Zimms Defense

[icyhot]

This falls in Bill's lap if it doesn't work. He even said that Zimmer wanted to be more agressive but he (Parcells) had to tone it down.

That was only for the preseason

 

[DawnOfANewD]

I think we'll end up top-5 in sacks.

 

[big dog cowboy]

I think we'll end up top-5 in sacks.

That is very hard to imagine.

 

[Clove]

I think we'll end up top-5 in sacks.

If this happens, I'm predicting Super Bowl.

 

[DawnOfANewD]

Well, PIT ended up with a ton of sacks (47) last year in their 3-4 D. OLB's Porter and Haggans led the team with 10.5 and 9 respectively and I'm kind of hoping Ware and Ellis can emulate that performance from their OLB spots. Then you have James and Ayodele chipping in a few from the ILB spots like Foote and Farrior did, Williams racking up a few coming in on the blitz a la Polamalu, Canty a better pass-rusher than Keisel on the right side, Spears with maybe 2 or 3 from the other side, Newman and Henry with a couple each, Ferguson with 1 or 2, Ratliff and Hatcher with 1 or 2 each, and other guys like Carpenter and Burnett contributing the odd one.

 

[dbair1967]

I'm completely serious on that point, too. I'm tired of hearing about how our defense 'gives it up at the end of games.'

Most of the time that's ridiculous - you pitch a shutout for 3 quarters agains washington and then give up 2 TDs. Yeah - it sucks the manner in which you gave them up, but you still only GAVE UP 14 POINTS REGARDLESS OF WHEN IT CAME! IF YOU LOSE BY ALLOWING 14 POINTS TO BE SCORED IN A GAME, IT STRIKES ME THAT YOUR DEFENSE IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM.

You let NY come back to take it to OT by SCORING 13 POINTS?!?!?! YOU HAVE TO KICK A FIELD GOAL IN OT?!?!? YOU WIN BY SCORING 16 PTS?!?! YEP - TOTALLY ON THE DEFENSE.

Seattle beats you when they come back at the end - BY SCORING 13 WHOOOOOOOOOLE POINTS. THAT DURNED ZIM - DOESN'T HE KNOW THAT OUR DEFENSE HAS TO BE THE BEST THE LEAGUE HAS EVER SEEN SINCE OUR OFFENSE CAN'T PUT POINTS?!?

Dang - the Giants beat us in game two....by scoring 17 points. Gosh Zim - you're on the hot seat now. Nevermind the ineptitude of the offense!

Pardon the rant - but excuse me if I give little heed to the Zim haters. It seems to me that the defense has been holding it's end of the bargain. The offense could give a LITTLE help.

Hopefully it won't be an issue this year.

I'm sorry but this is just messed up...the object of the game is to score MORE pts than the other team...there is no rule that says "if you dont score 21 pts you cant win the game"

The fact is in Zimmer's 6 yrs our defense has been on the field with a lead in the 4th qtr numerous times and either blew the lead completely and allowed us to lose, or nearly blew leads or allowed tying scores...we have rarely, if ever seen a Zimmer coached defense close out a team...look at Pittsburgh's defense tonight...THAT is how to close out a team and finish someone off...

the #1 trait of a good defense is closing teams out when games are on the line, and we havent done that...hopefully this will be the year we have a killer instinct on defense

David

 

[Bob Sacamano]

Thank you for ranting for mem as I could not agree more....I don't know the stats but I would bet we haven't averaged 17 pts a game in years.

we averaged 18 points a game last year

 

[hmcorp]

we averaged 18 points a game last year

Dallas averaged 20 points a game. Before Flo went down we averaged 22.8 a game. Or close to 23.

Once Flo went down we averaged 18.8 a game.

5 Teams averaged 22+ in the NFc last year
Seattle Giants Carolina St. Louis and Washington
Dallas finished in 7th behind those five and atlanta.

Still in 3 separate games the offense had the led in the fourth and it was lost by the defense in all 3 games. Admittedly the offense got us in position to win a few of those but the kicker.....ouch.

So our offense isnt putrid. 7th in yards in the NFC 7th in points. and oddly enough we finished just outsideo f the playoffs...like in 7th.
'
While our defense last year gave up 19 points a game. Should be good enough for the playoffs but 5 teams above us finished with less than 19 points a game (all made the playoffs) and the giants finished with about the same points a game we did but their schedule last year was easier than ours and they had 9 home games. So we were real close to being right there in the top 6.

Unfortunately we were nowhere NEAR the consistency level of the seahawks and the carolina panthers. both those teams were more consisten week to week than we were. but the good thing is that we had the talent THEN to compete iwth them. we just didnt consistently perform as they did. after all those teams have been working at it for years. this is still a growing effort for dallas.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

hmcorp, great stuff

and I believe we averaged at least 17 points per game in '03, unbelievably

but 17 points a game is the minimum you should score to win

 

[Crown Royal]

I'm sorry but this is just messed up...the object of the game is to score MORE pts than the other team...there is no rule that says "if you dont score 21 pts you cant win the game"

The fact is in Zimmer's 6 yrs our defense has been on the field with a lead in the 4th qtr numerous times and either blew the lead completely and allowed us to lose, or nearly blew leads or allowed tying scores...we have rarely, if ever seen a Zimmer coached defense close out a team...look at Pittsburgh's defense tonight...THAT is how to close out a team and finish someone off...

the #1 trait of a good defense is closing teams out when games are on the line, and we havent done that...hopefully this will be the year we have a killer instinct on defense

David

I'm not sorry, but this is messed up. I don't care WHAT the defense is - you CANNOT ask any defense to go out there and hold the opposition under 13-14 points EVERY GAME, closeout or not. NFL teams get their points against even great defense - when your team can't score points to win, that falls on your offense, NOT your defense. I demonstrated this well.

If I've allowed only 10 points and the other team runs a successful 2 min drill and I LOSE, I STILL WILL NOT place that loss a the feet of the defense. From Parcells own mouth - if the defense holds to 17 pts or less, they've done their job. I could not care less when the points were scored.

 

[Crown Royal]

Dallas averaged 20 points a game. Before Flo went down we averaged 22.8 a game. Or close to 23.

Once Flo went down we averaged 18.8 a game.

5 Teams averaged 22+ in the NFc last year
Seattle Giants Carolina St. Louis and Washington
Dallas finished in 7th behind those five and atlanta.

Still in 3 separate games the offense had the led in the fourth and it was lost by the defense in all 3 games. Admittedly the offense got us in position to win a few of those but the kicker.....ouch.

So our offense isnt putrid. 7th in yards in the NFC 7th in points. and oddly enough we finished just outsideo f the playoffs...like in 7th.
'
While our defense last year gave up 19 points a game. Should be good enough for the playoffs but 5 teams above us finished with less than 19 points a game (all made the playoffs) and the giants finished with about the same points a game we did but their schedule last year was easier than ours and they had 9 home games. So we were real close to being right there in the top 6.

Unfortunately we were nowhere NEAR the consistency level of the seahawks and the carolina panthers. both those teams were more consisten week to week than we were. but the good thing is that we had the talent THEN to compete iwth them. we just didnt consistently perform as they did. after all those teams have been working at it for years. this is still a growing effort for dallas.

I really don't think that averaging out your points scored or defensed is a very good stat, because you have average busters like the San Diego and KC game to the positive and Washington game #2 for the negative.

 

[lspain1]

Last night. Michaels and Madden were discussing the fact that Miami's magic number on offense last season was Blackjack. They were 9-0 when they scored 21 points or more and 0-7 when they scored less than 21. My memory is hazy so I'm not sure if I got the precise details correct, but the stat agreed pretty closely with Jerry's production target.

 

[dbair1967]

I'm not sorry, but this is messed up. I don't care WHAT the defense is - you CANNOT ask any defense to go out there and hold the opposition under 13-14 points EVERY GAME, closeout or not. NFL teams get their points against even great defense - when your team can't score points to win, that falls on your offense, NOT your defense. I demonstrated this well.

If I've allowed only 10 points and the other team runs a successful 2 min drill and I LOSE, I STILL WILL NOT place that loss a the feet of the defense. From Parcells own mouth - if the defense holds to 17 pts or less, they've done their job. I could not care less when the points were scored.

Ok I guess we will have to agree to disagree then, because if a team is winning 14-10 with a minute to go and the other teams offense goes 80 yds to score a TD and win 17-14, IMO the loss is mostly on the defense because they didnt do their job when it counted the most

people quickly forget that in the Commanders meltdow game last September that after giving up those two tds, we had the ball at midfield and plenty of time to move into fg range or score a td and win the game, but the Commanders D forced a 3 and out and we lost

David

 

[Clove]

we had the ball at midfield and plenty of time to move into fg range or score a td and win the game, but the Commanders D forced a 3 and out and we lost

David

Our offense couldn't score....There is the problem.

 

[dbair1967]

Our offense couldn't score....There is the problem.

they did score 13 points though and did lead 13-0 with 4 mins left...they didnt put the defense in bad field position with stupid turnovers, the defense just couldnt finish off a team (because in crunch time they could rush the passer)

again, there is no rule that says you have to score x amount of pts to get a "W"...Washington's defense didnt choke and allow us to move right down field and score to win did they?

David

 

[Clove]

they did score 13 points though and did lead 13-0 with 4 mins left...they didnt put the defense in bad field position with stupid turnovers, the defense just couldnt finish off a team (because in crunch time they could rush the passer)

again, there is no rule that says you have to score x amount of pts to get a "W"...Washington's defense didnt choke and allow us to move right down field and score to win did they?

David

They had a ton of opportunities to put way more points on the board, and they couldn't get it done. Plus, Parcells was totally conservative that game, and I can remember me cursing at the screen at the BP playcalling that game, before all of the 2 TD fiasco begun.

 

[conner01]

That is very hard to imagine.

hard to imagine we could be in the top 5 in sacks? do you realize we was 8th in sacks last year?

 

[Doomsdayblitz]

The 3-4 defense was meant to be an attacking defense. If we don't use it to run various blitzes & stunts, then there's no use running it. Look at a couple of teams that run it to near perfection: Steelers & Pats. Both teams have LBs, Safeties, Corners, etc. attacking the line of scrimmage from different spots and angles. That's how you confuse your opponent to where they don't know what hit them or how it got there.

The greatest Dallas defenses played the same way. We had four monsters up front who smashed you in the mouth on every play. Then, just when you thought they were bad enough, you had to contend with blitzing LBs & Safeties-even a corner once in a while.

We now have the secondary that can handle coverage when the front seven blitz. We also have LBs who can drop into coverage if we want to send Roy or Watkins. We've got the guns now, let's use them.

 

[Stautner]

The 3-4 defense was meant to be an attacking defense. If we don't use it to run various blitzes & stunts, then there's no use running it. Look at a couple of teams that run it to near perfection: Steelers & Pats. Both teams have LBs, Safeties, Corners, etc. attacking the line of scrimmage from different spots and angles. That's how you confuse your opponent to where they don't know what hit them or how it got there.

The greatest Dallas defenses played the same way. We had four monsters up front who smashed you in the mouth on every play. Then, just when you thought they were bad enough, you had to contend with blitzing LBs & Safeties-even a corner once in a while.

We now have the secondary that can handle coverage when the front seven blitz. We also have LBs who can drop into coverage if we want to send Roy or Watkins. We've got the guns now, let's use them.

Landry's "flex" defense was not a constantly attacking defense ...... the D-linemen reacted to the play rather than attacking at the snap.

 

[Boyzmamacita]

They can't make big stops on 1st & 2nd down to only get burned on 3rd.

BINGO!!!