Cowboys Snap Counts vs Giants: The Nickel Defense And An Offensive Wrinkle

Uncharacteristically for the 2014 Dallas Cowboys, the offense came off the field fairly quickly on a number of drives against the Giants. Three three-and-outs in the first half, a first half interception on the fifth play of a drive and another punt after five plays in the fourth quarter limited the amount of snaps for the offense and contributed to more snaps than usual on defense. In fact, the defense played more snaps than the offense for only the second time this season. Not by much, just one snap more, but more nevertheless. Here's how that fits in to the snap counts for offense and defense over the first six games of the season:

But the defense held its own regardless. Six of the Giants' 11 drives stalled after five plays or less (three punts, two fumbles, one end-of-half). The 20 first downs allowed are slightly above the 17.4 first downs this defense has allowed per game so far, but those 17.4 first downs allowed rank the Cowboys No. 1 in the NFL through Week 7.

On to this week's snap count review, starting with the defense.

The numbers look largely like last week's edition, but there is one thing quite remarkable about them: the Cowboys spent 51 of 62 defensive snaps in a nickel formation. Kyle Wilber was in as the SAM linebacker on 12 snaps, Sterling Moore was brought in as an extra corner on the 51 other snaps.

Effectively, the Cowboys were daring the Giants to run on them, which the Giants did, but to little effect, as  Rabblerousr wrote earlier this morning:

Subtract Andre Williams's 22-yard run - which was the result of a Justin Durant over-run - and the Giants had 25 for 82 yards on the ground (3.28 per) and Williams's total was a 17 for 29, for a paltry 1.7 yards per carry.

If you can stop the run out of the nickel, that's pretty impressive. Of course, if you could stop the pass out of the nickel, that would be even more impressive, but that didn't happen yesterday. The Cowboys allowed Eli Manning to throw for a 116.7 passer rating, the second best effort they've allowed by an opposing QB this season

Also noteworthy: for the second straight week, the Cowboys chose Kyle Wilber over Anthony Hitchens for the strongside linebacker spot, and Anthony Spencer still seems to be on a limited snap count (Wk 7: 29, Wk 6: 29, Wk 5: 23, Wk 4: 22)

On to the offense:

Again, not many surprises here, especially for the key players. Murray was in for 71% of the snaps, which seems to be what the Cowboys are comfortable with. The two backup tight ends, James Hanna and Gavin Escobar, got the most action they've seen all season. Their 53 combined snaps are quite a bit higher than their 34 average combined snaps per game:

Wk 1: 22 | Qk 2: 35 | Wk 3: 34 | Wk 4: 38 | Wk 5: 24 | Wk 6: 39 | Wk 7: 53

The Cowboys have a base offense with the five linemen, Tony Romo, Jason Witten, DeMarco Murray, Dez Bryant, and Terrance Williams as its core personnel. That by itself is hard enough for opponents to prepare for, but each week it seems like they change up the roles of their backup players. This week we got a heavy dose of the tight ends, last week fullback Tyler Clutts saw his highest snap count of the season, the week before Cole Beasley had the highest snap total since opening weekend.

Adding an extra wrinkle to the offense each week by emphasizing different positions in the game plans seems to be a staple of this offense, and seems to be working. Let's see what that personnel wrinkle will be next week.

And finally, to round things off, special teams:

With those totals, J.J. Wilcox is officially this week's ironman, having played a total of 76 snaps, 61 on defense, 14 on special teams, and one in the victory formation on offense.