In another quick re-watch of the game, I focused once again on the defense. I don't think the Cowboys have a bunch of bad players on the defense or that they happen to be playing bad at this time (sans Tank Johnson and Anthony Henry)...but the performance of the defense leaves a little to be desired.
Anyway, after re-watching the game I've see three major weaknesses to the defense:
1. Lack of team speed, particularly at linebacker.
2. Corners struggle against short passes.
3. Defensive Ends are basically space eaters when rushing the passer.
When looking at other 3-4 schemes that have been successful in the past, they usually had one of these weaknesses, but not all three. So while I don't think Chris Canty or Zach Thomas or Greg Ellis, etc. are bad players, I believe the weaknesses they possess are a recipe for an underachieving defense.
The Patriots are a good example. They were very similar to the Cowboys on defense...very big and powerful, but a bit slow. In fact, I dare say Dallas has far more speed on defense than the Patriots did. And for the most part, their corners were not exactly world beaters (Asante Samuel aside). However, Richard Seymour, Jarvis Green and Ty Warren were all factors in rushing the passer...and the Pats blitz far less than the Cowboys do.
Unfortunately, it's not likely to be a quick and easy fix.
If you want to increase team speed, you'll probably have to take out either Zach or Bradie and put Kevin Burnett in their place. Greg Ellis would also have to hit the bench in favor of Anthony Spencer.
Pressing the corners may help against the short passes, but Dallas has been struggling against short passes regardless of the coverage. Wade loves to blitz and he lays the corners off the WR's in order to guard against giving up the big play. So pressing the corners may mean less blitzing.
And you could possibly move Tank Johnson to starting nose tackle and move Jay Ratliff over to starting defensive end, but Tank hasn't been playing well and Ratliff doesn't feel too comfortable moving to defensive end.
Perhaps the team can regain its stride in these areas of the game and correct one of these problems, but until they do the Cowboys will be relying on the offense to get them to football nirvana.
YAKUZA
Monday, October 06, 2008
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2 comments:
I think our DE's bear a lot of responsibility for our poor pass rush. Demarcus Ware is a beast, but when he is pretty much the only consistent guy that you have to worry about, it gets a lot easier for offenses to protect against him. It seems like o-line's don't have to worry about our DE's, though Ratliff has been playing great. When only 2 of the 4 or 5 guys rushing the passer are getting consistent pressure, it gets a lot easier to slide protection to those areas without worrying about anyone else.
Even Ratliff is a problem because as great as he is, he's playing the nose and it gets so bunched up there at times, it's tough to be a force on every down. That being said, our blitzes from the inside linebacker spot have been terrible. Wade also rarely blitzes the safeties. If we can get quality penetration from the inside linebackers on the blitz, Wade may want to try some safety blitzes.
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