Football 301: Decoding Jason Garrett – Week 1

DISCLAIMER: This is not for everyone. It may not be for you. This is a statistical study of the Cowboys offense with lots of numbers that may make your head tired if you are not up to it. Read it only if it is something that is of interest to you. If not, see you tomorrow.

Sunday in Tampa, the Cowboys offense put up a rare display. 462 yards is amazing. 52 plays is rare. 462 yards in 52 plays so off the charts silly that we might be wasting our time to read any meaning into it.

How crazy is 52 plays for 462 yards? 8.9 yards per play. You may never see that again, so save the tape.

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Week 2: Rick Perry Republic of Texas Football Poll

Obviously, these rankings are going over like Kanye West at an awards ceremony. Exactly one person volunteered to be a pollster (and, thank you for the offer). I wasn’t kidding. If you want to vote and you’ve got way too much free time on your hands, like I do, contact me. Also, I could use more email.

We’re moving forward one way or another. It was a big week in the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry. Sure, Houston pulled the big upset, but why can’t Texas A&M (OK, A&M-Kingsville) and Angelo State get in on the act, too?

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The Corral: Cowboys-Bucs Live Blog

Not sure how much of a regular feature, the Cowboys Corral will be, but, given the weather situation in Arlington, let’s open this up for Cowboys talk.

12:12: The Depot, however, remains open and the great one, Jeff Miller, is on the scene i n Arlington to update on Rangers doings. The possibility exists that Houston could become an option for the Rangers-A’s series that is scheduled to start Monday.

12:14: Cowboys have moved ball well on first drive, but a time out less than five minutes into the season is not encouraging.

12:16: Who had Nick Folk with a 50+ field goal for the first points of the year?

12:20: And who had Jerry Jones opening the season with a $100,000 fine from NFL commish Roger Goodell”?

1:00: For rest of game, I ask you to do this – track positive plays vs. negative plays for Tony Romo.  Give me a final +/- tally after the game. And give me any commentary on plays that stand out one way or another as they happen.

1:04: Also, exactly what does Tony Siragusa do to add to a broadcast? Or, for that matter, to keep his job with FOX?

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Analyze The Enemy – Week 1 – Tampa Bay

On Thursdays, one of the in-season features we are having for Cowboys Season will be to simply checking all corners of the net to know our opponent as well as we possibly can. This will generally involve plenty of links for you to read as much as you want. Since I read it all to prepare for our radio show and the pregame show on Sunday, I thought you might like to read the same stuff. Then, on Friday, I will attempt to provide some guesses on what the game plan will be and what the key match-ups that will decide the game will also be.

So, basically, 2 posts at the end of each week to prepare you for what lies ahead. Today, I will also attempt to provide 2 more posts – one with my full league predictions, and another is a chat I recently had with the great Albert Breer from the Sporting News as we break down the Cowboys and NFC East for you. So, on this Texas Rangers off day, you should get plenty of NFL Opening Day content from Inside Corner.

Now, on to the Buccaneers breakdown:

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Garrett ’08 vs Garrett ’09

There is more than plenty of talk about what Jason Garrett should do with the offense this season. I happen to agree that the number #1 factor for the Cowboys is health this season; but #2 is how well Jason Garrett coordinates his offense.

Honestly, I thought he was poor last season. I thought his play calls were often to appease some; for instance Terrell Owens gets 18 targets (Washington, Week 4) which led to Felix Jones not getting a touch. I also thought he relied on the shotgun and the pass too much when a game began to develop. When you are down 14, sling the ball without regard for caution or care, but when you are down 3 in the 3rd Quarter, there is no reason to abandon your game plan. But, the facts indicate that the Cowboys were too willing to throw the ball early and often and that gets everyone in trouble.

It gets your QB hit too often, it puts too much pressure on your OL, it allows the defense to “pin their ears back” and disregard the running game. And if you review the games in December, you will see the disregard grew.

The Cowboys threw the ball 59.1% of the time in 2008 (579 passes/400 runs) – only 4 teams in football threw more often. Playoff teams in 2008 threw the ball 52.7% of the time. The difference? 64 run plays. 4 a week. The Cowboys averaged 61.1 offensive snaps in 2008, and the average split was 36 passes and 25 runs.

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The First Republic of Texas Football Rankings

Back in April, our dear leader, Gov. Rick Perry, made some veiled secession remarks and it made us think about all the important issues of Texas returning to being a republic. Like, how would it impact the BCS?

Would Texas schools even be eligible? Or should we just thumb our noses at the Texas-less NCAA and have our own National Championship free of those fouled up computers? Hey, it’s one way to eliminate that silly tie-breaker that the Longhorns lost to Oklahoma. So in the interest of Texas Independence, we prepare for the future with the first RP Poll. I’ll give you three guesses what RP stands for. And it’s not Rensselaer Polytech.

Jump for the poll. If you want to be a pollster in future weeks, just email me. Oh, and be prepared to document your multi-generation Texas legacy. I may be kidding about that second part.

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How Do You Get to 53?

With almost no drama left for 80% of your roster heading into the final preseason game, I wanted to look at the last two years as a template for how Jerry Jones, Wade Phillips, and the Dallas Cowboys Personnel Department looks at its 53 man board.

As you know, by the weekend, teams across the league must trim to 53. This generally is followed by teams changing out the last few spots with other teams’ discards, but, obviously, we can only analyze those who are currently owned by the Cowboys.

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Question of the Day: Should Inside Corner “Adopt” an Area High School Football Team to Cover?

Here’s your chance to help dictate the direction of Inside Corner’s fall coverage. While we will be covering all things baseball (and in depth, I might add), we want to provide something of interest during the other seasons, too. Obviously, Bob Sturm will offer tons of Cowboys analysis and I’ll chime in there occasionally and also offer some college morsels. But, what about high school football? Since the season is upon us – I completely zeroed out over Zero Week – I offer up this question:

Should the Corner “adopt” a local team to offer up some weekly coverage this season? So, respond to these queries:

1. Yes or no?

2. If yes, please nominate a school and a compelling reason why multiple stories about said school might be interesting to a wider audience than just alums and students.

Blondes vs. Brunettes of Dallas

I used to think playing like a girl was a bad thing. Now I know better.

Blondes vs. Brunettes of Dallas put on its second annual powder puff football game Saturday to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association. The idea started when the first match-up of Blondes vs. Brunettes was organized in Washington D.C. four years ago, and the success of the event sparked groups across the country to start their own game for Alzheimer’s research. A Houston chapter picked up the game in 2006, and Erin Finegold brought BvB to Dallas in 2008. (more…)

Analyzing The Enemy: Oakland Raiders

During the regular season, here at Inside Corner, we are planning quite a few weekly features to help you through a Dallas Cowboys season with more information than you could ever possibly need to get you ready for the following Cowboys opponent.

Obviously, there isn’t too much you likely are worried about regarding tonight’s opponent in the preseason opener, but I thought I would have a few pre-season run throughs to refine the idea in my head for this feature known as “Analyzing the Enemy”. I do plenty of out-of-town research every week for my own personal use, but since we are all now fast friends at IC, let’s share notes with the class and see if that helps prepare for Sundays.

This feature will run on each Thursday during the season, I do believe.

Gametime: 9:00 Central, Channel 11 in Dallas. Pregame show: 8:00 pm

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5 Things From Football Prospectus

August is not an easy month to get through, but the last several years I have made it through with the help of the Football Prospectus.  The guys at Prospectus/Football Outsiders.com are great at breaking down football with the same statistical analysis that Bill James made famous in baseball.

They don’t allow the raw emotion of fans and message boards to affect their ideas – but rather they use the evidence.   I think football, unlike almost any other sport, must be analyzed in that fashion.  Emotion makes people boil everything down to Jessica Simpson being at Texas Stadium in a pink Romo jersey.  Obviously, football is a bit more complicated than that.

So, I would recommend you purchase this book for yourself Here , but here is a small taste:

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Second Annual Blondes vs. Brunettes of Dallas

Normally, InsideCorner doesn’t promote events that we’re not directly involved in, even if it’s for a good cause.  It’s not because we’re cold, heartless people, but there are truly too many charitable groups putting on worthy events for us to keep up with.

But when somebody combines a good cause with pizza, beer, and 22 girls running each other down on a football field, we tend to make an exception.

Which is why we’re more than happy to plug the Second Annual Blondes vs. Brunettes Powder Puff Football Game benefiting the Alzheimer’s Association. The game is Saturday, August 15 at SMU’s Westcott Field, with pre-game festivities getting underway at 7:00 p.m. and the game starting half an hour later.

You can make a donation here. For $25, you get a game ticket and entry to the after party at the Bryan Street Tavern where there will be… wait for it… free pizza and beer. I know having just graduated from college puts me in a demographic that tends to get overexcited about these kinds of things, but come on.

Training Camp Monday

It is time to do it again.  Now, starting my 12th Dallas Cowboys training camp – 4 in Wichita Falls, 4 in Oxnard, and now #4 in San Antonio, Texas.  The return of the Cowboys to San Antonio is not something I support, as being forced to go to camp in Southern California is something that I have become quite supportive of over the years. Usually, it is because of such things as golf without sweating, the ocean, and fish tacos.

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The Top 10: The Most Interesting Men In The Dallas Sports World – At Least For This Week

Will we rank the area’s most intriguing/interesting/important sports figures on a weekly basis? It’s our intention. But who knows how it will go. Feel free to adjust, discuss, ridicule or praise our rankings.

10. Rodrigue Beaubois: First-rounder scores 23 in leading Mavs to victory. Probably won’t be duplicating that line during the regular season.

9. Tom Watson: Sure, he’s not from Dallas and is one of a half-dozen pro golfers who don’t call the area home. But he’s 59 and took the British Open to a playoff. He’s intriguing in anyone’s rankings.

8. Ian Kinsler: Maybe leadoff homer/walk-off homer on Sunday will get him going. Rangers offense desperately needs it.

7. Josh Hamilton: Speaking of guys the Rangers offense desperately needs. At least there were subtle signs at All-Star Game and in first game back from break that maybe he’s found his swing.

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Did The Cowboys Get The Wrong Receiver?

I haven’t touched much on the Dallas Cowboys situation since draft weekend, but I read something a few days ago that got me a bit fired up about what the theme will be moving in 2009 for this team.

The column in question was from The Star Telegram on Sunday where Randy Galloway was writing a very interesting compare/contrast between the Cowboys, Rangers, and Mavericks big trades of the last few years to see how things have worked out.

The premise of it was that the Rangers got the Braves/Teixeira trade totally right (they did), the Mavs got the Kidd trade totally wrong (they did), and the Cowboys sweat out the results of the Roy Williams deal (they do).

In my estimation, (and I am sure he will be glad that a radio guy is estimating anything he wrote) his conclusion is absolutely solid, but my issue is with his last idea on the Cowboys:

But as we await the verdict, a nagging doubt centers on another receiver, Anquan Boldin of the Cardinals. The same first, third and other draft picks, plus the $20 million guaranteed on Roy’s new contract, would have fetched Boldin in a deal.

That’s like asking if you’d rather have Devin/two first-rounders or Kidd.

Really?

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