Zone Pass Defense. No thanks!

LarryCanadian

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I think one thing we can pretty much all agree on, with the "Newspaper" Terrance Newman, improved and covering tightly, with Henry jamming guys at the line and being able to muscle for the ball, and with Glenn as a super 3rd corner, as well as a few young guys getting more experience........

please please please let the Cowboys stop playing that terrible zone pass defense in most situations. Man to Man is the way to go with the improved talent and depth plus some pass rush potential up front. Now I know, Parcells wasn't gonna show anything to Seattle, in terms of formations, so it is unlikely the first quarter will go like it did in Seattle during preseason, BUT, every time this team goes into a zone pass defense we get slaughtered.

I can't count the number of times where over the last few years I felt our defense played really very well early or for a few series, got into a rhythm and more importantly had another team's QB and offense totally off balance, when all of a sudden we would stop blitzing and go into some sorta soft zone or prevent defense where the oppossing team would play catch without the slightest pressure from front or any type of coverage on receivers. All of a sudden the oppossing QB's confidence would slowly grow until they were zinging touchdowns left and right.

I feel we lost 3 or 4 winnable games last year for this very reason of conservative defensive calling. The team was limited by very little talent and depth last year all round on defense, but lets not do it any more please!!! Remember we were ahead or very tight going into the 2nd half and often the 4th quarter in a ton of games last year that we ended up losing. In those games if you went back and checked 1st half stats our defense was doing very well and the other teams passing games were often very inconsistent. Eventually the soft coverage would cost us almost every time though! I would sincerely hope to see far more man to man coverage this year. Dallas hasn't been good at being instinctive and quick to close in that soft type of coverage for years. I remember watching Tampa play a zone and free for all type of pass coverage a couple of years ago and they were amazing and tough to predict at it, because they had a ton of smart, quick, instinctive, and experienced players. With a team like Dallas had, and until it proves otherwise, I'd much prefer to live and die by the sword of an aggressive tight man to man type coverage for the most part.

Over the last few years way to many streaks by quarterbacks like Hasselback had of 10/10. Kills your teams confidence, hugely ups the other teams. This happened in bursts and fits all of last year and cost us big.

Larry
 

joseephuss

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You have to mix up coverages to be effective. Obviously this team needs the most work in their zone schemes. That makes pre-season the best time to work on it. This is especially helpful for the young safeties and linebackers. They need the most work.
 

Doomsday101

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LarryCanadian said:
I think one thing we can pretty much all agree on, with the "Newspaper" Terrance Newman, improved and covering tightly, with Henry jamming guys at the line and being able to muscle for the ball, and with Glenn as a super 3rd corner, as well as a few young guys getting more experience........

please please please let the Cowboys stop playing that terrible zone pass defense in most situations. Man to Man is the way to go with the improved talent and depth plus some pass rush potential up front. Now I know, Parcells wasn't gonna show anything to Seattle, in terms of formations, so it is unlikely the first quarter will go like it did in Seattle during preseason, BUT, every time this team goes into a zone pass defense we get slaughtered.

I can't count the number of times where over the last few years I felt our defense played really very well early or for a few series, got into a rhythm and more importantly had another team's QB and offense totally off balance, when all of a sudden we would stop blitzing and go into some sorta soft zone or prevent defense where the oppossing team would play catch without the slightest pressure from front or any type of coverage on receivers. All of a sudden the oppossing QB's confidence would slowly grow until they were zinging touchdowns left and right.

I feel we lost 3 or 4 winnable games last year for this very reason of conservative defensive calling. The team was limited by very little talent and depth last year all round on defense, but lets not do it any more please!!! Remember we were ahead or very tight going into the 2nd half and often the 4th quarter in a ton of games last year that we ended up losing. In those games if you went back and checked 1st half stats our defense was doing very well and the other teams passing games were often very inconsistent. Eventually the soft coverage would cost us almost every time though! I would sincerely hope to see far more man to man coverage this year. Dallas hasn't been good at being instinctive and quick to close in that soft type of coverage for years. I remember watching Tampa play a zone and free for all type of pass coverage a couple of years ago and they were amazing and tough to predict at it, because they had a ton of smart, quick, instinctive, and experienced players. With a team like Dallas had, and until it proves otherwise, I'd much prefer to live and die by the sword of an aggressive tight man to man type coverage for the most part.

Over the last few years way to many streaks by quarterbacks like Hasselback had of 10/10. Kills your teams confidence, hugely ups the other teams. This happened in bursts and fits all of last year and cost us big.

Larry

I'm sure Dallas will run a lot of man coverage but this is pre-season it is the time to work on weakness because the fact is we will run some zone not as much as we are right now but we will still have situations where zone defense is going to be ran so we need to work on it and if your going to work on it then you do it when the games do not count.
 

Doomsday101

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joseephuss said:
You have to mix up coverages to be effective. Obviously this team needs the most work in their zone schemes. That makes pre-season the best time to work on it. This is especially helpful for the young safeties and linebackers. They need the most work.

Thank you!!!!
 

LarryCanadian

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Yes, don't get me wrong, I understand the need to work on it, and that it would be stupid to be in man on man coverage ALL the time. But I think most would agree that the majority of the time this team goes into a zone coverage we get picked apart like nothing ever seen before. It's terrible to watch.

I totally agree that the time to practice it is in preseason games like last night, and I believe no changes were made for a chunk of those early series, just like Arizona we stayed in certain formations no matter what offense did.

My main point is that with improved talent in secondary and potentially improved pass rush talent, I think we'd be far better off with mano a mano the majority of the time. Mixing formations is still possible without playing zone pass coverage isn't it?

Larry
 

Doomsday101

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LarryCanadian said:
Yes, don't get me wrong, I understand the need to work on it, and that it would be stupid to be in man on man coverage ALL the time. But I think most would agree that the majority of the time this team goes into a zone coverage we get picked apart like nothing ever seen before. It's terrible to watch.

I totally agree that the time to practice it is in preseason games like last night, and I believe no changes were made for a chunk of those early series, just like Arizona we stayed in certain formations no matter what offense did.

My main point is that with improved talent in secondary and potentially improved pass rush talent, I think we'd be far better off with mano a mano the majority of the time. Mixing formations is still possible without playing zone pass coverage isn't it?

Larry

Newman and Henry are noted for their man cover abilities not great in zone because they never played a lot of it to begin with and I do think we will run a lot of man coverage with these guys once the games are for real but it is evident that right now we need to work on zones and we will runs some zone coverage just like everyone else in the league.
 

MichaelWinicki

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Doomsday101 said:
Newman and Henry are noted for their man cover abilities not great in zone because they never played a lot of it to begin with and I do think we will run a lot of man coverage with these guys once the games are for real but it is evident that right now we need to work on zones and we will runs some zone coverage just like everyone else in the league.


Correct. This team will be playing a lot of man-to-man and Cover-2 man-under.
 

jobberone

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MichaelWinicki said:
Correct. This team will be playing a lot of man-to-man and Cover-2 man-under.

And a lot of nickel, cover 2 deep, and maybe even some 3-5-3 other than run of the mill nickel. What is a 3-8 and would we play it and who would man it?

I wonder how they will play 3 and long with possibly Ware and/or Burnett and/or KT in there somehow. Who would you put with them or would you? Seems to me we are going to see some new looks this year with some hybrid nickel package with those guys stuck in there as well.


Any comments?
 
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