I was on DCFanatic's radio show tonight and he had lined up new Cowboy DeAngelo Smith to come on the show for an interview. DC and I got to interview the young corner/safety towards the end of the show, after the first 45 minutes or so.

DeAngelo, who shall now be known as D-Lo, he told us that was his nickname at Cincinnati, was a good interview. The guy comes straight with his answers, sounds ready to get on the field anyway possible and has a little Cowboys bloodline. Smith's uncle is Roger Harper who briefly played safety for the Cowboys in the 90's. He also has another uncle, Pepper Johnson. Yeah, that Pepper Johnson. Even with Pepper in the family, he sided with Uncle Roger and grew up cheering for the Cowboys. He's already off to a good start in my book.

I won't cover the whole interview in detail; I should be sending some traffic to DCFanatic and his radio show. But a couple of things stood out. He wants to return punts and said the Cowboys special teams coach has already talked to him about that. Smith preached the idea of getting vertical immediately on a punt return. He said his college coach expected you to get upfield once you caught the ball or he would get someone else who would.

While Smith is more than willing to play safety to get on the field - and he's all about getting on the field - he feels he's truly a cornerback. He disputed the idea that he doesn't have the speed necessary as has been reported in some draft reports and you can tell that he loves playing the position. I asked him about the Bearcats coverages, he said they played them all - man, zone, combos - but that he was usually the off-guy to the field side until they got in the redzone when he got to press. He likes to press and get his hands on the receiver and get physical with him.

For fun, I asked him who would be the better pro, he or his running-mate Mike Mickens - he said they would both be good and hopefully be the dynamic duo like they were at Cincinnati. Great answer.

I enjoyed talking to him, he didn't shy away from questions at all and gave good, detailed answers. I'm not sure how good he's going to be, I've never really watched him play that much, but I can tell already I'm going to be rooting for the kid.

We'd like to announce an exciting new feature: Blogging The Boys Nationwide, the official podcast of Blogging The Boys. This weekly show will feature extensive Dallas Cowboys talk from all your favorite BTB writers, as well as exciting interviews and guests from around the football world.

This week we welcome "The Football Scientist" KC Joyner, writer for the New York Times and ESPN.com as he talks to Rafael about the upcoming matchup against the Baltimore Ravens. We also break down the Ravens defense and examine the emergence of a dominant Dallas Cowboys defense.

[Note from Dave Halprin] I hope you guys will enjoy the new podcast. We'll be working to make it better each week.

I want everybody to give a big thanks to Brandon for doing all the technical work in creating it. He's been working over the last week to get the software for recording and editing the podcast as well as scheduling it and basically making it happen. Thanks Brandon, you rock!

Of course, thanks to Rafael for bringing KC Joyner on board.

And finally, I promise you guys that we will have new and interesting guests coming on each week and you won't have to listen to me prattle on endlessly. We will have other voices on in the future and will also try to work out ways to get you guys more involved.

This is just another example of the work that guys like Brandon, Rafael, Tuna Helper and Raul put in to make this blog the best Cowboys blog on the Internet. I can't thank those guys enough for the contributions they make.

And thanks to everybody who reads and comments on the blog, without you guys, none of this would matter anyway. [End Note]

Music courtesy of Jim Suhler and Monkeybeat; www.jimsuhler.com

The second installment of my interview with the "Football Scientist," K.C. Joyner looks at Jason Witten, the receiving corps, the Morgan-for-Bryant trade, the QBs in the NFC East and the top passing attacks and secondaries the Cowboys will face in 2005.

14. You mentioned in the first responses that your book covered WRs, TEs and QBs. Why no analysis of running backs as receivers?

Joyner: I didn't include RBs in the analysis as receivers because most of their routes are checkdown routes or very short routes like wide routes. I plan to do more route analysis next year on receivers, but if I do anything for RBs it will be on screen routes and the like. I wanted to do one this year (I was dying to see how good GB was on screens) but just ran out of time!

Joyner: I like Jason Witten a whole lot. I'll even throw in another freebie from the book to show you:
Jason Witten

Witten was one of the best receiving tight ends in the league last year. He ranked 3rd in overall attempts, 5th in completion percentage, tied for 6th in yards per attempt, and 6th in lowest total tight/good coverage percentage. He was one of the most vertical tight ends in the league, ranking 2nd in deep attempts and 7th in deep attempt percentage. His short completion percentage ranked him 4th, and his medium completion percentage ranked him tied for 5th.

Two things best showcase his value to the Dallas offense. First, despite his high percentage of deep passes, he also led the league in short pass attempts. The second is his frequent use at WR.

Witten was used as a WR on 39 of his 129 attempts. He caught 29 of those passes for 353 yards and 3 TDs. When you factor into those numbers that Witten had only 3 attempts from the WR position between weeks 1-7, you begin to understand his evolving role last year as the WR injuries occurred.

It will be very interesting to see how the Cowboys use Witten this year if Glenn and Morgan both come back strong. I can't imagine Parcells not finding a way to get this guy the ball even if the receiving corps is fully healthy and productive. This guy is simply too good of a receiver to not get the ball in his hands.

Witten has a skill set that is second probably only to Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates. He does more things well than almost any other TE (at least from a receiving standpoint) and I think he is the inside favorite to be the NFC Pro Bowl TE this year.
16. One of the bigger surprises this offseason has been the inattention to the WR position. Considering the age and injury histories of Keyshawn Johnson and Terry Glenn, do you think Bill Parcells is playing with fire here?

Joyner: Yes I do, but I think the Boys are looking at it from a one-year perspective. They do have some young receivers who may or may not pan out. If one of those do pan out, and with Witten's receiving ability, then they would be OK. I just think they saw other personnel issues that needed more attention.

Joyner: I hate to give away another freebie, but the best way to describe Morgan is again in the analysis from the book:
Quincy Morgan

He had a very disappointing season. Morgan ranked 81st in completion percentage, tied for 78th in yards per attempt, and 85th in tight/good coverage percentage. He was just as bad on vertical routes, which are supposed to be his specialty. He was 81st in deep completion percentage and 75th in deep tight/good coverage percentage despite facing soft coverage only 4.5% of the time.

I know Morgan was injured a lot, but there was something I saw him do late last season that gave me pause. He ran 2 deep-in routes and he slowed down toward the end of each of the routes. Now you can't do that on any route, but you especially can't do that on a deep-in, as the QB is throwing to a spot and you have to get there. One of the passes was intercepted and the other was nearly intercepted. I don't know why Morgan didn't run them out, but it looked like he didn't want anything to do with the traffic in the middle.

Morgan is a speed receiver who isn't getting open deep and has issues going over the middle. He better fix at least one of those problems or he simply won't be thrown the ball very often.

Morgan may not be the answer, but as I mentioned in #16, I think one of the other prospects might be.
18. Let's revisit the Morgan-for-Antonio Bryant trade. At the time, it was presented as Dallas cutting its losses, given Bryant's bad behavior and erratic route running. I've had many friends express fear that Bryant could blossom and make this deal look bad. What, in your opinion, are the chances of this occuring? How do you rate each of them?

Joyner: It was the best deal each team could cut. Neither of these receivers were working out in their situations last year, so it was a risky deal on both sides. I think the Browns are going to find out why Trent Dilfer wasn't a starting QB (his decision making is among the worst in football) and that will hurt Bryant. Bryant didn't look that much better on film for Cleveland than he did for Dallas last year. It may turn out the Boys will get the bad end of the deal if Morgan doesn't get his act together, but I can't hold that against them because Bryant obviously wasn't working out either.

Joyner: Roy Williams isn't very good in coverage and moving him to SS would reduce his coverage liabilities. He's also a great run stuffer and blitzer, and it will help the Boys tremendously the closer they can get him to the line of scrimmage. I know Dallas has been looking at a number of FS prospects, and if I were them I would keep Roy at SS no matter what. I think Williams is a B level coverage person and even if the Boys found a player who was a B- level player, they would be better off playing Williams at SS. The upside of him at SS more than outweighs the slight coverage advantage he'd give you over a subpar FS prospect. What they ought to try to do is trade for a good backup FS on another team, maybe hit up the Cardinals for one of theirs. FS isn't the hardest position to fill, it just takes a heady player who reads plays well, and they shouldn't give up Williams SS abilities for that.

Joyner: I haven't seen enough of Reese to give a definitive opinion. He's been OK in the tape I have seen of him, probably a bit better than the Cowboys had last year.

Joyner: I can't say that I saw a whole lot of good or bad out of the Cowboys LBs from a coverage standpoint. The thing that stood out with me is that the Boys opponents always seemed to target the CBs or safeties, so they didn't need to go after the LBs. One of the most in-depth pieces of analysis I did in the book was on the Patriots LBs and the positive impact they had on the Patriots overall zone coverage scheme. The Cowboys like to play more man coverage than zone, at least when they can, so the LBs aren't in position as often to help the CBs as they would be in a predominately zone coverage scheme.

Joyner: That's a fairly open-ended question, so I'll just give a quick blurb on each as a start. I think Donovan McNabb is one of the top 2 or 3 QBs in all of football. He does the things well in the passing game that you want a QB to do (stand in against the rush, spot the open receiver, throw an accurate pass) and he does them as well as any other QB in football sans Tom Brady. Patrick Ramsey/Mark Brunell both feel the pass rush far too much to be effective, and Giants fans are in an uproar on some of their blogs because of how badly I rated Eli Manning. I got an email from one sympathetic fan telling me that "pedigree doesn't even work very well in dogs, and it certainly doesn't work for QBs", which basically nutshells my thoughts on Eli. If his last name wasn't Manning, he'd just be Tony Romo (and I don't mean that as a knock on Romo).

Joyner: Plax is a very good receiver and did give them a needed upgrade. He vertical numbers last year weren't good, though part of that had to do with the limitations on the Steelers passing attack as a whole. Plax will have the same problems this year, though, so I don't expect a huge season from him.

Joyner: In a nutshell, probably not. Coles is supposed to be a speedy deep threat, but he was thrown more short passes last year than any other receiver. Coles' injuries have kept him from being the deep threat he should be, and with the Jets having Justin McCareins as a vertical receiver, it was a deal that helped both teams.

Joyner: It would suffer, but the thing I point out about the Eagles is that McNabb's skill set allowed them to get away with pedestrian receivers for years. The Eagles knew McNabb's ability would stretch their thin receiving corps enough to win during the regular season, but their postseason woes made it clear they needed to upgrade. If TO is out, they will still find a way to win in the regular season.

Joyner: I thought Gibril Wilson of the Giants played well enough in 10 games to win the defensive rookie of the year award last year.

Joyner: Not many good ones, I can tell you that. Arizona, Detroit, and San Diego are all better than they get credit for, but if I were a fantasy coach, I'd be going crazy over the lousy secondaries the Cowboys will be facing. KC, Oakland, Seattle (at least at CB), SF, none of these secondaries are any good. From that standpoint, if Drew faces his problems and the receivers pan out and/or stay healthy, it could be a big passing year for Dallas.

Joyner: Believe it or not, it's most of the same teams that I named in 27. Oakland has a good chance of being a very good passing team, Seattle has the talent if they can get their act together, and KC will be good as long as their O line is healthy. Carolina is one of the most vertical passing teams in the league, and Detroit could be very dangerous if Jeff Garcia gets into the starting lineup.

Joyner: Rafael, thanks again for the forum.

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K.C. Joyner has a mission. He wants to change the way people understand football, in the way that Bill James and his disciples have changed baseball analysis over the last 30 years. K.C. has been analyzing games to better his own understanding for close to 20 years and this summer has published Scientific Football 2005, the most thorough breakdown of the NFL passing game available. Sports Illustrated's NFL writer Paul Zimmerman profiled K.C. last week, and has brought him some welcome attention. K.C. was kind enough to find time for Cowboys Blog.

I solicited questions from the community and received many worthy ones. Given K.C.'s busy schedule, I submitted thirteen, to give readers a feel for his methods. I am hopeful that we'll get more opportunities to pick his brain later this summer.

1. When did you get involved in the the analysis business?

Joyner: I've been analyzing games since 1986 using a lot of different systems, most of which are based on actual scouting systems used by NFL teams. My football friends thought it was a great thing to get scouting information from the tapes, so I knew there was an audience out there for game tape based player analysis. I had always wanted to write a book on the subject, so I finally got the nerve to do so in 2003.

2. This is your first book. Have you been publishing articles, working on radio, doing TV in the meantime?

Joyner: I had some work published by the Pro Football Researcher's Association and had also submitted my work to a lot of places. Football research isn't seen as being as popular as baseball research, and it's one of my goals to change that perception.

3. The SI story mentioned you use tape. What, in brief, is your "method?"

Joyner: I chart every passing play using a number of play-tracking and player-performance metrics. The play-tracking metrics include depth of drop, type of route run, area of field route run to, receiver, defender, type of defensive coverage, and result. The player performance metrics include how open the receiver was, whether the defender had good or tight coverage, how accurate the pass was, whether the pass was dropped, whether the defense was playing prevent, and how far off the defender was at snap, among others.

4. What types of analysis are covered in the book? What positions are reviewed?

Joyner: The book contains an in-depth review of the passing game, so it includes analysis of WRs, TEs, QBs, FSs, SSs, and CBs.

5. How long does it take you to break down a game? You claim to have broken down almost the entire '04 season. How many hours per week are you watching tape?

Joyner: It takes me approximately 2-3 hours just to break down the tape, but that doesn't include the other parts of the analysis like data mining and writing up the analysis. I did break down every game that I had from the 2004 (about 95% of the games), but most of the actual breakdowns were done during the 2004 season. I spend about 40-50 hours watching tape and then some additional time actually analyzing the breakdowns.

6. Do you have "formal" training? Are you a former player? A scout? A coach?

Joyner: I don't have any "formal" training per se. I have a very large football book collection, including a large number of scouting and player-analysis-based books, so I do have a large amount of self-study training. The analogy I use for this is one I found in the telecom world. The best reference book for technical terms in telecom is Newton's Telecom Dictionary. Any technical telecom person worth his salt will have a copy of this book, as it simply defines the terms used in telecom better than any other book. Harry Newton writes the book and he has absolutely no formal training in telecom. He has a Ph.D in another field, so he's very smart, but he isn't an engineer by trade. He just loves telecom and studies the hell out of it, and from this was able to create the quintessential telecom guide. I like to think of my entree' into the football world as being similar to Dr. Newton's in telecom.

7. What can your book offer that the preseason annuals can't provide?

Joyner: The best way to put is that my book goes into much greater depth than the preseason annuals. It is 140,000 words and 467 pages, and believe me when I say that the content isn't fluff. I have a NO-HYPE editorial policy, and you'll find the analysis in the book more direct and without hype-based bias. From the feedback I've received on the book, it is this lack of hype that is very popular.

8. Do you have a QB ratings system and now does it differ from the NFL's?

Joyner: I want to create some rating systems, but the gist of my analysis this year was to create and track different metrics for every position. For QBs, I offer ratings in a large number of categories, including the percentage of time a QB makes a bad decision, how accurate a QBs passes were (not just his completion percentage, but how many times he threw a pass that a receiver could catch), and also have a detailed analysis of how successful each QB was at throwing at each depth level as defined by NFL passing trees. Two good examples of this are Jake Delhomme and Daunte Culpepper. Delhomme actually threw more deep passes than any other QB in the league, and Culpepper was probably the best QB in the league on short passes. I think that Culpepper's success at short passes led the Vikings to rethink their offensive philosophy (Culpepper was almost phenomenal in his short pass success) and that's what led to their allowing Randy Moss to go.

9. In your system, assess Drew Bledsoe's strengths and weaknesses.

Joyner: I'll do you one better than that, if you don't mind sparing the space. I'll actually give you part of my offensive analysis for the Cowboys. It includes a comparison of Vinny vs. Drew.

Offense/QB
One of the most intriguing questions this offseason is what will Drew Bledsoe be able to bring to the Cowboys that Vinny Testaverde didn't. Take a look at their stat comparisons.

I'll start by comparing the totals. Their attempts and completion percentages were very close. Vinny had a higher yards per attempt, which is kind of surprising considering Bledsoe was much better on deep passes and had Lee Evans as a vertical threat. Vinny had almost no one as a vertical threat but Vinny's yards per attempt were higher on short passes and much higher on medium passes. Their percentages of receivers open by X steps were very similar, as was their throwing into tight/good coverage, but Vinny was more accurate on his passes.

I think the biggest difference is their decision making. While Drew wasn't great at avoiding bad decisions (tied for 17th in bad decision percentage), he did make fewer of them than Vinny (26th in bad decision percentage) and the bad decisions he made weren't as bad. Vinny handled the blitz very poorly and forced passes into coverage. Bledsoe won't do that in large part because he'll hold onto the ball for so damn long.

The Bills only allowed 2 more sacks than Dallas did, and only had 4.5 more coverage sacks (8.5 to 4). Those numbers don't look like much of a discrepancy until you realize that Vinny threw many more deep passes than Drew (93 to 54). It very well might be that Buffalo didn't throw the ball deep because of Bledsoe's issues with the pass rush (see Buffalo comment). This could still be an issue for Drew and Dallas will have to pass block better than they did last year or their vertical game could be crippled because of this.

A synopsis of their pros and cons:
Drew Bledsoe

Pros Cons

Vinny Testaverde

Pros Cons

Although Testaverde has more pros and less cons, Bledsoe's pros are very big. Vinny really started struggling more as the season progressed, and it did look like he was running out of gas. At this point in his career, Vinny is probably much better suited to being a backup. The fewer bad decisions are a huge plus for Bledsoe. Since both QBs have trouble with defensive pressure, the Cowboys offensive line would be a big factor for either of them anyway. All in all this is a good tradeoff for Dallas.

10. Do you think Bledsoe will improve in the Dallas offense, decline or stay about the same?

Joyner: Parcells knows what Drew can do and won't ask him to do things he's not capable of. I think the Bills staff was asking Drew to do things he either didn't like to do or wasn't very good at (which I cover in greater detail in the book).

11. Anthony Henry got a big contract from Dallas, but he was the least known of the major CB free agents. How did he play in '04? Where does he fall in the CB hierarchy?

Joyner: It was really hard to grade Henry in Cleveland because the Browns always had their CBs playing 7 yards off. They didn't want their CBs giving up big plays and let them give up other types of plays because of it. Henry's stats were only OK because of this, but I don't know that it's an accurate representation of his talent level. It looks like he has more talent than the other Cowboy options, so I think in all it's a good pickup, but I don't know how well his skill set meshes with a tighter press coverage scheme the Cowboys will likely ask him to play.

12. Terrence Newman regressed last year. Can you give a brief rundown of his game?

Joyner: Again, I'll give your readers a freebie.

Terence Newman

His stats for 2004 were excellent. His completion percentage was 8th best, his yards per attempt were tied for 8th best, and he had the 14th best tight/good coverage percentage.

He had terrific short passing stats, with the 7th lowest completion percentage and 17th highest tight/good coverage percentage. His medium stats weren't as good as the short, but they were good. He ranked tied for 15th lowest completion percentage and tied for 26th in tight/good coverage percentage at the medium level. His deep stats were very solid as well.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think Newman had a pretty good season. What he actually had were some really good games paired up with some terrible, awful games. Take a look:

Terence Newman's worst games
Wk. Opp. Att. C. Yds. TD
1 Minn. 6, 5, 74, 2
3 Wash. 14, 9, 75, 1
6 Pitt. 12, 9, 104, 1
7 G.B. 5, 3, 92, 1
13 Sea. 14, 12, 147, 1
Totals 51, 38, 492, 6

Terence Newman's best games:
Wk. Opp. Att. C. Yds. TD
2 Cle. 10, 1, 12, 0
9 Cinn. 5, 1, 2, 0
12 Chi. 4, 0, 0, 0
15 Phi. 5, 2, 13, 0
17 NYG 6, 2, 23, 0
Totals 30, 6, 50, 0

Newman was perfectly capable of losing a game all by himself, and perfectly capable of shutting an opponent down. His shutdown games came against teams with weaker receivers, but he could still shut those receivers down.

Newman had many games where he was targeted and beaten. Parcells at one point said that Newman was losing his confidence, and the Seattle game was the nadir of that time. After the Seattle game Newman started playing the receivers much tighter than he had been up to that point. It's almost like Parcells told him, "Look, you play best when you play tight. When you play soft you get beat. Go back to playing tight and stop worrying about if you're going to have help over the top. If you get beat deep because of that, you'll never hear me say a word." Newman's confidence returned and he started playing like a top-level cover corner and had two of his best games in weeks 15 & 17.

They always say that the best CBs are the ones who have bad memories and don't remember being beaten. Newman had his first struggles last year but he seemed to forget them after a time. I was worried about his future, but I'm not anymore. This guy is good as long as he plays tight and doesn't worry.

13. How will Henry's addition, in your opinion, affect Newman in '05?

Joyner: It all depends. Over the past two seasons it seems that the Cowboys' opponents have decided they wanted to pick on a particular CB. Sometimes it was Mario Edwards, sometimes Newman, or sometimes it was the alternating CBs opposite Newman. If Henry plays solid and Newman continues his end of 2004 performance, I think that the Cowboys opponents will stop trying to target one of them and just go their best receiver.

Thanks, K.C.

Again, my apologies for keeping you waiting. I'll do better on the next set of questions!

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