td 16 int 89.6

This is probably what a lot of you are talking about. An 82.9 rating on bombs last year, compared to 74.0 this year. On plays that make up less than 5% of all attempts, that difference in the rating is close to meaningless.

 

[percyhoward]

No, the deep ball. Which is what this thread about...

My point is that the discrepancy isn't so much between Romo's 20+ yard throws and his other throws (as the article implies), as it is between Dez's production and everyone else's (which the article ignored completely).

Not saying there isn't some injury -- there might well be. But that injury obviously isn't hampering the non-Dez targets.

 

[theebs]

Also a small sample size.

Dez has been open on at least several of those deep passes and Tony has flat missed him. That he had success earlier in the year with Williams and one pass to Harris doesn't change that.

what about the one that hit dez right in the hands and would have set us up to win the chiefs game? or the one against Chicago where dez just ad libbed the route?

its a two way street.

 

[gimmesix]

Why do people keep trying to justify Romos underthrowing deep ball with stats? Dont you people watch the game? If you watch the game you can clearly see the majority of his throws he is being helped with very good catches. Not all of them, but most of them.

You've got to be kidding me. I can count the number of times a receiver has helped him out with a very good catch probably on one hand.

More often than not our receivers have failed to make the tough, contested catch that we see weekly from some of the best in the game. Most of Romo's completions come on throws that receivers should be expected to catch.

Maybe your standards for a very good catch or just lower than mine, or maybe they are just tainted by your disregard for Romo.