My Two Biggest Concerns For The 2009 Campaign

The only thing that calms me down when I think about one of our starters going down is the fact that we have Witten and MartyB. I’ll give Miles Austin and Sam Hurd the benefit of the doubt, as far as injuries go. Prior to last season, I don’t recall them having any injury problems. But the concern still stands. An injury to Roy or Miles in particular could be devastating to our passing game.

everyone who watched at least one Cowboys game knew that on 1st down it was a pass, 2nd down a run, and on 3rd down a pass.

in 2008, Dallas had 547 pass attempts and 401 runs. Excluding sacks, that translates to 58% pass plays. This is slightly above the NFL average of 54% and ranks the Cowboys #8 in the NFL.

Per down, the percentage looks as follows: 1st: 51%, 2nd: 55%, 3rd: 77%, 4th: 42%. So on 1st and 2nd, the split is pretty even, with a clear spike on 3rd downs in favor of the pass.

There certainly were other factors that made our offense more predictable, like injuries to key players, OL weaknesses, ‘forcing’ the ball to T.O. etc. etc., but I do not believe it was the rush/pass split of our playcalling.

To me by far the biggest concern is our O-Line play. If you look at KC’s analysis of our running game posted on his NY Times blog a few weeks ago it suggested that Garrett may have been calling more pass plays because the o-line run blocking simply isn’t as good as advertised.
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2009/7/12/946643/do-we-have-it-all-backwards

Raf had built on some additional KC analysis in this post. The top bit is on our red zone efficiency, but the bottom section lays out how our much touted beefy line simply isn’t blowing people off the ball.
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2009/6/15/909069/game-planning-to-victory-pt-one

While they didn’t give up a huge amount of sacks, they gave up their fair share (31) and my sense is that Romo bailed them out plenty with his escapability (which often then led to Romo turnovers). Contrary to the big mouth NYG RB’s comments, Romo’s QB rating in the pocket is 90+ and out of the pocket its 55.

And they are old – increasing the risk of injury and fading late in games and late in the season.

WR is not my biggest concern, NFL salary cap sees to it that no-one can be completely comfortable with depth in every position. We have so much versatile talent (e.g. at RB and TE) that I believe could make up the balance I don’t think our lack of depth will hurt us. Some teams (e.g. NYG) don’t have a proven #1, let alone a #2 or 3 (and a Pro Bowl TE).

Good point BoyfromOz about the offensive line. I was very disappointed with their performance as I had high expectations once Hudson Houck came in last year. I really thought he would whip this offensive line into shape but they struggled. Granted injuries to Kosier and Flo (didnt cause him to miss games but he wasnt the same) hampered performance. I also think Garrett shares in some of the blame because rather then keep backs and TE’s into block he opted to have Romo get rid of the ball quickly to beat the blitz which had mixed results.

Hey one.cool.customer thanks for the statistics but as a Cowboys fan who watched every game last year I still think that Dallas followed the plan I outlined earlier. Your statistics are skewed due to the fact that Brad Johnson was QB for 3 games and Dallas had to adjust their game plan. Also dont forget that after the Ravens games all the players were crowing about how easy it was to play defense against Dallas. They classified the offense as predictable and simple. Simple is not bad as the Colts offense is simple but predictable is a big issue. To further illustrate the lack of run game Felix Jones had 0 carries when healthy against the Skins. This is inexcusable guy averages 8.9 ypc and gets 0 carries. Oof.

Rookies as a general rule are very inconsistent and make several mistakes throughout the year (even if their playing time is limited to special teams). You might find a rookie here and there that plays well but for the most part it takes 3 to 4 years for a player to reach his potential. This leads me to one of my biggest concerns heading into this year; there are too many rookies and younger players on this team. This team is just one injury away at just about every position from putting someone in who has next to no NFL experience. Now I realize it’s not impossible for a young team to win a super bowl, the Cowboys won Super Bowl 27 with the youngest team in the NFL that year but that team had Jimmy Johnson on the sideline. This team well…

When Wade and Garrett first hit the sidelines in 2008 they had a different approach and strategy that seem to catch the rest of league off guard as they stormed out to a 12-1 record. Then the league caught on and since that remarkable start the team has gone a very average 10-10 (including the playoffs). Wade remains 0-4 in the post season (0-5 in win_or_go_home games when you include last year’s 44-6 slaughter in Philly) and he had this team woefully prepared in the final two games of last season when the playoffs were on the line.

Garrett runs some of the most cookie-cutter, boring and predictable formations I’ve ever seen. There never seems to be anyone ever in motion or lined up in an unusual spot looking to create mismatch. All the runs were either sweeps or pitch-outs or else they were straight ahead dive plays but rarely ever did you see any sort of misdirection or any sort of schemes designed to create cut-back lanes. The passing game was a joke. All the plays were designed to send nearly everybody 20 yards down the field and took nearly 10 seconds or more to develop (asking way too much of the o-line). There was almost never anyone running a route underneath the coverage. Hey Jason, a play designed to get a 5-yard completion on 1st down is a great play!
2nd and 5 will open up the entire playbook!

I like the new approach that Wade has taken this year. I think he will be a better head man by focusing all of his attention on the defense (if the offense stays bad it won’t be his fault). I also like that Jerry has brought in more of "Wade’s type" of guys. Hopefully these changes will be enough to replace the marsh-mellowly fluff we’ve grown accustomed to with a real side-line genius.

This Franchise had Tom Landry for 27 years and then followed him up with Jimmy Johnson. I grew real used to having a real innovator on the sideline and have had a difficult time dealing with the past 15 seasons.

Plain and simple. Any NFL wideout can get open given enough time. Romo has a 91 passer rating in the pocket. If the OLine can keep Tony clean, the WR’s will do fine. If the OLine can make holes for The Hydra, we’ll gain good yards per carry and be in favorable down and distances.

on 1st down it was a pass, 2nd down a run, and on 3rd down a pass.

Roy Williams, Miles Austin, and Patrick Crayton are a fine 1-3 WR.

So you admit Roy williams is a 3rd WR

just like his Qb Mcnabb tired