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Game Plan Friday: Seahawks (oops)

On Monday, I spent a fair amount of time wondering about how/why Tony Romo has looked like ‘07 Romo. Many of you have offered your theories and I will answer some of those in a soon-to-be-released mailbag. The most important thing is not why, the most important element of this run that could put the Cowboys in the mix for the 2009NFC Title run would be that he is playing very well right now. He has 1 interception in his last 4 games, and his last 2 games have been nearly perfect.

And when Tony Romo plays well, this team wins. In the last 2 weeks, he has had QB ratings of 113 and 140 and has not looked this good in a long time. Here is a stat for you:

When Tony Romo has a passer rating above 80, the Cowboys are 28-5, for 85%.
When he doesn’t, they are 3-9 or 25%.

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Musings On Wednesday

On Wednesday, we go in any number of directions as sort of a “reset” day. It has also grown a life of its own with TC’s drive for the final 3,000 words or so at the bottom of the page. And, as someone who has previewed his work, allow me to say that he is debuting the “Easter Egg” strategy that some DVDs do these days. I will try not to spoil it.

But, before we get to all of that, here are a few other things before we check our weekly numbers:

1) Occasionally, while watching a Cowboys game, I will see something that I have no place for in one of my entries, but I just wanted to share it with you anyway. Here is one of those cases. I can’t explain why, but for some reason, nothing makes me crazier when watching a football game than the Defensive Backs who refuse to tackle altogether or refuse to tackle properly. It seemed like once upon a time there was the idea that DBs could tackle and would do so utilizing proper technique with arms wrapping up and driving. Somehow, over the years, DBs have found that it is easier (albeit lower percentage) to simply launch a shoulder and hope you knock the player silly.

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Football 301 – Week 7 – ATL – Targets/Sacks

Another week, and another chance for us to see where Tony Romo wants to go with the football. Also, who do we blame for the sacks? Let’s examine closely:

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Football 301 – Decoding Garrett – Week 7

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.

The Cowboys have had more successful days on offense than they had on Sunday, but when it came time to make a play, Tony Romo was absolutely up to the task. His new found favorite target, Miles Austin, has seemed to be the target that Romo has been missing for quite a while around here. Now that he has him, the offense does not rely on a running game to carry them.

A big WR who makes plays and demands coverage changes everything for the Cowboys. Hope he is not a mirage.

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The Morning After: Cowboys 37, Falcons 21

I have never seen, nor do I plan on seeing, the 1998 movie, “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”. I assume Stella had a groove – lost it somehow – and then spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to re-acquire this groove again. I will also assume that she found this groove by the end of the movie or the title would have been rather mis-leading.

I take you down this unlikely road to bring the conversation to Tony Romo. I think we can all agree he also once had a groove. In his first 25 or so games in the NFL, he was somewhere between amazing and unbelievable. Then, something happened where he hit adversity and we began to see the weaknesses in his game. And for the last 20 or so starts, he just has not been the same guy who seemed like he played the game with everything happening around him in slow motion. Was something wrong with him? Was something wrong with his coaching? What happened to a guy who seemed to have the NFL figured out?

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Game Plan Friday: Atlanta Falcons

When the schedule came out in April, a few non-NFC East games jumped off the page at me. The Back-to-Back in December of my preseason Super Bowl teams San Diego and New Orleans looked incredibly formidable.

And then there was this one; the first ever Sunday Afternoon game played at the Brand New Death Star against last year’s Cinderella playoff story, the Atlanta Falcons.

I wrote about their franchise in pretty elaborate detail yesterday , so check that out if you want to see more about the impressive building of this team. But, today, let us visit about what this all means and how the Cowboys can seize a big opportunity to make a move in the NFC Playoff picture.

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Analyze the Enemy – Game 6 – Atlanta Falcons

THURSDAYS: We catch you up on this week’s opponent with an overall portrait of their team. This is not breaking down this week’s match-up, because that happens on Friday. This is just to set the table in preparation for laying out the gameplan.

Some teams are not as good as you think they should be based on their level of talent. And other teams are actually better than you think they should be because they play well as a team. They are coached well. They seldom beat themselves, and they just play football the way it was meant to be played. I suggest to you that one of those teams could very well be the 2009 Atlanta Falcons.

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Good “Bye Week” Musings

Tomorrow, we dive back into our Cowboys routine (Analyze the Falcons), as the bye week is over. Until then, here are 5,000 Words of Football Dorkdom:

I want to show you the results of a study or two we did during the bye week about the Cowboys offense. Hopefully, by now, you have some interest in our findings every Tuesday during the Season with our various “Football 301″ studies. Well, this week, and then the week after Thanksgiving will allow us a day or two to catch our breath and look at the bigger picture.

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Pitching Profile – Final Edition

Just like we did at the end of May, at the end of June , and at the end of August - Here is the Final edition of our look at the Rangers starting rotation. The point of this exercise is to dig a bit deeper than the basic stats for each starting pitcher to see what they are good at – or what they are not good at.

In the final analysis, 10 pitchers started games for the Rangers this season. Kevin Millwood (31), Scott Feldman (31), Derek Holland (21), Tommy Hunter (19), Vicente Padilla (18), Brandon McCarthy (17), Matt Harrison (11), Dustin Nippert (10), Kris Benson (2), and Doug Mathis (2). This study will focus on the eight pitchers who have made at least 10 starts.

There is plenty of good news to report as they worked a significantly higher amount of innings while doing a great job at dropping the rotation’s ERA.

Both Kevin Millwood and Scott Feldman made over 30 starts with 18 Quality Starts each. That number may not blow your socks off, but those two seasons can rival pretty much any season we have seen around here by a starting pitcher in an awfully long time.

There were other signs of optimism as well, as the first year of the Nolan Ryan/Mike Maddux program seems like a perfect diving board to 2010.

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The Evening After: Texas 16, Oklahoma 13

The great thing about a top-notch college rivalry is that regardless of which players are there, and what kind of year the teams may be having, it still gives you some football that will stick in your memory banks for a while.

Was the game crisp? Far from it. Was it well-played? Depends if you like your offense or your defense. But, clearly, this was a game that was both chippy and tense. Frustrating and Electric. I think that I would not want to see it every Saturday, but if the last year’s Texas win was a masterpiece from both QBs, then this year’s Texas win was just the opposite. In both cases, a worthy 4 hours of your time.

In many ways, the game went from a “Dream Match-up” to an eventuality in one big play early, as an Aaron Williams blitz knocked Sam Bradford on his throwing shoulder again and out of the game. The common details of the play with the same scenario 6 weeks ago are hard to avoid, and regardless of who you root for, I hope you see how college sports in general loses when a kid gambles on himself and his school rather than the fruits of the pros and loses big. I cannot guarantee how much money Sam Bradford lost yesterday, but know that being injured once is not a big deal, but to be injured twice in 3 starts has NFL executives wondering if that shoulder will hold up at the next level for 12 years. A quick glance at the pay rate for the 1st round picks demonstrate that Matt Stafford was guaranteed $41m for #1, Mark Sanchez got $28m for #5, and Josh Freeman, the next QB off the board at #17 was promised $10.25m.He will still be a very rich man, but this weekend might have cost him at least half of his enormous pile of money.

And in many ways, that means all college fans lose. If Tim Duncan, Sam Bradford, Peyton Manning, and friends hang around in college and it works out, more will do it. If it doesn’t work out, then future studs will see the error in their ways. Sam Bradford may or may not be a future cautionary tale – time will tell, but Matthew Stafford and Bob Stoops are very, very rich men this morning. Sam Bradford is not. Yet.

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Bye Week Impromptu Chat

OK, we may need to file this under “ideas that may need some work,” but last night I decided to tweet my location (www.twitter.com/bobanddan) on the web for an impromptu sports chat with anyone who was interested. I think 30 or so of you dropped everything and joined me.

In looking at this, it is hard to follow and doesn’t go deep on too much. But, we spent an hour and touched on a pretty large range of stuff. So, if you want to relive your moment of stardom, or just kill off 30 minutes of your morning by trying to read this chat, enjoy:

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We Like The Football Musings

This morning, I wanted to show you a few numbers about this question about the 2-TE results. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the receiving portion of Martellus Bennett has been shockingly disappointing. You can ask a dozen people as to why, and you will get different responses about why Marty B has 4 catches in 5 weeks (not quite the 50 or so that I had thought possible!) for 40 yards. Surely, Tony Curtis could have done that.

But, does that mean the “12″ and the “22″ personnel packages are failing? Not even close.

Is the object of the game to get Martellus Bennett stats, or for this offense to prove it can be elite? Originally, I thought one would lead to another, but now we see something different so far.

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Football 301 – Week 5 – Targets/Sacks

Where is Tony Romo going with the ball? Who is catching those passes? Who is not? The answers are revealed below, as well as playing the “blame game” on pass rush.

Check it out:

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Football 301: Decoding Garrett – Week 5

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.

There are many issues with the Dallas Cowboys 2009 season. Many improvements that need to be made in this bye week. Many concerns about different departments doing their job better than they have been.

I am here to tell you that moving the football is not one of them. For the first 5 weeks, the Cowboys offense has gained an astounding 6.57 yards per snap. The Cowboys are #1 in the NFL in yards per game with 429.2 (New Orleans #2, New York Giants #3, Indianapolis #4, and Pittsburgh #5). The Cowboys are also #1 in yards from scrimmage, and yards per play. When it comes to moving the ball, the Dallas Cowboys – with all of their perceived warts, are moving the ball better than any team in the NFL.

The reason this doesn’t translate into points every week is 2 fold:

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The Morning After: Cowboys 26, Chiefs 20 (OT)

Well, it would have been nice if that game would have given us something to talk about, right?

As you may recall, I am a big believer in the idea that wins are darn difficult to come by in this league, and when you get one, it is bad form to be picky about how you went about getting that win.

But, even I have my limitations. That was stinking ugly in so many ways that I seem to be ignoring my own advice.

The Chiefs gave the Cowboys all they could handle yesterday. Or, closer to the truth, the Dallas Cowboys made every attempt at giving the Chiefs the game yesterday. Sloppy perhaps doesn’t properly capture the way that this game was played. Penalties, turnovers, drops, more penalties, and various other elements conspired to keep the Chiefs in a game almost completely against their will.

We thought going into the game that the Chiefs were a very bad NFL team. They spent most of Sunday proving it, and yet, they remained in the lead for 57+ minutes because the Cowboys were compelled to repeatedly sabotage their own efforts. And then, just as the offense finally got its act together, the defense caved in. Similar to the Giants and Broncos games, the defense who had been solid all day long, picked just the wrong time to give up the crucial drive right down the field.

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Game Plan Friday: Kansas City Chiefs

A few things we must consider about this week’s Cowboys opponent, their former Cotton Bowl co-habitants, the Kansas City Chiefs.

1) – This is the worst team they will play all year. I know it is popular to assume that Oakland is the worst team they will play all year, but Oakland won a game at Arrowhead Stadium already this season. With that in mind, I think we should be able to say for now that while Oakland is really, really bad – at least they can beat the Chiefs. Seriously, after trying to absorb as much knowledge as I can from watching the last 3 Chiefs games (vs Oakland, At Philadelphia, and vs New York Giants), there is very little to be impressed with regarding this former powerhouse.

2) – The Cowboys do not have the luxury to assume that they can beat the worst team on their schedule after losing last year (BADLY) in the 16th toughest game on the 2008 schedule when they were blown out by the St Louis Rams. A team that on October 19, 2008 beat the Cowboys like a rented mule so handily that even the absence of Tony Romo doesn’t explain why you trailed that team by 4 touchdowns for most of the 2nd half. That Rams team was so bad, that they haven’t won a game since that day. That’s right. The Rams have lost 14 straight since they drilled the Cowboys about a year ago. So, any team with that on their ledger, is not allowed to assume they can waltz into Kansas City and leave with an easy win.

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Analyze the Enemy – Week 5 – Kansas City Chiefs

THURSDAYS: We catch you up on this week’s opponent with an overall portrait of their team. This is not breaking down this week’s match-up, because that happens on Friday. This is just to set the table in preparation for laying out the gameplan.

5747 days.

There are very few teams who can claim a longer drought since a playoff win then your Dallas Cowboys. On Sunday, the Cowboys will be at 4669 days, and the Chiefs will be able to actually claim that they have gone over 1,000 more days since their last playoff win.

Jan 16th 1994, the Chiefs beat the Houston Oilers in Houston, 28-20. The next week, they went to Buffalo and lost 30-13 to the Bills. The week after that, The Cowboys beat Buffalo in Atlanta for their 2nd Super Bowl of the 1990’s.

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Football Muse You Can Use

As you know, Wednesday is my “day of rest” in the football week. So, this blog entry, while lengthy, will be mostly because my intern, TC, contributes 3,000 words (and some eye-catching photos) to this blog as he takes apart the Cowboys “Drive of the Week” with precision and detail.

Before we get to that, and an update on our weekly projects, let me cover two quick items:

Yesterday on the radio, Todd Archer of the DMN and now the Ticket, joined our show and we started talking about the Cowboys “blitz allergy”. When opponents blitz in the last few seasons, it is my premise that Romo and Garrett are actually worse now, than when Romo was a rookie.

Is it true?

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Football 301: Decoding Garrett – Week 4

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.

Before Denver put the brakes on this juggernaut of an offense, the results were difficult to comprehend. In the first 3 weeks of football, the Cowboys offense had the ball for 175 offensive snaps, and rolled up 1280 yards. That is an astounding 7.31 yards per snap. High School powers brag about 7.31 yards per snap. This doesn’t happen in the National Football League. Despite the feeling that the offense was failing, the reality is the yardage they rolled up was a fabulous sign.

But, when the Cowboys offense dropped to 4.37 a snap on Sunday, was it more of just a market correction or a down week?

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The Morning After: Broncos 17, Cowboys 10

On December 7, 2008, The Cowboys lost a 7 point game in Pittsburgh in which their defense played as well as they possibly could. They made a key 4th Quarter stand on 4th down, and tried to give the offense all they could to get the win.

But, the offense betrayed them.

It happened again yesterday in Denver. Despite the defense giving the team a game where you can really complain about one snap – they got beat in Denver. And, again, the offense betrayed them.

Winning on the road in the NFL is never easy. It requires a firm handle on ball security, and the ability to have a QB who can take a beating and still stick a throw in a tight spot under immense pressure. And in his last 4 road tests, Tony Romo has failed 3 – by a rather healthy margin.

Romo will get the headlines for yesterday’s loss in Denver, and in my estimation, much of it will be deserved. He missed too much, too often in Denver. Even in the most chaotic of situations, there will be plays to be made down the field. And when those situations appear, a QB is judged on his ability to put the ball where it has to be – no matter how badly he has been battered all game.

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Comment on a Comment

While we have a moment on a Saturday, I thought I would try to explain my hockey content plans for this season. This was a comment from a reader yesterday on my Broncos Game Plan:

Bob, PLEASE, tell me you’ll be writing something on the Stars. With tonight being opening nite and all, I was sure hoping to read your thoughts on the upcoming season. I know that since I’m from Texas it’s apparently sacrilege for me want hockey as much as football, but I do…

Please help.

My duties over here – due to time, family, life, and radio issues – is strictly NFL until the Cowboys season ends. At that point, I believe I will be back in “Free For All” form, which will include my beloved ice hockey. In the meantime, I actually do blog for Dallasstars.com. Perhaps, I should notify readers here with a link to let you know when I have done something new over there. Let me know if that is something you might be interested in. Also, keep in mind, that Jeff Miller will be doing his thing here all season, including a live blog tonight, I do believe. There are surely some times where Jeff and I will conduct some live chats during the game or other wild opportunities I haven’t even considered.

I know this is sort of complicated to track where I write certain things, so the easiest way to figure all of this out might be to follow me on Twitter .

Here are the last few things I have written on DallasStars.com:

Jamie Benn stuff

My Biggest Concern for ‘09

Overview of Expectations

Game Plan Friday: Denver Broncos

There are a lot of reasons why this game in Denver is one of the trendy upset picks across the league; Altitude. Noise. “Cowboys are over-rated”. “Broncos are under-rated”.

Whatever the reason, this is a game that most don’t want to miss. A true chance for both teams to prove what they are made of.

So, how do the Cowboys get to 3-1? By following a recipe that seems to be the best way for them to win games this year – Staking claim to that line of scrimmage.

I think we should all consider the way the Cowboys have played at the point of attack as the biggest source of optimism (and the most under-reported story) for this season to be the year the Cowboys break that dreaded 4,660 day drought since their last playoff win. With the exception of the defensive front seven in Tampa – a game which they admit they got “too cute” on their run blitzes and needed to just play “straight up” defense until proven otherwise – the Cowboys have been nearly impossible to run on. Two of the very best running offenses in the NFL have had no success against the Cowboys in the last few weeks. So much so that Carolina pretty much abandoned the run in the 2nd half altogether. That says quite a bit given how Carolina does business.

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Analyze the Enemy – Week 4 – Denver Broncos

THURSDAYS: We catch you up on this week’s opponent with an overall portrait of their team. This is not breaking down this week’s match-up, because that happens on Friday. This is just to set the table in preparation for laying out the gameplan.

Seven teams are undefeated in the National Football League through 3 games. Most of the 7 have major expectations this year for the playoffs and possibly the Super Bowl. The Saints, Giants, Vikings, Ravens, and Colts are thought to be amongst the best teams in the league. The final two teams are quite a surprise to the football world. The New York Jets – who offer a new coach and a rookie QB, and the unlikely story of this week’s opponent, the Denver Broncos.

Having watched the last two Denver games (at home vs. Cleveland; Away at Oakland) you certainly are impressed with a few aspects of this Broncos team. But overall, you are left wondering if their 3-0 start is more just a product of how their schedule is stacked.

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Football Musings on a Short Week

Short week, but as I break down the Broncos, check out some pretty good stuff including TC making another appearance with a solid breakdown of more Cowboys football:

First, let’s check in with our “winning correlation” numbers for the week. If you are familiar with what I am doing here, it is to check what people say about winning. Is it important to win the turnover battle to win a game? Absolutely, Positively! What about 100 yard rushers? Or 300 yard passers? Not as much. But there is still interesting stories to tell in each category. Here are the latest results:

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Football 301: Decoding Garrett – Week 3

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.

The win versus Carolina resulted in many people who follow this team to suggest it was a disappointing night for the offense. After all, they had 0 points at halftime, and really only accounted for 1 TD and 2 FGs against a defense that does not stun you with its talent.

But, was the offense bad? And if so, how do we define that?

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