CFZ Why Defensive Coordinators stopped blitzing us last year

[CouchCoach]

I don't care whether people like him or not, that is hilarious!

 

[noshame]

It's called consistent accuracy, Dak doesn't have it. Some of you will catch on as to why he shouldn't have been drafted that early.
Yeah, I can throw into tight coverage too....now show the off target throws.... you'll need more room. lol

 

[blueblood70]

4 receivers vs 7 or 8 defenders has nothing to do with “accuracy”.

right clueless fans dont understand the OL cant handle a 4man rush without penalty's and at least one man being allowed full sprint toward the RB and QB.. those are facts,, if daks inaccurate why is his td 38 to INT ratio 10 so good , his compl% above average?

he may not have the touch of Aaron rogers but hes not INACCURATE or those max converges would be Interceptions or more balls bated down or incomplete, THEY ARE NOT..

we lost as team this isnt about dak,

its clear the OL and the OC got schooled and created behind the chain type drives etc etc. Hard to have wins when you are playing 1st and 20 in those bigger games so much..

 

[blueblood70]

The QB cant beat good teams when contained to the pocket. Not news and has been the formula for 6 years.

Not true at all..

 

[blueblood70]

Nice analysis! Glad to see you pick up on Dak's inaccuracy. But also, because Dak has a bum leg, he is no longer the running threat that he once was. So defenses are having an easier time containing him within the pocket and forcing Dak to play to his weakness (accuracy).

clueless fans dont understand the OL cant handle a 4man rush without penalty's and at least one man being allowed full sprint toward the RB and QB.. those are facts,, if daks inaccurate why is his td 38 to INT ratio 10 so good , his compl% above average?

he may not have the touch of Aaron rogers but hes not INACCURATE or those max converges would be Interceptions or more balls bated down or incomplete, THEY ARE NOT..

we lost as team this isnt about dak,

its clear the OL and the OC got schooled and created behind the chain type drives etc etc. Hard to have wins when you are playing 1st and 20 in those bigger games so much..

 

[blueblood70]

He has a 77.3% on target percentage, good for 7th best in the league.

Now attack the stat, lol. I know how this goes.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/passing_advanced.htm

there's just too many dak trolls that make stuff up for narrative debates vs facts,,he may not be part fo the elite when it comes to pretty touch and super freakish natural accuracy but he for sure is above average in all category's. topm7 in everything paid about like the 7th qb salary wise now..seems to al be right inline..

 

[Denim Chicken]

there's just too many dak trolls that make stuff up for narrative debates vs facts,,he may not be part fo the elite when it comes to pretty touch and super freakish natural accuracy but he for sure is above average in all category's. topm7 in everything paid about like the 7th qb salary wise now..seems to al be right inline..

Tied for most 100+ passer rating games in first four seasons & sixth-highest touchdown-to-interception ratio in NFL history, but he's not accurate.

 

[ondaedg]

It's called consistent accuracy, Dak doesn't have it. Some of you will catch on as to why he shouldn't have been drafted that early.
Yeah, I can throw into tight coverage too....now show the off target throws.... you'll need more room. lol

Dak has been considered by many to be among the best at tight window passing. He has threaded needles that most NFL QBs wouldn’t even attempt. Do you even watch the games?

 

[ondaedg]

Never let the truth get in the way of a good narrative. Dak is extremely accurate. At least he was before he lost the ability to rock and fire off his back leg after the calf injury. His mechanics got fouled up by that injury and I full expect him to get right back on track after a healthy offseason. People whining about his accuracy are just parroting. Dak is annually one of the 4-5 most accurate throwers in the game according the advanced metrics. His "off target throw" numbers are miniscule. But again, let us not mess up a good narrative with facts or anything.

Narrative vs facts: What you want to believe vs what is the truth. Sounds like 2022!

 

[CouchCoach]

If Prescott was really good at blitz beating, then one of the theories here that he is a not a good read and react QB is false.

Just as false as the theory that he is not an accurate QB because he is. He is not as consistently accurate as Rodgers but I've never seen another QB that is. He does have some wild throws but so do Allen, Mahomes, Murray, Jackson, Wilson and Carr.

Another reason they stopped blitzing him was the fact he was a one trick pony QB, a passer. His job was to execute plays, not create them with his legs as he had in the past.

There are quite a few QB's that if the coaches try to prevent him from running, they take almost half his game away. Allen, Mahomes, Burrow, Murray, Herbert, Wilson
and especially Jackson present a dual threat as QB's to defend so that has to be respected.

Prescott is that type of QB, he is not a Brady, Rodgers or Stafford kind of QB. He is a QB that should be used as a weapon himself. You know, the kind of QB the Cowboys have always struggled against.

The biggest ? to this season to me is what will the Joneses allow the QB to do because that is not McC or Moore's decision to make. Does what they're paying him put them in a more protect him posture or turn him loose and get their money's worth for him?

 

[jterrell]

Thanks for the thread OP. A shame so many goofies post nonsense as replies for attention.
Winning with 4 up front is how you beat good offenses.
Dallas finished with the top ranked offense.
Easy to argue it wasn't really best but top ranked is most definitely good.

Whats more is when you drop 7 you aren't generally playing man, you are playing zone or a mix, And flooding those zones.

Cover 3 is best beat with Air Raid concepts. Short passing game flooding zones below the deep dropping CB.
--To combat Air Raid, defenses go to 3 double cloud
Cover 2 is best attacked with deep fly on the sideline patterns. --Dallas fell off a bit here with Gallup out as that is his specialty.

All in all you had a really good offense but it wasn't infallible.
Dak fumbled the ball wayyyyy too much. That makes sense given his injury the prior season. Focusing on your lower body and especially ankles.
He also didn't take off as frequently and get the free 4-6 yards he had in previous seasons.
Dallas OL was painfully inconsistent. Penalties placing them behind the sticks, missed blocks and just a failure to handle good pass rushers.
We could not run the ball in key stretches.

We also were very inconsistent with the kicking game. Which is why we now have a new kicker.

For 2022 you'd like to see Dak back training ball security.
And you'd like to see some hot reads versus these zones with WRs that can get you YAC.
But perhaps the biggest thing is to run the ball well and stop shooting yourself in the foot with OL penalties.
It's real easy to rush 4 and drop 7 versus 2nd/3rd and 14.

 

[PAPPYDOG]

If I could take a moment to address this "Dak has accuracy issues" canard.

Here is a list of QB's and their percentage of "bad throws" according to Pro Football Reference.com's advanced passing "accuracy" numbers.
bad throws on target throws
Player A - 18.2% 77.3%
Player B - 18.0% 75.4%
Player C - 14.7% 77.3%
Player D - 18.8% 77.5%
Player E - 18.6% 76.6%

The Cowboys QB is in here somewhere.. the other four have all won Super Bowls. Who here can pick Dak out of this lineup?

 

[RonnieT24]

It's called consistent accuracy, Dak doesn't have it. Some of you will catch on as to why he shouldn't have been drafted that early.
Yeah, I can throw into tight coverage too....now show the off target throws.... you'll need more room. lol

No it's called goalpost moving, and you have it all the time. Dak had one of the lowest off target throw percentages in the NFL in 2021.. and that was DESPITE the so called slump down the stretch. People can make up all the narratives they want about the guy and they will all make zero sense when looking at the reality. This is like the people who claim he "sucks in the red zone" except his numbers in the red zone were insanely good.. Like 26 TDs to 1 interception good. He's even more deadly on 10 and in.. 21 TDs to ZERO INTs in close. But he "struggles to make tight window throws when the field gets compressed" according to the narratives. And again.. it's the narratives that matter.. to hell with the facts..

 

[CowboyRoy]

If Prescott was really good at blitz beating, then one of the theories here that he is a not a good read and react QB is false.

Just as false as the theory that he is not an accurate QB because he is. He is not as consistently accurate as Rodgers but I've never seen another QB that is. He does have some wild throws but so do Allen, Mahomes, Murray, Jackson, Wilson and Carr.

Another reason they stopped blitzing him was the fact he was a one trick pony QB, a passer. His job was to execute plays, not create them with his legs as he had in the past.

There are quite a few QB's that if the coaches try to prevent him from running, they take almost half his game away. Allen, Mahomes, Burrow, Murray, Herbert, Wilson
and especially Jackson present a dual threat as QB's to defend so that has to be respected.

Prescott is that type of QB, he is not a Brady, Rodgers or Stafford kind of QB. He is a QB that should be used as a weapon himself. You know, the kind of QB the Cowboys have always struggled against.

The biggest ? to this season to me is what will the Joneses allow the QB to do because that is not McC or Moore's decision to make. Does what they're paying him put them in a more protect him posture or turn him loose and get their money's worth for him?

Can we even name one Dak troll narrative that actually turned out to be true?

-Dak is inaccurate
-Dak is backup material
-Dak is average
-Dak doesnt make people around him better
-Dak cant read defenses
-Dak cant throw for 200 yards, 300 yards, 400 yards, ect....ect....
-Dak is a poor leader
-Dak isnt a franchise QB


All of these laughable theories by the Dak trolls have been proven to be completely false. They have lost EVERY single one of these arguments badly and the overall Dak argument horribly.

Its been nothing but a one sided blood bath.

 

[Vtwin]

Whose turn is it to give Roy a hug?

 

[Doomsday]

The common thread was those teams were able to slow down the running game and put pressure on the QB without blitzing.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

I’m neither a Dak apologist nor am I a Dak basher. He definitely has his weaknesses. But it amazes me how many fans here buy into the “Dak is not accurate” narrative. His stats say otherwise. But I always believe in criticizing QBs based on the actual facts, not perceptions.

The same people who say Romo was more accurate- and he was accurate- fail to notice that Dak has a higher career accuracy rate than Romo. Dak’s career completion rate is 66.6%. Romo’s was 65.3%. Romo threw way more interceptions. I’m not knocking either guy. Romo was a very good QB. He was better than Dak in certain areas and vice versa. But Dak is also a very good QB. Are they HOFers? No. Can Dak win playoff games? He still has a lot to prove. But with the right cast, I believe he can. We will see.

It’s always been popular to bash the starting QB in Dallas. Don Meredith was hounded by fans. Even Roger- yes Roger Staubach was booed a couple of times in Texas Stadium. Danny White was 62-30 as a starting QB here and won 5 playoff games. But he was never “good enough” in many fans eyes. He followed Roger and was always going to fall short of that standard. The grass is always greener until it isn’t.

Bottom line- IMO, Dak is good enough to win a SB. But it takes more than a great QB to win one. Matthew Stafford is not a great QB IMO. But he had Aaron Donald, Von Miller, Cooper Kupp and Sean McVey to work with too. Turns out the people around you matter too.

according to many, completion percentage has nothing to do with accuracy....because his WRs have to extort their bodies to make catches, then we get that Dallas was 2nd in the league for YAC, but that's credit to the recievers for being able to do that, but schultz sucks, CD is over rated, wilson was a JAG and Gallup was injured. and Dak sucks, yet we were #2 in passing. but it came against bad teams and not good team (that's a stat in a vaccum, since we don't have similar stats for other QBs, but I bet its pretty similar pattern).

to your point though, dak has his pluses and minuses. he is not elite. but you can win with him and he needs the right players and right scheme to succeed. nothing wrong with that, although dak bashers point fingers and want him to be elite like Rodgers, Brady, Wilson, Mahomes and he is not those players. never will be. they fault him for that. initially the reasoning was he is 2nd highest paid, so he should play like that. this year he is 7th highest paid, so now the narrative of argument changes (aka Goal post)....

the facts are plenty of teams have made the superbowl or won it, with non elite QBs. ala Dilfer, Grossman, Wentz/Foles, Grapolo, Goff, Flacco, Kapernick, Hasselback, Delhomme, etc....so having an Elite QB is not a pre-requisite or doesn't mean you don't have a chance, but having an Elite QB makes it easier. so where do you find one of those? draft they say. they swear by this guy and that guy and one of them even touted his ability to have known Mahomes was going to be great (a dig into his posts and he had 15 other QBs that he swore by and none of them were good and some didn't make it out of camp). and lets not forget 4 out of 5 first round QBs fail....so lets go gambling, year in year out until we find one...and there is 80% chance we won't.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

It's called consistent accuracy, Dak doesn't have it. Some of you will catch on as to why he shouldn't have been drafted that early.
Yeah, I can throw into tight coverage too....now show the off target throws.... you'll need more room. lol

ok, so now he is accurate but not consistently enough...that's different than not being accurate....so now you moved the goal post or changed the narrative so you can argue differently.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Tied for most 100+ passer rating games in first four seasons & sixth-highest touchdown-to-interception ratio in NFL history, but he's not accurate.

most of that is against bad teams. because all these other QBs only play good teams and never paly a losing team. never

 

[Runwildboys]

It may or may not surprise many Cowboys fans to learn that Dak Prescott is actually one of the most effective QBs against the blitz.

Per Sports Info Solutions, in the 2021 regular season, against the blitz, Dak was 103 of 165 passes for 1,171 yards, 23 touchdowns, with four picks, and a passer rating of 113.2 against the blitz. To put that touchdown total in perspective, Aaron Rodgers was second last year with scoring passes against the blitz — with 15. (Here’s a link to an article written before the WC game last Jan) https://sports.yahoo.com/tried-warn-49ers-don-t-231431436.html

In fact, in 2021, (other than Tampa Bay) the teams that blitzed us the most ended up losing to us. Blitzing the Cowboys offense was not usually an effective defensive strategy because our offense usually made them pay.

However, as we saw in the Denver game and many games thereafter, DCs began to realize that rushing 3-4 players and dropping everyone else into coverage was the way to slow the Cowboys offense.

In the six games we lost last year including the playoff game to SF, defensive teams blitzed less and dared us to run or throw short dink and dunk passes to move the ball. For the most part it was an effective strategy. Let’s look at the games we lost and what % our opponents blitzed: (credit to Bob Sturm for the stats)

• Tampa Bay- L 31-29- they actually blitzed 50% of the offensive plays we ran and we lost. But we racked up a ton of yards and arguably should have won the game if the damn kicker didn’t miss XP and a chip shot FG.
• Denver- L- 30-15- they only blitzed 14% of our snaps. Denver was one of the first teams to recognize that blitzing us was a mistake. They usually rushed 4 and dropped 7 into coverage. Our second worst offensive game of the year.
• Kansas City- L- 19-9- they only blitzed 25% of our snaps. Using mostly the same approach as Denver, they frustrated us all day using mostly a 4 man rush.
  
• Las Vegas- L- 36-33- Amazingly, the raiders only blitzed us 4% of the time. We racked up yards but had loads of mistakes and our defense stunk it up. But again, the low blitz numbers resulted in a L.
• Arizona- L- 25-22- the cards did blitz 35% of the time and was able to frustrate our offense completely until the 4th qtr.
• SF WC game- L- 23-16- the niners only blitzed 18% of the time. Their front 4 were able to put pressure on Dak and also stop the run.

The teams that blitzed us a lot- Carolina, Minnesota, WFT and the Eagles- all got beat consistently. We beat them all. Bottom line- we have made blitzes pay. Now the offense must find a way to make the cover 2 no blitz D pay.

I don't know what the opponents had the best defenses, but is it possible the ones who blitzed most did so because they were desperate to do something on defense, and just a standard rush wasn't getting it done for them?