Having finally shelled out for a PFF subscription, I’ve decided to put together a weekly set of grades for the Cowboys for this year. My intention is to keep a running tab throughout the year so we can compare player grades from week to week – I’ve decided to split into two halves (weeks 1-8 and weeks 9-17) so the tables don’t get too overwhelming. I’m just going to present the total grade for each player who plays a total of 15 snaps or more (so if a particular player isn’t there, then he didn’t reach the 15 snap threshold). I’m happy to add extra detail if anyone wishes – just comment below.

The info on how PFF calculates their grades is included here - https://www.pff.com/grades#:~:text=THE%20GRADING%20SCALE,but%20those%20are%20the%20basics

Obviously, this is an attempt to make add objectivity to what is a subjective analysis. However, it is always worth remembering that despite this, it is still a human being with all his/her inherent biases making the judgement.

PFF tend to colour code their player grades and I’ve added those to the charts below. The colour coding works roughly as shown below. It is slightly confused for week by week games as PFF use shades, so I’ve add my own number for a cleaner definition (although am adding my own bias a little bit).

Since QB is such an important position, I’ll add one extra chart at the end which includes the QB PFF grade and the QBR. Both rate QB play on a play by play basis. PFF has some subjectivity, QBR is largely an objective analysis.

Finally, I’ll add a few thoughts at the end. Keep an eye out for Red’s more detailed PFF piece later in the week.

PFF grades – Week 3:

Offense:

Defense:

QB:

Thoughts:

In terms of team performance, there were obviously two huge factors that determined the loss this week. Redzone offense and defense.

I’ll start with the offense. Having observed MM as head coach for over 3 years now, my feelings are that he is a very smart coach. As an offensive coordinator, I personally think it has been very smart to switch to a dink and dunk approach, for many of the reasons he has outlined. It works with our offensive personel, it controls the clock and it keeps our defense fresh. However, I don’t think MM is a particularly creative coach. In an ideal world, you want a smart, creative coach. Coaches like Andy Reid, Mike McDaniel, Kyle Shanahan are smart, creative offensive coaches. Some might argue that DQ is a smart, creative defensive coach. MM is not at this level. I would still rather have a smart coach without much creativity than a creative coach without the necessary smarts (I think KM fits that bill). Now, probably the place that you need creativity the most is in the redzone. This is where the Cowboys are clearly struggling at the moment. They are 27th in the league at 40%. Last season, the KM offense were 1st – better even than Andy Reid. Yesterday, the Cowboys actually had 4 visits inside the Cardinals 10 yd line and came away with 6 points. If MM is as smart as I think he is, then maybe the one piece of the KM offense he needs to revisit is his redzone offense. Of course, PFF tells you nothing about RZ efficiency, so this is more of a personal thing than a PFF driven narrative!

When your offensive line is dealing with 4 new starters across the 5 positions, then you are hoping that your supposedly elite defense can help them out by controlling what is a fairly average Arizona offense. Instead they gave up 400 yards on just 9 drives. That is a whopping 7.5 yards per play – 2nd best on the day behind a Miami offense that put up 70 points. I’m afraid that is just shockingly poor. Almost everyone around here loves DQ, but today his defense looked disorganised, particularly early on. The Cardinals scored on all 5 drives in the 1st half and put up 288 yards. I always feel like DQ makes great HT adjustments, and things certainly improved after HT, but if you ignore their final drive, they still scored on 6 out of 8 drives. Speaking of that final drive, you should not be giving up 44 yards rushing when you know that is exactly what they are going to do. Sprinkle in 5 of the teams penalties, and all in all the defense played about as badly as I can remember. As noted below, it was largely a truly awful performance in terms of run defense!

OK, in terms of individual grades, the offensive line was really not that bad. Tyler Smith returned in style, and outside of Bass the rest of the line was decent. Edoga looked horrid to me, but then I probably only noticed a couple of snaps. The rest of the offensive grades pass the eye test. The RBs did very well as a group with Luepke showing signs that he could be an offensive threat – although I’ve broken my own rules by including him off 8 snaps! Jake Ferguson has put together 3 very solid games in a row. Unfortunately, Dak had one of his stinkers, so it’s hard for WR to put up good grades in that situation so kudos to Gallup for showing us that he still has something to offer.

As for the defense, let’s start with the good. DeMarcus Lawrence is the best run defending DE in the league and also the most disciplined. I love Micah, but he still needs to learn discipline rather than trying to be the play maker all the time. Dobbs big run was on him, and that started the momentum for Arizona. If you were involved in run defense (IDL, LB, S) your grade was understandably horrible. Wilson’s run defense grade was about as bad as it gets. If you were a CB you did OK, which you would expect with Dobbs throwing the ball. Osa, Chauncey, Dorance – stacking good weeks on top of each other. Final word to Gallimore, two very decent grades in a row – I hope it is a sign of a return to form!