GDT: Oilers @ Cowboys (The Texas Bragging Rights Game)

[pf9]

Wild card teams have won the Super Bowl before. It has happened as recently as two years ago.

This would be the first time the Cowboys won the Super Bowl as a wild card.

[pf9]

Cowboys go to Jacksonville next week. IMO the Cowboys should have been the ones sent to London to play the Jaguars. Would have been good from a financial standpoint as the Cowboys are among the NFL's most popular teams. Broncos not so much.

[Dallas94Ware]

2 hours ago, DaBoys said:

Directly coincides with the Hankins trade, no?  I know he left the game today but that’s when  Pierce got that long run and truck sticked Hooker

To a point, yes. It also coincides with Parsons playing the edge less and manning a true linebacker position more. Which in turn has killed his sack totals, but the defense is better because of it.

Hankins is mostly in there on clear running downs...third and short, first and ten, etc. But it does help when you have a true run player in on running downs. He is an upgrade over the youngsters of Bihanna and Ridgeway who manned that role before he got here 

[quiller]

It will be interesting to see how we handle the run going forward.  I still think are main problem is handling designed runs to the edge.  I just hope that what ever is going on with Parsons is minor. He did look hurt today. 
 

 

[The_Slamman]

6 hours ago, Dallas94Ware said:

Held pierce to 3.5 yards per carry

Taylor to 3.9 and only 82 yards and he is possibly the best pure runner in the game today

Cook to only 72 yards most of which in garbage time

Barkley to 39

 

Tell me again how we don't stop the run? Outside of that Green Bay game the run defense has improved quite a bit. Allowing 100yards on the ground in total but also keeping the passing offense to under 200-250 while generating tons of pressure and dominating on offense yourself is a recipe for success.

 

 

 

Because we are bottom 10 in the nfl in Rush defense.  Do you even watch these games?  

[DaBoys]

6 hours ago, Dallas94Ware said:

To a point, yes. It also coincides with Parsons playing the edge less and manning a true linebacker position more. Which in turn has killed his sack totals, but the defense is better because of it.

Hankins is mostly in there on clear running downs...third and short, first and ten, etc. But it does help when you have a true run player in on running downs. He is an upgrade over the youngsters of Bihanna and Ridgeway who manned that role before he got here 

He’s done now. He’ll be out the rest of the year watch

[Dallas94Ware]

7 hours ago, The_Slamman said:

Because we are bottom 10 in the nfl in Rush defense.  Do you even watch these games?  

A lot of that is carry over from Green Bay and prior.

Since then, we might have not given up a 100 yard rusher and held some of the leagues best to under 4ypc.

And the yards we did allow in two of those games, the majority of it was empty yardages on 3rd and super long 

Do you understand the difference between surrendering 12 rushing yards on a draw on 3rd and 20 and giving up 12 on 2nd and 5? Huge difference.

Prevention vs total failure.

Holding the sticks vs being forced off them

Empty yards vs yards that hurt

Since Green Bay, it's been empty yards

Stats tell only part of the story. Sure, bottom 10. It's also a matter of perception..glass half full vs glass half empty

You say bottom 10?

Well, That leaves us very close to or around the middle of the league average overall, doesn't it? 

 

FRom what I read the defense is 21st in rushing yards allowed, which would leave us closer to the middle than the bottom. You say bottom 10, I say they've been average with a BIG change since GB game.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Dallas94Ware

[Dallas94Ware]

4 hours ago, DaBoys said:

He’s done now. He’ll be out the rest of the year watch

This would sting. Would have to rely on the youngsters to fill that role and as we have seen they are just not as good. Will have to keep Parsons inside more often and rely on Barr and VanderEsch to play vital roles too. LVE stepped up yesterday in that role of ball hunting Mike. And that role should be something he excelsa at. Guess we would see.

[PincheJimmy]

1 hour ago, Dallas94Ware said:

This would sting. Would have to rely on the youngsters to fill that role and as we have seen they are just not as good. Will have to keep Parsons inside more often and rely on Barr and VanderEsch to play vital roles too. LVE stepped up yesterday in that role of ball hunting Mike. And that role should be something he excelsa at. Guess we would see.

Definitely too early to tell the extent of the injury, hopefully he misses 2/3 weeks ( if any) and be ready for a playoff run 💪🏽

[Nextyearfordaboyz]

13 hours ago, Dallas94Ware said:

To a point, yes. It also coincides with Parsons playing the edge less and manning a true linebacker position more. 

Sometimes I swear we live in parallel universes and Football’s Future is the wormhole.

Micah played mostly LB against GB and then went back to the edge in the following weeks. Here are his splits through the NYG game. I can’t find an update that includes Indy and Houston, but certainly an improvement in run D did not coincide with a move to true linebacker.

 

[WizardHawk]

As expected. Big blow.

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by WizardHawk

[The_Slamman]

3 hours ago, Dallas94Ware said:

A lot of that is carry over from Green Bay and prior.

Since then, we might have not given up a 100 yard rusher and held some of the leagues best to under 4ypc.

And the yards we did allow in two of those games, the majority of it was empty yardages on 3rd and super long 

Do you understand the difference between surrendering 12 rushing yards on a draw on 3rd and 20 and giving up 12 on 2nd and 5? Huge difference.

Prevention vs total failure.

Holding the sticks vs being forced off them

Empty yards vs yards that hurt

Since Green Bay, it's been empty yards

Stats tell only part of the story. Sure, bottom 10. It's also a matter of perception..glass half full vs glass half empty

You say bottom 10?

Well, That leaves us very close to or around the middle of the league average overall, doesn't it? 

 

FRom what I read the defense is 21st in rushing yards allowed, which would leave us closer to the middle than the bottom. You say bottom 10, I say they've been average with a BIG change since GB game.

 

 

The biggest difference since the Green Bay game is that we have been blowing opponents out so they are forced to pass.  We do not have a good Rush defense and in the playoffs against good rushing teams we will be exposed.  Honestly, I expect it to get exposed against the eagles in two weeks.  I’m not saying necessarily that we’ll lose but the Rush defense will get exposed because the eagles will volume rush.

 

And, no, even if we improved to middle of the pack in rush defense… it is not good enough in the playoffs.  

[Dallas94Ware]

1 hour ago, Nextyearfordaboyz said:

Sometimes I swear we live in parallel universes and Football’s Future is the wormhole.

Micah played mostly LB against GB and then went back to the edge in the following weeks. Here are his splits through the NYG game. I can’t find an update that includes Indy and Houston, but certainly an improvement in run D did not coincide with a move to true linebacker.

 

I haven't looked at snap counts, this is pretty interesting. Was going by my eyes more than anything. On early downs or third and short, I've noticed Parsons in the middle more often than the edge. But that's a good thing. That kind of athlete, you want him in an ideal position to chase the ball.

But it's really good to see the snap counts. That's proof Quinn knows where Parsons is best. Thanks for doing the search. 

I do need to wonder what he is calling LB position though. Because just scanning through the games again, I see him at Mike twice at against Minnesota and three more times off the line in a 2 point stance, not in the middle, but definitely at a LB spot. I'm sure if I scan further I can find more examples...

So it definitely was not 1 time...

Is he calling every blitz or rush assignment playing edge? Possibility there. 

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Dallas94Ware

[Dallas94Ware]

24 minutes ago, The_Slamman said:

The biggest difference since the Green Bay game is that we have been blowing opponents out so they are forced to pass.  We do not have a good Rush defense and in the playoffs against good rushing teams we will be exposed.  Honestly, I expect it to get exposed against the eagles in two weeks.  I’m not saying necessarily that we’ll lose but the Rush defense will get exposed because the eagles will volume rush.

 

And, no, even if we improved to middle of the pack in rush defense… it is not good enough in the playoffs.  

That was a factor in the GB game though, wasn't it? Fell behind early, and we were forced to play out of our element and allowed them to ground the ball, ground our offense, kill clock and play to their advantage (their OL and power game vs our speedy, rush oriented front).

Where as since then, we have been the ones dictating pace with the ground game and never losing bad enough to abandon that idea. And we weren't blowing out offenses in every game... The Colts game especially was pretty tight to the final quarter, and Houston had the lead and tried grounding out a win and couldnt.

Is middle of the pack on run defense enough to win a title? I'm sure someone more Google friendly than I can search the rush defense for the last 6 to 10 champions. But! And here is the big ol Kim Kardashian sized but ....

Situation and context also play a part 

What do I mean? Well, if your run defense is middle of the pack, but you are playing with the lead or able to score often and regularly, middle of the pack is fine. If your offense can't score, then yes, middle of the pack will get you beat. The other side also is, if you are shutting down offenses thru the air, getting pressure, and creating turnovers along with generating good offense, middle of the pack is definitely good enough for run defense.

It's all about the complete package. Our run defense may be the weak point of the entire team, but it's damn near impossible for any team to be top 10 or top 5 in every category. If we are scoring, holding teams to an average of, what is it, 17? 19? Points a game...the your run defense really isn't that big of an issue overall if it's just average at best.

And the majority of the defenses rushing totals allowed came prior to that GB turning point game. After GB the run defense has really stepped up. Are they good? No...but if everything else around them is doing well, they don't have to be the stout 86 Bears front to win.

Not saying this team is SB bound, I personally think it's the receivers inability to find separation against physical DBs that will hinder their playoff run. But the run defense? Well, they've improved enough to win as long as all the other cogs are doing what they have done game after game ..

[quiller]

In my mind this is a impossible question to answer until we get the answer.  What I mean is we lost three games this year.  It was clear our run D was a huge issue in loosing to GB. Not so much in the Philly and TB loss.   Our run D was also in my mind a issue in the SF loss but not as critical as our poor OL play and yes we had other issues on offense as well.  Personally I haven't seen much over all improvement on our run D.  When Houston or Indy for that matter tested our D by running set plays to the edge they seemed to succeed more often then not.  IMO that goal line stop doesn't happen if their No1 RB was not hurt.  So who is to tell.  Philly game will be interesting, sadly Philly is also playing more confident now then they were when they played us...

This to me is why the Steele injury is huge.  I was just starting to get comfortable thinking come crunch time, Philly, Playoffs we just might have a OL playing their best of the season for a change....  BUT...  wham just lost a pro-bowl level RT...