Will not having a legit pass rusher hurt us down the stretch?

[Nova]

Yeah. This defense isn't good enough to survive the gauntlet of the playoffs without a better pass rush.

The good news though? There's good reason to believe our pass rush improves.

 

[Risen Star]

Yeah. This defense isn't good enough to survive the gauntlet of the playoffs without a better pass rush.

The good news though? There's good reason to believe our pass rush improves.

Maybe marginally. I don't see why it would improve to the level where its no longer a weakness. Its going to take personnel changes in the off season for that.

 

[burmafrd]

those hoping Spencer is going to do all that are really REACHING. The guy had ONE outstanding year in SIX when completely healthy.

Lawrence: we shall see but until he does it in a game all this frothing means diddly

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Yeah, who knows? Through happenstance we could end up with a dominant pass rush in a couple of months.

Doesn't have to be dominant.

Just better than what it is.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Maybe marginally. I don't see why it would improve to the level where its no longer a weakness. Its going to take personnel changes in the off season for that.

And that's what my expectations are.

 

[Denim Chicken]

 

[gdogg24]

We'll c in a few weeks if this team has a legit pass rusher

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Up until the Giant game I thought the defense was doing an admirable job at least applying pressure to the QB.

I'm too lazy to do the research but if you simply looked at QB hits + pressures per snap, that the Cowboy defense is more middling of the league.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

DE is (as we've posted adnauseam) a problem but the other problem is at the #1 DT spot. Hayden is still on the field too much. He's 3rd in snaps at 238 and only has 4 QB hits and 1 pressure. McClain has 108 snaps and has 1 QB hit and 3 pressures... and that's with him coming back from a long layoff. I wouldn't be surprised that over the course of a full season of snaps, McClain would have 3X the number of sacks, QB hits and pressures that Hayden would.

 

[Spectre]

No pass rush, no pass defense.

It is still as important as it always ways. If you do not get Manning, or Rodgers, or Luck off the spot where they are comfortable and disrupt their timing, this secondary is prone to being torched.

I'm all for the defense playing lights out and attacking like a pack of crazed dogs, but there are some truths about this game that have meaning.

Dallas can control the ball with the run.
They can keep their defense off the field as much as possible.
But this team hasn't seen a high powered offense yet. Not the likes of GB or Den.
The first test comes with Arizona. Palmer is 10-2 the last twelve games. He sits in the pocket, he has the skill set to find the open man.

Lawrence could be a difference maker. That is what they are banking on. Or frothing over.

We'll see. I hope he tears it up and gives this defense an edge rusher of note.

Arizona's strength is not C. Palmer. It's Ellington, a trio of decent receivers and an above average defense.

 

[DC Cowboy]

October 22nd... I'm not worrying about a Denver/Dallas matchup in February.

Between injuries and players possibly emerging between now can change things abruptly.

This, heck with Denver, GB, and/or Chargers. We have the Skins THIS week and that is ALL I am concerned about.

 

[conner01]

you have what you have. that said, if dlaw and spencer can contribute down the stretch that could help alot

 

[PJTHEDOORS]

those hoping Spencer is going to do all that are really REACHING. The guy had ONE outstanding year in SIX when completely healthy.

Lawrence: we shall see but until he does it in a game all this frothing means diddly

Or the Spencer who gave us 5-6 sacks for a few seasons. Spencer for the most part can provide pressure. We need that.

 

[jazzcat22]

We seem to be getting consistent pressure, and just miss many times of getting that sack.
But we have first year players in this system, players returning from injuries, players at new positions. I figured it would take about 6 games or so to see a difference, but about 8 to 10 games for all of them to finally be healthy and start to play more together.

We get DLaw back, though he may not be that impact pass rusher right away, but will help take pressure off the others being relied upon for now.
I think within the next few games we may start seeing those sacks. Might be only a few a game, but I'll take it as a start.

 

[xwalker]

DE is (as we've posted adnauseam) a problem but the other problem is at the #1 DT spot. Hayden is still on the field too much. He's 3rd in snaps at 238 and only has 4 QB hits and 1 pressure. McClain has 108 snaps and has 1 QB hit and 3 pressures... and that's with him coming back from a long layoff. I wouldn't be surprised that over the course of a full season of snaps, McClain would have 3X the number of sacks, QB hits and pressures that Hayden would.

Good observation. T. McClain was really energized against the Giants. I think he's just now getting close to 100% recovered from the injury.

The interesting thing that I've noticed about the DEs, especially Mincey is their style of pass rush. Many outside pass rushers run up-field on most snaps and are pushed past the QB on most snaps and then on occasion get a sack, but are often just out of the play when the OT pushes then wide of the QB. Mincey rarely if ever rushes up-field and wide. He's always going directly at the QB or rushing inside of the OT. He tends to get some amount of pressure when the wide, up-field rushers might be getting nothing, but he doesn't get a couple of sacks per game like many of those wide, up-field rushers.

I would compare Mincey to a CB that plays good but safe coverage and rarely gets INTs or a Safety that plays safe instead of going for the big hit.

Mincey's style also lends itself to better run defense.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Good observation. T. McClain was really energized against the Giants. I think he's just now getting close to 100% recovered from the injury.

The interesting thing that I've noticed about the DEs, especially Mincey is their style of pass rush. Many outside pass rushers run up-field on most snaps and are pushed past the QB on most snaps and then on occasion get a sack, but are often just out of the play when the OT pushes then wide of the QB. Mincey rarely if ever rushes up-field and wide. He's always going directly at the QB or rushing inside of the OT. He tends to get some amount of pressure when the wide, up-field rushers might be getting nothing, but he doesn't get a couple of sacks per game like many of those wide, up-field rushers.

I would compare Mincey to a CB that plays good but safe coverage and rarely gets INTs or a Safety that plays safe instead of going for the big hit.

Mincey's style also lends itself to better run defense.

I give Hayden credit for appearing to go all out on every snap, but the bottom line is that he's simply a very, very poor pass rusher.

In his career:

He's had 1932 snaps (about the equivalent of 2 full seasons). And he's produced:

3 sacks, 16 QB hits and 24 pressures.

It's bad at first glance and then when you compare him to a good pass rushing DT like...

Suh, who in 2013 played 913 snaps and had 5 sacks, 13 hits and 54 pressures...

Well that's telling us that all of the pass rush problems are not confined to the DE spot.

This season Hayden has played 238 snaps while the opposing offense has rushed the ball 161 times. Again, he's getting too many snaps.

I'm impressed by Mincey. He's exceeded my expectations. I could see him being a nice 25 snap per game guy off the bench.

 

[Crown Royal]

Getting pressure onto Manning definitely helped, but that's not the reason that Seattle dominated. Manning is almost unpressurable because he can go to the short passing game very quickly. Where Seattle dominated is that a) they were able to play very good bump coverage and knock the Denver receivers off, making Manning hold on an extra second, which then created pressure (as opposed to Dallas last year that played very, very soft coverage). Second, Seattle actually threw in a couple of zone blitzes and dog coverage that they don't often play which actually had the effect of confusing manning (there was one play in particular where I think Mebane dropped into coverage in the seam which was insane had Manning anticipated, but instead he looked like he was lost in the headlights).

Don't get me wrong - Seattle's pass rush did the part and stayed very tenacious, but the overall defense simply played soundly enough and aggressively enough that by the second or third quarter it was done.

 

[Doomsday101]

I think any weakness a team has can come back and hurt you and Dallas is far from the only contender that has a weakness. I do think pass rush is something this team needs to continue to work on and hopefully DLAW returning can help boost that area

 

[Crown Royal]

To answer the question about the thread - at some point this season, some team will very likely score a lot of points on us and either we won't be able to keep up OR it will force Romo to go into 2011-2013 mode and start slinging, which can either be good or bad. The defense is good enough to compete, but it will get burned. NOt sure how we will handle it when it does.

 

[xwalker]

I give Hayden credit for appearing to go all out on every snap, but the bottom line is that he's simply a very, very poor pass rusher.

In his career:

He's had 1932 snaps (about the equivalent of 2 full seasons). And he's produced:

3 sacks, 16 QB hits and 24 pressures.

It's bad at first glance and then when you compare him to a good pass rushing DT like...

Suh, who in 2013 played 913 snaps and had 5 sacks, 13 hits and 54 pressures...

Well that's telling us that all of the pass rush problems are not confined to the DE spot.

This season Hayden has played 238 snaps while the opposing offense has rushed the ball 161 times. Again, he's getting too many snaps.

I'm impressed by Mincey. He's exceeded my expectations. I could see him being a nice 25 snap per game guy off the bench.

Yes, I don't get it with Hayden's snap count. They are winning so maybe I'm missing something, but IMO he's the weakest link on the defense. He gets blown up in run defense often or only gets single-blocked when you want the 1-tech to always draw double-teams. Most DTs are either good pass rushers or good run defenders, but Hayden's not really good at either, at least not consistently good. I think T. McClain's snap count will start to exceed Hayden's at some point soon.