FanPost

How can we increase effectiveness?

I am sure that I am not alone in this as we all try to put on a the head coach's hat and try to figure out what our team needs to do in order to get stats, wins, or in all reality, just play better. Just evidence of how much more important the mental aspect of football is than the physical part of it. Although it can be argued that the physical aspect is the actual execution of the mental aspect of the game but the body cannot work without the mind.

Anyway, down to brass tax and just sharing my two cents on the matter, there are a couple of things that I think would help if we could see them a little more. Of course it is different as I am not on the field and I can only see what a camera shows me. But here are the things that I am thinking could have a positive effect.

Passing game - This is obviously the most elaborate part of an offensive attack. One miscommunication or mistake could lead to seven points going either way so it is the part of the game that holds the highest risk. This is all orchestrated obviously by the quarterback and this is where a QB "earns his stripes" as on might say. However, most people don't take into account that a QB can just take off running down field if there isn't anything availbable. Most likely if a defense has everyone covered then there will probaby be a gap somewhere that the QB can run himself and get some yards. We saw Romo do this a lot in 2007. This is a large reason for his success IMO. Take a look at most QBs that are doing well. Either they are getting the looks that they want and great protection enough to find people downfield or they pose a threat to make a play on the ground (like Aaron Rodgers for example). John Elway posed a threat to do this throughout his career and one of the greatest plays he made was on the ground in the Super Bowl when he dove and got spun like a helicopter blade. We saw some of this last year from Romo but he didn't secure the ball and would sometimes fumble the ball because the defense would strip it. Again, this is just my two cents but defenses hate it when they have to account for a QB making a play on the ground. Maybe if we can get back to doing this then it will force defenses to change their gameplan and will also keep them guessing.

Turnovers - There are many ways to go about this but one thing I have noticed about other teams as opposed to the cowboys so far is that when they get into gang tackles they try to strip the ball while someone else holds up the carrier. I haven't seen the Cowboys necessarily do this yet. I just see everyone trying to bring down the ball carrier but in all reality I can't see everything that is going on, just what a camera shows me. I would at least hope that they are trying this. Getting pressure on the quarterback is the other way to do this so you can force some throws as well as disguising your coverage. Of course a lot of film study helps out with this.

Sacks - A lot of this is just about being able to disguise the blitzes and stuff. Teams are protecting the quarterback different protections now as opposed to last season against us. They are using max protect schemes leaving more people in to block our rushers. I am no defensive genius or anything but it would seem that Rex Ryan has figured out effective ways to blitz. One thing that seems to work is to overload one side so that people don't have enough people on that side to block block them. Another thing that they do is keep a few people on the line and put a bunch of linebackers and DB's in to play defense and rush the QB. This can also keep an offense from knowing who the rushers are and makes it easier to disguise a blitz. This has been called "Organized Chaos", something that the Steelers and the Ravens (last years ravens and now this years jets) have been known for.

Again, this is just my two cents but the biggest improvement that needs to be made is defensively. We are amongst the best in all aspects of offense (except for the passing game but still in the top half of the league if I am not mistaken). but if we can't keep defenses from scoring 27 points per game on us then a great offense that scores 32.5 ppg doesn't do as much good. You can be great on one side of the ball but you at least need to be mediocre on the other side of the ball to have it do you any good.

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.