Snap Counts For The Cowboys’ Defense: 2016 Regular Season Totals

Who played, and who produced, for the Dallas Cowboys defense this week and this season?

By VAfan@vafanbtb Jan 3, 2017, 3:00pm CST

Defensive Overview

For the Eagles’ game, the defense was without six starters or prominent role players who were made inactive to get healthy for the playoffs: Tyrone Crawford, DeMarcus Lawrence, Cedric Thornton, Terrell McClain, Mo Claiborne, and Justin Durant. The seventh inactive was Tyron Smith. Sean Lee suited up, but didn’t play a snap.

While Dak Prescott and Tony Romo were in the game, Dallas built a 10-3 lead, but two interceptions thrown by Mark Sanchez helped Philadelphia tie the game at the half, and a late 19-yard sack that Sanchez took led to Chris Jones punting out of the end zone without his usual drop. It was blocked and led to a finishing touchdown for Philadelphia in the last two minutes. Dallas 13, Philadelphia 27. It was the second most points Dallas had given up all season.

A Few Observations About The Season

In the Offensive Snap Counts article, we laid out a number of observations about the season for that side of the ball. Here is the defensive side.

The defense played one less play than the offense, 1,058 to 1,059.
Nine players played 16 games on defense. By order of snaps: Brandon Carr, Byron Jones, Anthony Brown, Maliek Collins, Anthony Hitchens, Jack Crawford, David Irving, Damien Wilson, Jeff Heath.
No one played 100%, though Carr and Sean Lee could have but for the last game. Only Carr, Jones, and Lee played above 90% of snaps. Next highest was Anthony Brown at 68%.
The Cowboys lost only two defensive players to injured reserve: Charles Tapper, Ryan Davis.
Other defensive players out due to injury: Mo Claiborne (9 games), Barry Church (4), JJ Wilcox (3), Tyrone Crawford (2), Terrell McClain (1), DeMarcus Lawrence (3, plus 4 to suspension), Cedric Thornton (3), Ryan Davis (1), Justin Durant (3). It’s not clear how many games Mark Nzeocha lost to injury versus being inactive by coaches choice.

Among the surprises on defense this year

Anthony Brown emerged as a quality starting cornerback as a sixth-round rookie, ending up with the second-most snaps among cornerbacks, and fourth on the defense as a whole.
Maliek Collins, as a third-round rookie who missed most of training camp and pre-season, played the most snaps on the defensive line.
J.J. Wilcox played a prominent and successful role at safety.
Terrell McClain stayed healthy (except for the last game) and kept the starting 1-technique defensive tackle job the whole season.
Randy Gregory returned and flashed the promise that led Dallas to draft him, picking up his first NFL sack.
Sean Lee still didn’t get to play all 16 games, but stayed healthy the entire year.

The Defensive Line

Here are the counts out of 76 snaps on the game. 1058 on the season. Only 10 guys played overall.

Player	Pos	Games	Gms 1-9	Gm 10	Gm 11	Gm 12	Gm 13	Gm 14	Gm 15	Gm 16	Total	Total	Percent
Maliek Collins	DT	16	333	28	34	49	46	46	65	58	659	1058	62%
Tyrone Crawford	DE/DT	14	384	36	49	49	50	25	0	0	593	1058	56%
Jack Crawford	DE/DT	16	356	20	25	22	23	21	43	51	561	1058	53%
David Irving	DE/DT	16	179	26	43	41	36	38	67	59	489	1058	46%
Terrell McClain	DT	15	314	21	24	31	29	40	12	0	471	1058	45%
Benson Mayowa	DE	13	202	0	0	22	42	34	42	40	382	1058	36%
DeMarcus Lawrence	DE	9	168	41	52	55	13	0	0	0	329	1058	31%
Cedric Thornton	DT	13	193	18	21	21	24	0	0	0	277	1058	26%
Ryan Davis	DE	8	80	14	24	0	0	28	9	0	155	1058	15%
Randy Gregory	DE	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	23	43	66	1058	6%
Richard Ash	DT	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	30	30	1058	3%

The official stats were:

Randy Gregory, eight tackles, a sack, two tackles for loss, and a quarterback hit. No defensive linemen has had close to that many tackles in a game this year. Pretty impressive for his second game after a very long layoff.
David Irving, two tackles, a tackle for loss, and two quarterback hits.
Jack Crawford, three tackles, a half-sack (with Andrew Gachkar), a tackle for loss, and two quarterback hits.
Richard Ash, two tackles and a tackle for loss.

The defensive line was not as dominant as the previous two games, but it also didn’t have the linebacker and defensive back support it had been receiving. Also, Carson Wentz was elusive, and the line often was unable to pen him in to get the sack. Overall, Philadelphia rushed for 114 yards, more than 30 yards above Dallas’s average.

The Linebackers

Player	Pos	Games	Gms 1-9	Gm 10	Gm 11	Gm 12	Gm 13	Gm 14	Gm 15	Gm 16	Total	Total	Percent
Sean Lee	LB	15	576	55	75	74	67	62	68	0	977	1058	92%
Anthony Hitchens	LB	16	284	26	44	52	44	37	54	40	581	1058	55%
Justin Durant	LB	13	220	28	5	0	13	16	0	0	282	1058	27%
Damien Wilson	LB	16	70	15	42	26	7	18	31	75	284	1058	27%
Andrew Gachkar	LB	4	29	0	0	0	0	0	0	45	74	1058	7%
Kyle Wilber	LB	7	37	0	0	0	0	0	3	9	49	1058	5%
Mark Nzeocha	LB	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	16	16	1058	2%

Without Sean Lee, the group was obviously not as strong. Here were the stats for the other guys.

Damien Wilson, eight tackles, three tackles for loss, and a quarterback hit. Bryan Broaddus made a nice comment about Wilson’s speed in his after-game observations.
Andrew Gachkar, six tackles, a half-sack, a tackle for loss and three quarterback hits.
Anthony Hitchens, four tackles.
Mark Nzeocha, two tackles.

The Secondary

Player	Pos	Games	Gms 1-9	Gm 10	Gm 11	Gm 12	Gm 13	Gm 14	Gm 15	Gm 16	Total	Season	Percent
Brandon Carr	CB	16	574	55	75	74	67	62	71	37	1015	1058	96%
Anthony Brown	CB	16	338	42	59	74	67	61	9	67	717	1058	68%
Orlando Scandrick	CB	12	249	53	75	54	60	46	71	37	645	1058	61%
Morris Claiborne	CB	7	408	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	408	1058	39%
Leon McFadden	CB	3	17	0	0	0	0	0	0	39	56	1058	5%
Byron Jones	S	16	515	55	75	74	67	61	71	68	986	1058	93%
Barry Church	S	12	379	0	0	72	67	57	69	32	676	1058	64%
J.J. Wilcox	S	13	371	55	47	0	0	0	51	33	557	1058	53%
Jeff Heath	S	16	69	17	42	24	16	17	22	36	243	1058	23%
Kavon Frazier	S	3	0	0	14	0	0	2	0	21	37	1058	3%

Carson Wentz was 27 of 45 for 245 yards, two touchdowns, and no turnovers, for a 93.7 quarterback rating. Other than the turnovers and touchdowns, that’s almost exactly what Matthew Stafford did last week.

Here are the official stats.

Byron Jones, six tackles and a pass defensed.
Barry Church, five tackles.
Leon McFadden, four tackles.
Jeff Heath, three tackles.
Orlando Scandrick, three tackles.
J.J. Wilcox, three tackles. (I missed his stats last game, where he had three tackles, an interception, and two passes defensed.)
Anthony Brown, one pass defensed.
Kavon Frazier, one tackle, and one big hit I recall from the game.

Special Teams

There are six special teams: field goal kicks and blocks, kick off returns and coverage, and punt returns and coverage. The numbers below are mostly for kick off and punt returns and coverage.

Kyle Wilber, 26 snaps.
Damien Wilson, 25.
Jeff Heath, 24.
Andrew Gachkar, 23.
Kavon Frazier, 20.
Mark Nzeocha, 19.
Byron Jones, 18.
Leon McFadden, 17.
Keith Smith, 15.
Gavin Escobar, 14.
Lucky Whitehead, 10.
Byron Jones, 8.

The punters were about equal on distance, but not net, with Chris Jones and the Cowboys netting 39 yards, and the Eagles punter netting 44.3 yards.

The biggest play was an Eagles block of a Chris Jones punt out of the Dallas end zone. It set them up for their last touchdown. Mark Sanchez was the one mostly at fault for taking a 19-yard sack when he had multiple opportunities to throw the ball away.

In the return game, does anyone else think that Lucky Whitehead just needs to go north and south when he catches punts and not always try to go side to side to hit the home run?

Dan Bailey was two for two on field goals, while the Eagles kicker missed one.

Overall, it was a pretty uneventful year on special teams. The Cowboys didn’t come close to breaking a kick off or punt for a touchdown, but they didn’t give up any either. Dan Bailey missed a few more kicks than normal, and has now slipped out of the all-time top spot for field goal kickers to Justin Tucker, who leads him by 89.840% to 89.529%.

Defensive snap counts - game 2 - Washington

Defensive snap counts - game 3 - Bears

Defensive snap counts - game 4 - Niners

Defensive snap counts - game 5 - Cincinnati

Defensive snap counts - game 6 - Green Bay

Snap counts at the bye

Defensive snap counts - game 7 - Philadelphia

Defensive snap counts - game 8- Cleveland

Defensive snap counts - game 9 - Pittsburgh

Defensive snap counts - game 10 - Baltimore

Defensive snap counts - game 11 - Washington

Defensive snap counts - game 12 - Minnesota