Dallas Cowboys Game Tape Review: Defense

Well, Dallas' longest run in the game was 12 yards. And Hall flat whiffed on a tackle on that play. Second longest running play was 11 yards, and Rogers whiffed on that tackle.

The consistency of the Dallas running game was given to them by design. Which I'm fine with. If they want to run a power draw in every third and 2 situation, I'm fine with that. You have to account for the fact that that strategy is going to cost the offense a chance to score points, giving up more first downs. But if they can't generate a meaningful running play, I'm not exactly sure why we should be concerned whether they are getting five yards or one yard on their runs.

They were much more successful in their passing game, despite the defense we were playing being pass-centric. So that's a concern.

Here for the record as who I marked in coverage on the 9 plays where Dallas attacked our pass defense in chunks. The nine plays out of 75 we need to improve on to be an elite defense:

Hall 4
Doughty 3
Fletcher 1
Blown (Orakpo) 1

And the Fletcher completion was after a whiffed sack by Landry, Austin just got behind him in space.

So Hall and Doughty were picked on and gave up some yards in chunks. But if only about 25% of Dallas' throws at Hall resulted in 10+ yards gained, we're winning that battle in the long run. That's a waste of their "best" offensive strategy.

The problem is in preseason we saw a pattern that we could not defend the run consistently. You act like us giving up five yards a run was planned and it is ok.
Dallas was not smart enough to take advantage of the run game advantage. That is why they did not win.
Their ego is such that they have to pass. That was some of the worst coaching by Dallas that I have ever seen.
Next week we are playing a team with a real coach that is smart enough to to stick with what is working that day. Hasslett and his defense is preparing this week for a power running team, lets see how prepared they are to stop the run? You can choose to call it stragedy, I at the moment call it weakness.

The problem is in preseason we saw a pattern that we could not defend the run consistently. You act like us giving up five yards a run was planned and it is ok.
Dallas was not smart enough to take advantage of the run game advantage. That is why they did not win.
Their ego is such that they have to pass. That was some of the worst coaching by Dallas that I have ever seen.
Next week we are playing a team with a real coach that is smart enough to to stick with what is working that day.Giving up 5 yards a run only matters if it forces you to pull extra guys out of pass defense to stop it because you can't make any other adjustment. Our front seven is far too good to reach that point.

Houston won't stick with the run even if it's working either. They did it against the Colts because they've been burned so many times that they had no choice but to run it and enjoy it. Schaub was 8/15 or something. They're going to come out firing the ball against our defense. The Houston running game won't matter in the outcome of this game. We need to stop Schaub.

Tripp...in your opinion, how are our d-linemen playing in the 3-4 scheme? In the offseason, I saw teams give a high priority to retain their NTs (Wilfork in NE, Hampton in Pittsburgh, and Franklin in San Fran) and honestly I feel like we don't have a good 3-4 NT. I feel that Haynesworth doesn't fit the 3-4 scheme in general, and Kemo is not a good player for such important position. Also, how do you see Carriker/Daniels/Holliday playing in this scheme?

Giving up 5 yards a run only matters if it forces you to pull extra guys out of pass defense to stop it because you can't make any other adjustment. Our front seven is far too good to reach that point.

Houston won't stick with the run even if it's working either. They did it against the Colts because they've been burned so many times that they had no choice but to run it and enjoy it. Schaub was 8/15 or something. They're going to come out firing the ball against our defense. The Houston running game won't matter in the outcome of this game. We need to stop Schaub.

We can agree to disagree.
Our front seven is not PLAYING consistently good right now. Our three down linemen are getting pushed around. I am not talking schemes or alignments or STATS. I am talking plain old button up your chin strap and whip the guy in front of you. Our LB's are not in the right places and not making the right decisions on a consistent basis.
Our secondary played well in comparison to our front seven.
There are several other 3-4 teams that play not to give up the long ball, but can also defend the run. We have not learned how to do that yet.
That is all. :)

Tripp...in your opinion, how are our d-linemen playing in the 3-4 scheme? In the offseason, I saw teams give a high priority to retain their NTs (Wilfork in NE, Hampton in Pittsburgh, and Franklin in San Fran) and honestly I feel like we don't have a good 3-4 NT. I feel that Haynesworth doesn't fit the 3-4 scheme in general, and Kemo is not a good player for such important position. Also, how do you see Carriker/Daniels/Holliday playing in this scheme?Our defensive line isn't great. Haynesworth is going to be neutralized as a great/dominant player being asked to do what we ask of him against the run. Against the pass, he will be himself. I don't think it was a coincidence that Dallas ran or threw quick screens whenever he entered the game.

Carriker is going to be our best DLman when he's healthy, but that's not going to be for 16 games. Golston is bad as a two-gap. Daniels is better for the scheme, but really, really plays like an old man out there. I think we could use Holliday more on regular downs and Haynesworth on passing downs. Holliday might be the best DE we have, if not Carriker.

Jarmon figures to get up to speed at some point. He could be the fresh blood we are looking for.

Regardless, we don't need a lot of DLmen. In our nickel package, we just need two. Teams like to spread us out more than we like to spread them out, so that limits the amount of DL on the field. If we keep Haynesworth in the fold, we will never have a problem on the defensive line. If we get rid of him, quality depth, even in a 2-4 front, becomes really scarce.

Defensive lineman just aren't a big part of this scheme, generally speaking. I doubt we draft a big nose tackle next year because it's all about the linebackers and corners and safeties. With that said, I don't like a lot of the defensive linemen we are playing, specifically, Daniels and Golston are weaknesses.

For some reason when I was watching the game I kept on thinking that #91 was Jarmon, not Holliday.

Love defensive breakdowns, thanks.

We can agree to disagree.
Our front seven is not PLAYING consistently good right now. Our three down linemen are getting pushed around. I am not talking schemes or alignments or STATS. I am talking plain old button up your chin strap and whip the guy in front of you. Our LB's are not in the right places and not making the right decisions on a consistent basis.
Our secondary played well in comparison to our front seven.
There are several other 3-4 teams that play not to give up the long ball, but can also defend the run. We have not learned how to do that yet.
That is all. :)Agree, good call.

Giving up 5 yards a run only matters if it forces you to pull extra guys out of pass defense to stop it because you can't make any other adjustment. Our front seven is far too good to reach that point.

Houston won't stick with the run even if it's working either. They did it against the Colts because they've been burned so many times that they had no choice but to run it and enjoy it. Schaub was 8/15 or something. They're going to come out firing the ball against our defense. The Houston running game won't matter in the outcome of this game. We need to stop Schaub.Giving up 5 yds per run is what poor defenses do. It matters if a team is smart enough to keep doing it all the way down the field. What makes you think that if the D can't stop the run all the way down the field it will magically do so inside the 10? Plus running the ball keeps the ToP up for the O and keeps the D on the field, wearing them down.

Since the 2005 season there have been 23 teams that allowed over 4.5 yds/att. Only 5 of them finished over .500 (21.7%). Of those 5, one had Peyton Manning and led the league in Passing Yards, another the same year had Drew Brees and was 2nd in the NFL in Passing Yds.

We can agree to disagree.
Our front seven is not PLAYING consistently good right now. Our three down linemen are getting pushed around. I am not talking schemes or alignments or STATS. I am talking plain old button up your chin strap and whip the guy in front of you. Our LB's are not in the right places and not making the right decisions on a consistent basis.

I agree with you on this point.
Dallas has always been able to run the ball on us.
Thankfully Garrett is too fancy with his playcalling to stick to the run.
Our DL isn't playing well yet as unit.
I heard a stat during preseason that suggested that we were especially weak on the offensive left side.
Which would be solved if we just quit messing about and put #92 at RDE already!

-I think our ILB are on point but our OLB have to work on holding the edge.