Dallas Cowboys Game Tape Review: Defense

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

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.