SBNation.com User Blog: NYHorn

Bad Reasoning

NYHorn — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:25:04 -0000

This is going to be a quick post because I just want to make a single point. Take this case as a starting example:

Jake wants to ask Mary out on a date. Unfortunately for him before he gets the chance, John (his evil twin) swoops in and asks Mary out instead. She says yes and Jake now feels left out. He says to himself, "Man if only my evil twin John hadn't asked Mary out, I would've been able to." Unfortunately for him he doesn't know this fact: before his twin asked Mary out his cousin Jim was about to ask her out instead. If John had never asked Mary out, Jim would've been the first one to ask her out. Of course Jake doesn't know that and so he holds on to the false notion that if other conditions were present then he could've asked her out.

How often do we use counterfactual (contrary-to-fact) reasoning in our every day lives? Probably all the time. If I only hadn't done this is a common expression. Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be a reason to believe our counterfactuals are even close to being right. There are too many things that we just don't know anything about to be able to make inferences about what would've happened under entirely different circumstances. The butterfly effect is a good example of this. Quoted from the Wikipedia article:

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.

Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unlikely behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill may roll into any of several valleys depending on, among other things, slight differences in initial position.

Dynamic systems, under which systems of complicated cooperation and competition fall, involve many such butterfly effects, and thus room for false counterfactuals. What does this all mean?

Take the draft and Travis Frederick. "Expert", and I use that word lightly, consensus says that Frederick was a 3rd round pick that would've been available much later than the Cowboys picked him. The Cowboys themselves had a high 2nd round pick on him. Now most people say, "why not take Cyprien or Elam and then take Frederick in the 2nd or even 3rd." However this is the very kind of inferential counterfactual reasoning that will get you in trouble. Say that the Cowboys take Elam. Who do the Ravens take? Say that we can predict that far and say, well it's only logical to assume that the Ravens would then take Cyprien instead. But who would the Jags take then? It's not at all obvious that they would want Justin Hunter. Maybe they didn't have a good scouting report on him, so they take someone else. Lo and behold one small move sets off a dozens of different moves in motion and you have no idea how the rest of the draft plays out.

But don't think the problems with our what-ifs end there. Another problem with the draft is that it is a condensed model of game theory. Often times teams make decisions based not only on who they like, but who they think other teams will draft. For example, if you're worried your favorite 3rd rounder won't be there when you pick, you trade up to snag him before anybody else does. Problem is: it's not so easy to know who other people value. You can make vague guesses based off things like team needs and who the team has brought into scout, but the likelihood you'll have anything close to 100% accuracy is laughable at best.

Further, past behavior is indicative of future outcomes. The Cowboys see 4 guards taken in the first round so they don't want to be left out to dry, given how much of a run on line talent there has been in the draft. So they take the "last of the mohicans" as Jerry refers to Frederick as. It's a smart move based on worries about the future. But it angers people who thought there was better talent based off who was available.

Was it the right decision? I don't know. I don't know how to scout a safety versus scouting a guard. That's like apples and oranges to me. If you want a center and you think that Frederick is worth where you pick him, you take him. If it turns out the Cowboys were wrong and he's not a good player, that's one thing. I'm not implying that Frederick is destined for perennial pro-bowl appearances. I'm just saying that I've had enough of the flawed reasoning perpetrating BTB for the last 3 days.

This is going to be a quick post because I just want to make a single point. Take this case as a starting example:

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.

Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unlikely behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill may roll into any of several valleys depending on, among other things, slight differences in initial position.

Dynamic systems, under which systems of complicated cooperation and competition fall, involve many such butterfly effects, and thus room for false counterfactuals. What does this all mean?

Senior Bowl Open Thread

NYHorn — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:33:51 -0000

Use this thread to discuss the awesomeness of the god among Wide Receivers: Marquise Goodwin.Or you know any of those other guys.

Hmm... I somehow have to make this thing strech to the proper word limit. Alright I'm going to plagiarize Feeling Blue & Silver:

Rule #1 - Don't be That Guy -

THIS is most important. Don't ruin someone else's fun...I mean just don't do that.

Rule #2 - All Pictures and .Gifs Must Have Subject Lines -Some people are slackers and we go on Blogging the Boys during class because having your English teacher explain how to write persuasively kind of loses it's luster after a couple years. Some people even come here while they're supposed to be working (TIME THIEF!). So, for these people we must require you to put a subject line on all pictures, especially pictures of half naked women. - No nudity. That means no pictures of nipples, vaginas, anuses or penises. - Limit your gifs (less than 3 per user), I love gifs as much as the next guy but they have a tendency to slow down my computer. - Please check where the picture or gif came from. No one wants to get a virus, worm or trojan on their computer. Just remember that some people cannot afford to replace a computer every year.

Rule #3 - Be cool, man. No temper tantrums. No "threadbombing." -No need to lose your head. This is the internet, don't take these arguments seriously. If someone hurts your feelings, let it go or go outside for a walk. There's no need to make yourself look like a tool by ruining a thread. Outside of these, of course, as I have no dispensation from the bosses, normal site decorum is in effect.

Use this thread to discuss the awesomeness of the god among Wide Receivers: Marquise Goodwin.Or you know any of those other guys.

Hmm... I somehow have to make this thing strech to the proper word limit. Alright I'm going to plagiarize Feeling Blue & Silver:

Rule #1 - Don't be That Guy -

THIS is most important. Don't ruin someone else's fun...I mean just don't do that.

Whither Tony Romo?

NYHorn — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:58:44 -0000

I have tried to come to terms with the frustration and anger veered at one Tony Romo since the Sunday Night Football loss to one Washington Redskins team, the quarterback of whom is now the best thing since sliced bread. Romo threw a fateful interception on 1st down and the rest is history. The sinking pit I felt in my stomach is the second worst feeling I've had ever in my short tenure as a Cowboys fan- The worst was that dreadful loss to the Vikings in the 2009-2010 Playoffs.

Now, not unexpectedly, this shook the faith of many Dallas Cowboys fans in Tony Romo. I can't say I'm shocked but I don't think I'll ever quite understand. You see, unlike many, I don't value the Quarterback position that highly. What good is a quarterback when the receivers can't catch? What good is he when the Offensive Line cannot run block.

I've often heard it said that watching a good quarterback play is like watching an elaborately coordinated dance. The defense can try all it likes but he still carves it up. Is that true though? With the exception of Peyton Manning, the best quarterbacks in the league rely on a coordinated offensive gameplan that exploits the weaknesses of the defense while focusing on the strengths of the offense to reach their full potential. You have a receiver who cannot run routes? Let him stretch the defense on Go routes. You have an offensive line that can't run right? Run left. Their linebackers are hurt? Target the middle of the field. These are extremely simplistic versions of the gameplanning that offensive coordinators go through every week to get ready for the game.

What do you do with a Quarterback like Tony Romo? Over the course of his career Romo has averaged 13 interceptions a season. Romo threw 18 interceptions this season and going by 2012 we should've only won 6 games this year because of it. If Romo had thrown his career average we were projected to win 8.8 games. A record of 9-7 that may have gotten us into the playoffs, or it may not have.

However let's examine his interceptions more deeply. Over the course of his career Tony Romo has a 2.8% interception rate. Romo has averaged 463 passing attempts per season since 2006. That means every time he goes back to pass there is a 2.8% chance he'll throw an interception. In 2012 he had 648. Romo throw nearly 200 passes more than usual this year. Consequently his projected number of interceptions when he throws 648 passes is 18.1. Romo did throw a higher than average number of interceptions this year than compared to 2011. However given these numbers this is more likely due to a regression to the mean than him having a bad year.

This year Romo tended to throw interceptions in clumps. 14 of Romo's 18 interceptions came in 4 different games. Dallas was 0-4 in those 4 games. Over the course of his career Romo has had 10 3+ interception games. The Cowboys have lost 9 of them. We can rightly say that Romo loses the game for the Cowboys when he tosses 3 or more interceptions. Romo has played 94 games with the Cowboys and has lost 9 of them with interceptions.

I bring up interceptions because there is a belief that Romo somehow tends to choke and fold throwing inopportune interceptions in closeout games. Would you believe that 2012 is the first year that Romo has thrown more than one interception in a Week 17 game? This is the first closeout game that Romo has "lost" by throwing interceptions.

But, there is more to an offense than not throwing interceptions. Yards per attempt and Touchdowns contribute greatly to winning. The Dallas Cowboys offense with Romo in stead have had both in spades. 25 passing touchdowns and 7.18 NY/A has become the norm around Dallas. Romo has a 5.4% career touchdown rate. Romo tossed 28 more touchdowns this year and had a 6.8 NY/A. This season his touchdown rate was 4.3%

The offense was worse than a normal Dallas Cowboys offense this year, although Romo's numbers remained consistent. Romo's passing attempts were up and so too were his Touchdowns and Interceptions. His Interception Rate remained stable. However his NY/A and TD% were down.

Why do I go through these statistics? It's fairly simple. We can argue all day that Romo is unclutch and that's the reason the Cowboys can't do anything but it flies in the face of reason. Romo's interceptions/attempt remained stable but the potency of the Dallas Cowboys offense decreased. They could not score as easily and were less efficient. Romo was asked to throw for more in what became a dink and dunk passing attack but it didn't help the offense at all. Combine this with one of the worst rushing attacks in Dallas Cowboys history and the offense's lack of an efficient attack starts to make sense.

Tony Romo had, by all accounts, an average (for him) career year. He was a little shaky early but had some nice numbers and was part of the reason they were in a position for the playoffs this year. But, you say, my problem with the reason I don't like Romo is because he can't win in big games, not because he doesn't put up big numbers. Regardless of all of the circumstances of a down year for the offense, or a terrible year for the defense he had 3 minutes to drive down the field and win the game for the Cowboys. And he did throw an interception.

Well, that's true. But what does that mean? Do we check our brains at the door because of this. Do we ignore the other 15 games and 57 minutes because of one singular drive?

The Cowboys were 8-7 going into the Redskins game. They were on the outside looking in of a playoffs fielding one of the worst defenses and rushing attacks in franchise history. All 8 of their wins were come from behind victories. You cannot sustain that. You say that Romo had 3 minutes to prove himself a legend. I say that close games are a 50-50 affair and that it says something about the team that we were even in that position in the first place. This team couldn't get it done in the regular season. We had multiple opportunities against the Seahawks, Bears, Ravens, Giants Falcons and Saints. If we win any of those 2 this game is meaningless. Yet we didn't. We came out flat in the biggest game of the year and the Redskins outplayed us. Romo may have thrown that interception, but the team was the reason we were 8-7 before the game.

The saddest comment I heard after the loss is from a poster who said his heart told him that Romo was good enough to win the Superbowl but his head told him it wasn't. With all due respect I think it's the other way around. Romo has proven time and time again that he can play well enough to be one of the best QBs in the league. It's only the gut-wrenching losses and our overreactions which tell us he can't.

I've said my piece.

Well, that's true. But what does that mean? Do we check our brains at the door because of this. Do we ignore the other 15 games and 57 minutes because of one singular drive?

I've said my piece.

This Defense Isn't Good. It Probably Never Was

NYHorn — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:58:15 -0000

I hate to be the fly in the ointment. But seriously, what is this I'm hearing about this defense being great this year? It makes no sense to me.

The argument goes something like this: The defense is top 10 in yards allowed. Sure it's at the bottom of the league in points allowed but that's more a function of an offense that consistently turns the ball over. It was really great at run stopping until it lost all of the starters in the middle of the field. Lastly, and most importantly, it played substantially beter than the offense this year.

However, this is more of a function of an analysis which is focused on the wrong statistic. Yards allowed just isn't important as a tool for positive analysis. Sure, it can tell us quite a bit when the defense is giving up quite a few yards, but that's completely different. A defense which constantly takes the field at its own 20 yard line isn't going to give up as many yards as one which does at its opponent's 20. Because our offense has been consistently awful yardage doesn't meet any sort of principled standard as a barometer for our defense.

This is why defenses should be judged not in terms of a volume statistic but instead in terms of efficiency statistics. Efficiency statistics help explain the story not just of what happened, but how it happened. For example, if our offense is charging down the field at 10 yards per pass it seems obvious that it is consistently gaining first downs and giving the defense fits. Even better here is an explanation from Advanced NFL Stats about Y/A:

Yards per pass attempt is merely pass yards divided by pass attempts. So we have a relatively weak statistic (0.31) divided by an even weaker one with a negative correlation with winning (-0.17). We would expect to have a fairly meaningless result, but we don't. Passing efficiency turns out to be strongly correlated with winning (0.61). And unless having a lead in a game ‘causes’ a team’s passes to be more successful, we can safely say that passing efficiency leads to winning.

According to Footballperspective.com NY/A has a .50 correlation with winning football games

Some might argue that correlation doesn't imply causation. But it's hard to make that case here. Does winning cause passes to be more successful? It might, but there's no good explanation of why this is the case. On the other hand long passing does greatly affect a team's explanation of winning.

Is there an underlying cause both for winning and for having a passing game which has a high NY/A? Well this is up for some debate. There are teams which have a high NY/A but don't pass very much. Instead they employ a balanced attack with an effective running game. Their high NY/A can be explained by (1) the defense being forced to bring the safeties in to stop the run and (2) passing off of play action. The wins can be explained by an effective balanced offense. However we need to be careful here. Just because there may be an underlying cause in certain cases does not mean that there is one in all cases. Further we shouldn't focus on the running game in itself. There needs to be an effective deep passing game in order for the wins to come.

So, what do NY/A tell us about our defense? Below is a table of how efficient offenses have been against our defense versus how efficient they have been on average over the course of the season:

Game	Defensive NY/A	Opponent's Average NY/A
At NYG	5.8	6.8
At SEA	6.6	6.5
Tam	3.9	7.3
CHI	11.1	5.4
At BAL	8.8	6.4
AT CAR	5.8	6.9
NYG	6.6	6.8
AT ATL	9.7	7.3
At PHI	6.8	5.6
CLE	5.5	5.6
WAS	10.5	7.1

In Graph Format it looks like this:

It is staggering how many big plays this defense has given up over the course of the season. In only 5 games has the defense held the opposing offense to below its seasonal average in efficiency. To make matters worse when it doesn't hold a team's offense below it's average yards per attempt, it gives up yards in a big way.

In only 5 games this year has this team had a game with a Defensive NY/A of below league average.

Remember when I said above that a team with an effective running game forces the opposing defense to bring safeties down to cover the run and thus opens up the deep passing game? Well that's actually not what's happening in this case. Dallas is Top 10 in the league in opposing rush Y/A giving up only 4.1 yards/carry. (To be fair league average is 4.3 yards/carry)

This defense has shown great promise this year. It seems to perform well, and it has seemed to perform better than last year in a lot of important ways. Yet, there's still something missing from it, and it's not turnovers. The defense gives up way too many deep passes, and let's it's opponents pass all over it. They are giving up the same average NY/A per game as last year and yet they do look better.

In my opinion the corner-back heavy free agency has proven once again that this defense's most glaring needs were not at the CB or LB position, but where most of us always thought it was, along the defensive line and at the safety position.

I hate to be the fly in the ointment. But seriously, what is this I'm hearing about this defense being great this year? It makes no sense to me.

Yards per pass attempt is merely pass yards divided by pass attempts. So we have a relatively weak statistic (0.31) divided by an even weaker one with a negative correlation with winning (-0.17). We would expect to have a fairly meaningless result, but we don't. Passing efficiency turns out to be strongly correlated with winning (0.61). And unless having a lead in a game ‘causes’ a team’s passes to be more successful, we can safely say that passing efficiency leads to winning.

According to Footballperspective.com NY/A has a .50 correlation with winning football games

So, what do NY/A tell us about our defense? Below is a table of how efficient offenses have been against our defense versus how efficient they have been on average over the course of the season:

Game	Defensive NY/A	Opponent's Average NY/A
At NYG	5.8	6.8
At SEA	6.6	6.5
Tam	3.9	7.3
CHI	11.1	5.4
At BAL	8.8	6.4
AT CAR	5.8	6.9
NYG	6.6	6.8
AT ATL	9.7	7.3
At PHI	6.8	5.6
CLE	5.5	5.6
WAS	10.5	7.1

In Graph Format it looks like this:

In only 5 games this year has this team had a game with a Defensive NY/A of below league average.

Enemy Film Review- Seahawks Offense

NYHorn — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 00:40:23 -0000

So, this idea came out of my love for reviewing film from NFL games for all of the useful tidbits that we often miss when we watch the games. So, of course, I wanted to review the stellar game 1 victory against the New York Giants. But it seems ~~someone~~ everyone has grown enamored with film review. (This is a great thing for Blogging the Boys, just bad for me).

So all of my favorite plays have already been covered, and put to bed. If I were to cover them I'd just be beating a dead horse.

But fear not my friends, for I have devised a solution. Rather than reviewing our games, I shall review our next opponent's games. Warning: These reviews are not fully comprehensive. I really can't bring myself to watch 60 minutes of any other team's football and so I will be reviewing first quarter film plus any big plays that occur over the rest of the game. Hopefully this will give us a good look at what our opponent likes to do with the football and what works well for them.

So all of my favorite plays have already been covered, and put to bed. If I were to cover them I'd just be beating a dead horse.

Standard Offensive Sets:

So, if this is a surprise to anyone, the Seahawks love to run the Football. They currently feature a Dynamic Duo in the running game with Marshawn Lynch resurrecting his career in Seattle after it was given up for dead in Buffalo and a Rookie QB who is a dual threat. Their Offensive sets and run plays reflect this. Take this first-drive running play that the 'Hawks run:

The Seahawks employ a 2 Tight End 1 Running Back 1 H-Back set with 2 Wide Receivers set out Left. Wilson is under center. The Tight End next to the Right Tackle leads Arizona to believe that Seattle might run Right. They have two run-stoppers on the right side of the offensive line, although blockers dictate it will probably be a left-side run. This is important.

At the start of the play the Line begins a left blocking scheme. All blockers are shifting left. One of the linebackers rushed past the line trying to blow up the play. The other linebacker/safety is well outside of the scope of the play and probably won't be able to get back into the play in time to do anything.

As you can see in the last image of the play, number 22 is completely out of the play. If blockers make their blocks and Lynch breaks a tackle this could go a long way. Rob Ryan should employ Bruce Carter as the weaker side ILB. He has the closing speed to make it back into the play even if he is starting on the opposite side and the play is being run opposite him. Having one more linebacker to make the tackle is going to be important in the running game. The last thing we want is big runs being broken because of a lack of personnel.

Here's an example of another play. This is a designed QB run for Wilson:

The other major formation that the Seahawks like to run is the spread shotgun formation. They line up 3-4 Wide Receivers, and depending on that number, 1 running back beside Wilson. The only real disadvantage with this formation is that the only real effective running scheme is a delayed draw play. However, the Seahawks use this formation in an ingenious way to set up an outside run for Wilson that could easily have gone in for a Touchdown. Barring that, it should have gotten enough yardage for a First Down.

Braylon Edwards is the Wide Receiver at the top of the image. Just before the snap he is going to start jogging to the line of scrimmage to fill the gap between the Slot Receiver and the Left Tackle where a Rushing Defensive End can come in and blow up the play.

When Wilson snaps the ball the Left Tackle is going to wrap around his two receivers to block anyone between them and the sideline. The Running Back will also run that way to try to get as many blockers over there as possible. It is essential that Braylon Edwards makes his block otherwise Wilson is going to take a big hit. The slot receiver just has to seal up the guy in front of him and the play should go for positive yardage.

As you can see both Edwards and the Slot Receiver make their blocks. Edwards manages to take the Cardinals Defensive End to his knees, effectively eliminating him from the play. The Cornerback has actually been pushed towards the opposite sideline a couple of feet. There are only two people left who could stop Wilson from getting the first down. The Left Inner Linebacker and the Cornerback who was supposed to cover Edwards. Obviously with two blockers, the Tackle should attack the Linebacker and the Running Back should attack the Cornerback, right? Wrong:

They both attack the Linebacker, allowing the Cornerback to make a free hit on Wilson. In all fairness, this is a matchup that Wilson might have been able to win, perhaps it would've been better for him to bump out towards the sideline, instead of running straight, but again this is a play that should probably have gone for a first down if blocked correctly. Say what you want about the passing game, and believe me there is a lot to say about it, Pete Carroll knows how to run the football and run it well. If guys execute their blocks then it's going to be deadly against the Cowboys.

Big Plays

So now that I've covered some basic formations and philosophies of the Seahawks offense let's cover the Big Plays throughout the game.I classify a Big Play as a Play in which the Offense scores a Touchdown or in which a play is broken for more than 30 yards.

This week there were only 2 "Big Plays" but I'm only going to cover one because the other one was just a seam route to a Tight End on a Hail Mary play to end the half.

This play features a formation that for lack of a better term I will describe as a Pistol-hybrid formation. After all players are lined up with 3 Wide Recievers and a Running Back 2 yards back to the right of the Quarterback, Wilson runs into the offensive line as if he is making adjustments at the LOS. However, as opposed to running back to his initial position, he instead stays there.

The major routes for this play are a crossing route between Sydney Rice and the Slot Receiver and a seam route by the Tight End. Wilson is going to snap the ball under center, and the Running Back is going to run a dumpoff route.

This is a good read by Wilson. It looks like his first read is the Slot Receiver who has positioning underneath the Defensive Backs near the goal line. While he could make the play and get a Touchdown, it's not very likely and the Seahawks would probably have to settle for a Field Goal. Instead there is a hole in the Cardinals defense that Rice is going to exploit, and Wilson is going to see.

The pass is a little high, but Rice snags it, and could probably fall in for the first down. The Seahawks score a Touchdown on the play and the score becomes 13-10. Is it just me or does the Cornerback behind Rice look terrified in this picture?

Conclusions:

I came away from this review apprehensive of the running game, and not that worried about the passing game. It seems like Wilson is content to dink and dunk the football as is evident by the number of Big Plays by the offense. It's possible that the Cardinals Defense, which is admittedly a really good defense, was good enough to prevent any big plays, but I just don't think that's likely. One thing I will give Wilson is that he does seem to be a multi-read Quarterback, which is a good sign for his future as an NFL player. Let's hope that we can give a similar defensive effort to the Cardinals and hold them to small chunks of yardage. That's our best bet.

Cowboys Game 1 Recap

NYHorn — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:52:10 -0000

Great game last night. Lots of points I want to make but I want to add a new section to my recap posts.

Expected Win Projections

As most of you know, Statistics are great. Well, when I say great, I mean they're great for a nice rear-view mirror look at what happened during a game. I couldn't tell you how well the Boys are going to do against the Seahawks because of last night, and that's just an aspect of Seattle being a completely different team than NY. However, a funny thing does happen with statistics. Over the course of a season, you can start converting them into expected wins with a couple of different formulas. You've probably seen these before from both OCC and FiTaT. I want to do a cumlative approach this season and show how different games and factors affect our final win tally. Just how much does 1 bad or good game affect our win tally?

(Well obviously there's no causal link but it will be interesting to see whether or not updated projections from a bad game will factor into our final win tally)

So without further ado here's my first set of predictions.

Great game last night. Lots of points I want to make but I want to add a new section to my recap posts.

Expected Win Projections

(Well obviously there's no causal link but it will be interesting to see whether or not updated projections from a bad game will factor into our final win tally)

So without further ado here's my first set of predictions.

NY/A

I'm obsessed with this statistic. Ok, maybe not "really" obsessed but I still think it's really valuable. As a disclaimer, I just want to say that it's dangerous to use this as a statistic to measure a QB. This stat should measure a team offense and a team defense.

Week	O NY/A	D NY/A	Projected Wins
1	9.35	5.34	23.16

So, yeah. That's the one downside to this formula. It's slow to get started. I mean, don't get me wrong it would be great for the Cowboys to win 23 wins but that's just not possible. Well, maybe the Cowboys could break the laws of football, but I wouldn't bet on it. Give this statistic a few weeks to get off the ground then hopefully it will start looking reasonable. Or the Cowboys could just be the best team ever. Yeah, I'm going with that.

NB: This is a correlative projection based off of a Linear Regression. No team in my calculations finished the year with a NY/A Differential as high as 4. That will come down. A couple of losses and close games should bring that down.

Pythagorean Wins:

I'd like to think Bill James' spirit lives on within all of us. Wait, what do you mean he's still alive? Well regardless, Bill James' Pythagorean model of wins still is one of the most accurate predictors of future success.So let's see what this specific 1 win tells us about the Cowboys Chances so far:

Week	Points Scored	Points Allowed	Projected Wins
1	24.00	17.00	10.64

Yeah, looks pretty good. So a warning stating the obvious. This is taking the statistical sample of one game. I don't want anyone think the Cowboys are guaranteed 10-11 wins because of 1 win versus the Giants this year, although I think all of you know that. Of course the projection looks good; we haven't lost yet. That will change. I doubt this team is a 16 winner.

NB: This is based off the formula ((Points Scored)^2)/((Points Scored)^2+(Points Alowed)^2)* Total Number of Games

So that's what the two indicators look like so far. I'll keep cumulative updates on these statistics as the season goes on and we'll see if these stats become indicators of the team's success over the course of the season.

Please leave a comment below if you have any other indicators you want me to monitor over the course of the season.

Other Thoughts

Well with the statistics out of the way I wanted to comment on other relevant items:

The Emergence of Kevin Ogletree:

I'm eating crow this morning, and I'm eating a lot of it. On August 12th when I heard Kevin Ogletree was in the lead for the 3rd Wide Receiver position I made this insightful comment:

Right:
The man who in the last 3 years has had 25 receptions and 294 yards is by far the model of consistency the Cowboys must relish.

I don't know what got into this guy. Well, OK I have a theory, and others have stated things similar to this but I want to put my own version out there. The #3 Wide Receiver position might be the most important position on the Dallas Cowboys Offense. With Miles Austin and Dez Bryant you have two match up busters who will always demand a lot of respect by opposing coordinators because they will beat you if you slack up a little. (They often did beat the Giants last night)

So if your first and second Wide Receivers are being double covered and bracketed all night, especially if your Hall Of Fame Tight End is a (very heroic) non-factor, then there's very little chance they'll be able to have 150 yard games with a couple of Touch Downs. Kevin Ogletree got burn, because you can't double cover everyone. You can't have six Defensive Backs covering 3 receivers, a Linebacker covering your Tight End and hope to stop the run with 4 men in the box. That's not to mention the threat of throwing the football to your Running Back. So one of the Wide Receivers is going to get single coverage, and that should be the 3rd receiver. It is incumbent to have a good 3rd WR, especially if your Offensive Line still isn't getting you the time needed for your match-up busters to get open. I don't think Laurent Robinson broke out last year, Robinson did his job and rode a great QB to a great #2 WR contract.

Kevin Ogletree did what he needed to do to get good enough to be a target for Romo. That's what we need from him. If he keeps it up he'll be a thousand yard receiver no problem.

The Defense:

Wow, how about this team's performance. Whatever way you slice it this was good. We held the Giants defense to a 5.34 NY/A. Eli got 213 yards on 32 passes. That's incredible. And the point I want to emphasize is this, Eli didn't throw a pick. Maybe this is counter-intuitive, but what I mean is this: Turnovers greatly affect the outcome of the game. If you cough up a turnover there's a much slimmer chance of you winning. I'm aware of the WIlson turnover, but that didn't result in anything. This defense was downright dominant, and it did so without being opportunistic.

It's a bit to early to generalize, but if this defense can keep it up, the turnovers will come (most likely). This team can be good without relying on turnovers. That's a great sign.

How about that goal-line stand by the way? I don't care about the no-call on Scandrick; it makes up for the horrible no-call on Marty B for pushing off of the Safety. That was a downright dominant defense. Yes, I'm aware that the Giants running game isn't the best, but do you recall how much the Giants rushed against us last year? It certainly didn't feel like they were a bad rushing team. So I'm going to enjoy that they had to settle for a Field Goal.

Romo:

This wasn't the best game of his career. Oh don't get me wrong, it was amazing. But has everyone forgot 2011 against Buffalo? That was an AMAZING game, versus a team everyone thought was playoff caliber.

Quarterbacks are going to throw interceptions. Romo couldn't step into the pass and so made a bad pass. It happens, the Defense stepped up. There is no value you can place on a defense that can cover its offense's mistake. I'm of the impression that for the past couple of years that has been what is missing from the Cowboys. Teams sometimes throw duds, and the offense won't always be dominant. Is the defense good enough that most of the games the Offense implodes it can step up and keep us in the game? I can remember one or two times last year that was the case, but the defense needs to be much better than that. I still expect the offense will have to cover up for the defense sometimes, but if the defense can cut down on the number of times that is necessary and can return the favor to the offense, we're looking at the beginnings of a really good football team.

That's a lot of ifs, but that's what's to be expected from Week 1 Football. Take your time and enjoy the win Cowboys fans; they deserved the win. This team is not in mid-season form, that should scare all of us. I'm aware that neither the Giants nor any other team is, but the Cowboys displayed a level of dominance that should have us licking our chops.

But hey, that could just be the kool-aid talking.

Question from Dallas Fan new to Atlanta

NYHorn — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:49:20 -0000

Does anyone on BtB know of any Pro-Cowboys sports bars in the Atlanta area. Just wondering if that is a thing down here

Preseason Game 1: What to Make of the First Team Offense

NYHorn — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:45:52 -0000

Terrible, just terrible. I don't know what else to make of the First Team Offense last night. Well, ok I do.

I'm just going to cut right to the elephant in the room: The O-Line. We had good and bad from last night. First of all, from what I saw, Tyron Smith looked good at the Left Tackle Position. David Arkin was kept in for 3 quarters at the Center Position and while I didn't think he blocked well, he didn't have a bad snap. And, boy is it painful that that is a positive.

However, the Oline as a whole, especially against the Raiders First Team Offense, was absolutely atrocious. And I have heard the excuses. I have heard the fact that we were missing two projected starters on the Offensive Line, and that this will be the magic pill which cures our woes. Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating but certainly there is some hope in the Offensive Line that it will be better with health.

To this I say, not good enough.

Terrible, just terrible. I don't know what else to make of the First Team Offense last night. Well, ok I do.

To this I say, not good enough.

Here's the thing about Football: injuries happen. Are we going to forget the reason that Costa and Livings are out is because of injuries? So we're missing our Starting Center and one of our Starting Guards, and we're going to act like this is impossible during the Regular Season? Backups are there for a reason. I guarantee at sometime during this season one or more of our Oline starters will be hurt and we will have to look at a backup.

Remember last year, when Kevin Kowalski acquitted himself well as a backup center during the preseason, we were happy that we had somebody to backup Costa if he got hurt? That's what we want to see, and that's what we didn't see. I don't want the Cowboys entire season hopes to be based off 5 starters, 2 of whom were pickups from teams who didn't want them anymore.

Look, I get that the backups are not going to be as good as the Starters, but what an indictment of the Dallas Cowboys O-line that if we lose 2 starters, it is going to just fold like a pile of cards. And to make it worse after an unsuccessful 2nd Drive Garrett had to throw Romo out for a third series; somehow trying to prove that the offense was better than what it showed during the second series.

And it was a great idea, don't get me wrong. I mean, the Raiders had already put out their second team defense, and it should have been a slam dunk where the first team overpowered a bunch of backups. Of course, when the Cowboys had a 3 and out, and were giving up penetration to back-up players, that just made fans more anxious.

When Romo was interviewed after the game about the O-Line he had this to say (Quote Courtesy of Cowboys Corner):

"You look at the coverages they were running, we could have gotten to some thing we really like but that’s not what we do in the pre-season. And for good reason," Romo said.

Now, I trust Romo. I trust that Romo believes that, and further Romo will make do with what he has. But, you cannot tell me that this is the kind of O-line we want to give him. Let's take the assumption that this was a vanilla scheme. If it was, then a lot of what we should have been seeing during Run plays was straight 1 on 1 blocking. The Cowboys failed at that. Miserably. And not just against the Starters but against the Second Team. We generated no push along the lines really at any point of the game.

Let's take the vanilla idea a little further. If the Offense is running a vanilla scheme, then the opposing Defense should be doing so as well. And on straight four man rushes, our O-line was manhandled. Starters were whiffing blocks and there were a couple of times last night I was worried Romo was going to be injured, and badly.

Now, I have been being pessimistic. I still agree with Romo that when the schemes are implemented our offense will start looking better. Still, just once, I would like to see schemes improve an already good line rather than covering up a weakness.

The thing we can do right now is sign someone. Montrae Holland is looking pretty good right now, right? And guess what, we really should've signed him before last night, because the Cowboys offensive line woes just made this a seller's market, and they are going to have to pay a pretty penny for Holland, perhaps more than before the game.

My point is this: we should have drafted better over the past half-decade. I know there's no sense crying over split milk, but I'm not going to lie. If we win this year it will be in spite of the O-line, not because of it.

How Can the Cowboys Improve (Part 2)? Inner Linebacker Position

NYHorn — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:57:16 -0000

Could the reuniting of these two Lions make the Linebacking Corps Elite?

To start this article I want to pay tribute to both Keith Brooking and Bradie James. Keith Brooking was one of the better linebackers of the early 00's and gave us a great 2009 season (the best Cowboys campaign in recent memory) before slowly starting to lose a step. Bradie James was a 4th Round Draft Pick by the Cowboys who developed into a solid MLB who was the tackling leader on this team for years. I feel especially bad for James because he started to lose a step in his late 20s and was never really recognized for his consistency and leadership nor did he ever reach the promised land with this team.

Even in their decline neither of them showed the slightest lack of class or resentment towards the younger players, and were still valuable leaders for the 2010 and 2011 Cowboys.

However, it is impossible for me to say with a clean conscience that James and Brooking were not part of the problem for the Dallas Cowboys defense in 2011. I want to explore some of this, while also looking ahead to Connor and Carter and give reasons for optimism for the 2012 season.

Could the reuniting of these two Lions make the Linebacking Corps Elite?

It was apparent that the Cowboys saw both the future in Sean Lee as well as the deterioration of the careers of both Brooking and James. We can see this very early on from the Cowboys mentality when in an August 30th article Tim MacMahon had this to say about Jason Garrett's philosophy:

If Sean Lee is better than Keith Brooking and/or Bradie James, that will be reflected by the snap totals. Captains don't get a pass.

"When you can create that environment and that message is sent throughout your team -- and it's not just a message, there are examples that run through the team -- I think that's a really good thing for everyone," Brooking said. "That's what pushes you, that's what makes you better.
"We're all human. Regardless of your mentality, your mindset, your approach, if you know something's been given to you, obviously your approach could be a little different as opposed to going out there and earning it every day and taking nothing for granted, ever, in everything that you do."

And we saw the reflected snap totals immediately in Week 1 against the Jets where Sean Lee saw 55 snaps and both Brooking and James less than 30 each. Unfortunately I do not have access to the statistics for all 16 NFL games because I don't have an account with PFF, however it is most certainly possible to extrapolate from these statistics (especially since PFF has mentioned several times that defensive snaps stayed relatively the same)

PFF actually tells us that Sean Lee had about 868 snaps and I'm going to guess both Brooking and James had about 550 snaps with the limited remaining snaps going to Bruce Carter, when he came back from the PUP list. Now PFF had an interesting idea when it came to snaps charting points per snap as a rating system to give the overall efficiency of a player.

I had a similar idea: why don't we chart the productivity of linebackers by their efficency in tackling. It was only after this brilliant idea that I discovered that PFF has already done most of the legwork for me. Disclaimer: there is really no sweet spot of how many tackles a team has and their best chance to win.

Too many tackles can actually be a bad thing especially by the wrong position group: I really don't want my safeties making a lot of tackles because if they are making so many that means many big plays are actually being given up by the defense and the safeties are having to clean up after the rest of the defense.

However in that same vein if we examine the philosophy of the 3-4 I think we can explain wanting to see as many tackles as possible from a 3-4 ILB. The point of the 3-4 is to have 3 defensive linemen clogging up the offensive line so that linebackers are free to wrap up the rushers and receivers. So, in that sense we want our linebackers to be making as many tackles as possible in order to limit the Yards after Catch of opposing players. Of course on the other hand, if our ILBs are making too many tackles then that means that too big a proportion of plays are being targeted at them, and they're probably not a strength of the defense.

It's a double-edged sword and one that we have to respect carefully if we want to truly understand the defense.You want your linebackers to be good enough that the offense doesn't target them, but also for them to get theirs and have lots of tackles so that other weaknesses aren't exploited. It's a question that I cannot solve with statistics, and one in which the science of film study will tell us a lot more about our situation than these stats. Of course PFF probably already has a stat to deal with this and I'm just missing it.

Regardless the Tackles per snap mechanic will help us rate the efficiency of a player in tackling. According to PFF Sean Lee was the 14th best linebacker in Tackles/Snap % as he had an 11.6% rate of tackling when he played. And the guy is an absolute workhorse logging 866 snaps in a sophomore season where he missed basically an entire game due to injury.

Interestingly enough, number 3 on the list is a name somewhat familiar to us Cowboys fans, and I assume will become much more familiar over the course of the season: Dan Connor. That's right, in 477 snaps Dan Connor logged 66 tackles good enough for a 13.8% Tackle/Snap rate. Neither Bradie James nor Keith Brooking were on this list, but again this is a list of the top 15 of every inner linebacker on every team, roughly 128 so it's not a big surprise that neither of these names were there.

So, how are we to use this stat to project what would be a great season for our linebacking corps? Well, a great year relies on at least two of our 3 projected contributors at the ILB to progress and I'm going to place my wagers on those two players being Sean Lee and Bruce Carter. I think Dan Connor will be a great addition to this team if he gives us 500 snaps. (For the sake of argument I'm going to assume that one ILB spot will have about 1100 snaps total which includes however many nickel snaps there will be and the other will have about 850) What would be even more of an aid would be him keeping his rate of tackling the same for 69 tackles over the course of the season

That will leave 1300 snaps among Lee, Carter and their backups, probably Lemon and one other. I believe that Lee will have about 900 snaps over the course of the season and hopefully will increase or maintain his tackling rate at about 12% for about 108 tackles over the course of the season.

Finally there is Carter who will get about 500 snaps both at the linebacker and nickel linebacker spot. Honestly I'm going to try to keep this prediction at a realist level because we know absolutely nothing about him. I would be thrilled if he tackled at a 8.9% rate for 44 tackles over the course of the season.

This gives the Big Three of the linebacking corps, about 221 tackles to the average amount of tackles for a team at about 950 or about 23% of our team's tackles. By comparison last year the Chicago Bears had about 969 tackles 260 of which came from their linebackers for about 27% of their team's tackles. In short this improvement would be nothing short of momentous. Last year. the ILBs for the Cowboys had 207 tackles of 979 or about 21% of the team's total tackles.

More importantly they would combined have an 11.6% tackle/snap% good enough for 14th place on the ILB tackling percentage chart. Our group would be good enough for a top 15 linebacker spot by this efficiency stat.

Note, however, that I did not stretch too much to find these numbers, assuming no development from Connor, little development from Lee, and an average tackling year from Carter the defense might actually have good tackling from their linebackers. The group might not yet be elite, but this would most definitely be an improvement and one way in which we could see real improvement from the defense this year.

Anything else would just be gravy.

How much of an Upgrade was this offseason (Part 1)

NYHorn — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:55:58 -0000

People who have read my comments and posts before know that I can be alternatively one of the most homeristic not-paying-attention to facts fans on this site, but at other times one of the most cynical.

It really all comes down to the time period. Frankly once the coin is tossed on September 5th, my cynicism goes out the window and is replaced with a hope-springs-eternal mentality that lasts for 16 (sometimes 17 or 18) games only to be shattered during the months of December or January.

Although I am not a huge fan of Colin Cowherd he made an important point Yesterday on his show. When is a very important word. In his own words: If you're having a beer at 8PM in a bar, it's Happy Hour. If you're having a beer at 5am in a bar, you're an alcoholic.

I am totally OK with being a homer, and putting on my blinders every day of the Football season (except for Monday Morning QBing of course).

I am also totally OK with others being cynical because at the end of the day, it's apparent that we all just want the same thing: The Good Guys to win a Superbowl.

Now that I've gotten that important disclaimer out of the way, it's time to put on my cynicism goggles for the 2012 season:

Carr, Claiborne, Pool, Connor, Carter, Lissemore, Crawford.

These are names that need to have production this season if we are to have a shot at a deep playoff run. To say that our Defense last year was awful would be an understatement. Our Passing Defensive Net Yards per attempt (Total Yards Allowed- Sack Yards/ Total Plays) of 7.6 was good enough for 9th worst in the league in a Passing League.

To give an indicator of just how bad that is, here is a list of teams that had a 7.6 or higher Offensive NY/A Passing record last year: Green Bay, New England, NYG, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Oakland, Carolina, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Detroit.

7 of those teams were playoff teams. We basically allowed opposing teams to have Playoff level offenses against us. Heck, the only reason we won 8 of our games is because our offense was that good.

An eyeball test example: New York Giants Match up Number 1: The Offense got a lead the defense couldn't keep it. Interesting tangent: The offense was great that game but yet again it gets blamed for a loss because of what it couldn't do rather than what it did

Alright, we know there's a problem; how do we solve it? Everyone has a personal goat that they blame for the defense's problems. But a lot of the time, I think we, as fans, suffer from selective memory. Sure, I remember that Giants TE frog leaping Terrence Newman, but I'm not qualified to say that because of that one play he was awful last season (although he was and you're a horrible person for thinking otherwise). I said this last article: it's not just one person. It's never just one person. We might, might be able to blame a position group for the defense's problem, although I am loathe to do so.

This is where my thought process kicks in: Some of the people may be wrong all the time; All of the people may be wrong some of the time; But all of the people cannot be wrong all of the time. There were very much glaring holes on the Cowboys' Defense Last Season: The Statistics tell us that; I saw them; You saw them; Opposing Offensive coordinators saw them. They didn't just spontaneously generate in our heads. In the first Philadelphia game the Eagles decided to target the middle of field (Linebacker territory), and they got away with it. Heck, that game changed my opinion on Sean Lee's capacity as a coverage linebacker (Although he was only in the game for a quarter), because once he left the linebackers actually got better. We also cannot deny that when Alan Ball was in the game opposing offenses seemed to target his side of the field.

This one is kind of biased, and I know the numbers don't always support it, but I felt that the D-Line group wasn't getting enough Push on the O-Line enough of the time. The safeties themselves didn't do badly, but they certainly weren't exceptional.

So where does that leave us? Inner Linebackers, D-Linemen, Corner-backs, Safeties. All of these groups needed upgrades this off season. If even one of these groups became elite I'm sure the defense would've been much better.

So that brings me back to my initial point: Carr, Claiborne, Pool, Connor, Carter, Lissemore, Crawford. 2 Corner-backs, 1 Safety, 2 Inner Linebackers, 2 Defensive Linemen. I truly believe we need at least 5 of these players to be huge upgrades over what we had last season. We need to upgrade at least 2 of our position groups to cover up holes in the remaining two position groups.

How can we tell if they are an upgrade? I have some ideas on that, stay tuned for the next article . However at this time consider me cynical. It's hard enough to expect 3 players to be an upgrade? 5/7 of these players when only 1 of them has even been a bona fide starter? I wouldn't take those odds if I were a betting man. What do you think?

Let's Look at the Big Picture

NYHorn — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:11:01 -0000

Can we really determine which one of these guys is better based off stats and win totals?

Hey BtB, it's been a while and I think we should have a talk. Pull up a chair; sit down; have a drink. Where have I been you might ask? I've been enduring the torture of lacking a computer for about 3 weeks. Mobile commenting is depressing, mobile fanpost writing is impossible. Basically I've been off the grid for a while now. Now believe me, it's nothing personal.Now as it's been a while I have several ideas up my sleeve that I want to write stories on; so here's to the first in a long series of Off-Season posts describing just what is on my mind.

Can we really determine which one of these guys is better based off stats and win totals?

This first post was inspired by an debate I got into with a fellow BtB member and a Giants fan a few weeks back when discussing offenses, quarterbacks and, of course, whether Eli Manning or Tony Romo was better. Over the course of my football career my opinions on the relative strength of the Quarterback position have vacillated. Although part of me wants to say that the QB is the most important position on the football field and all (offensive) success is caused by him, there is another equally great part which denies this fact whenever my favorite QB chokes or we lose a ball game. Then, it is a team loss for which the whole team is responsible.

No more, I say. No longer will I or any Romo supporter by shackled by the contradictions placed upon us by our conflicting view points. Did that seem a little over-dramatic? It probably was, but it is really just my happiness with a system that gives credit to the QB play while also giving a little love to the ten other players on the field. Follow me on a journey of the aggregate of football.

ag·gre·gate- Noun: A whole formed by combining several (typically disparate elements

For an explanation of what I'm getting at envision a play. Romo throws a pass to Dez Bryant for 6 yards. This is what the summary of a play is going to say on a stat sheet.

Let's look at the play a little closer: Romo is lined up behind center with a Fullback offset to his right and Demarco Murray lined up at RB. In front of him Jason Witten is lined up to the Right of the O-Line, Miles Austin is lined up at the X WR spot, Dez Bryant is lined up at the Z WR spot and (for the sake of argument) Laurent Robinson is lined up in the slot.

Romo snaps the ball, but the handoff isn't perfect he bobbles the ball with the center and takes a half a second to regain control of the ball. Tyron Smith perfectly seals the pass rusher, Doug Free contains his man for 2 seconds but then lets him through. Jason Witten runs a curl route luring in one of the LBers to guard him. On the left Miles Austin runs a slant route through the middle drawing the other LBer as well as his own CB. Dez Bryant (The 1st read for this play) makes an in route and runs across the middle. Now that both Linebackers are drawn in coverage Romo throws a pass that leads Bryant in front of the CB. He extends his arms and makes a catch for six yards. As soon as Romo has thrown the ball he takes a shot from the Weak side pass rusher.

These are all things that have happened in that very same play that can be summarized as simply as Romo to Bryant for 6. Are we really supposed to ignore these variables when determining the outcome of a play? Imagine the same play as above but instead of being drawn into coverage by Miles Austin the Weak-Side Linebacker stays in zone and when Romo leads Dez to the left, he jumps the route and intercepts the ball. I'm sure in this play we'd hear the monotonous "Not again, Romo" chants coming from Cowboys fandom as if it were that simple.

Football is a game of 11 players on one side facing off 11 "equally" (and I use that term loosely) talented players on the other side of the field. Aggregate Statistics is my attempt to account for this fact and give credit to both sides, although I'm well aware that this isn't perfect. Too often a play devolves into: Romo made a horrible pass; Eli made a horrible pass; great route by Dez etc.

I don't buy it. We might as well just play 2-2 football if we are going to accept this fact. Am I really supposed to buy that we line-up 11 people on the field just so that we have options in case the first three designated targets are well covered? Football Offensive coordinators design plays just for these purposes and if they don't, sign me up for a job I'll show the NFL a thing or two.

So how should we reconcile these two different views on offense? My solution is simple and yet has great ramifications on how we should view the game of Football. QB stats are still important. YPA, Completion Percentage and TD:Int ratio as well as win totals are important things to look at. The flaw occurs when we extrapolate from this the merit of our individual QBs. Tony had a good game, Eli had a bad game, Vick had a horrendous game. Our focus should be on the ability of the offense to produce yardage and touchdowns not of individual players. The greatest regular season QB of all time has only won one championship due to a lack of a surrounding cast. (At least in Peyton's case we have a sample season to determine just how much of a drop off there is from Manning to an average QB).

Unfortunately we are now led to the downside of the theory and it would be misleading to suggest there isn't one. My theory having focused upon the importance of judging a team's performance has now opened up the question of how we should judge individual performances. Let's say that one or multiple cogs in the offense or defense are not working. How do we know which ones if we are going to judge a team as a whole. I do not have a compelling answer to this question but I do have two potential answers.

First:: The eye test and analysis of game tape are especially important. When you watch a play ask yourself what was this players role in this play? Did he execute it? Did the player win his 1-1 matchup? If the answer is yes then you know the player is playing well. For the QB ask yourself did he make proper reads? Did he get the ball where it needed to go? Did he improvise correctly when the play didn't work as planned?

Second: Have good coaches. This may seem like a cop out but ultimately our opinion on whether a player is good or not has no bearing on what the coaches do. I wanted a Center in the draft; the team felt differently. Guess whose opinion won out in the end. Analysis on our end should tell us how a team is doing it's not particularly concerned with how a certain player is doing.

Finally: Have fun and be a fan. Analysis is essentially a retrospective thing to do to determine how we can improve so we can win more. There would be no point to it if we didn't have any fun watching the game. We're allowed to have favorites; we're allowed to hate certain players. We're allowed to be emotional it comes with the territory. Just when you take your retrospective try not to blame certain players just by their stat total. Football is a team game.

Five Questions You've Never Been Asked (With Miles Austin and Tony Romo)

NYHorn — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:38:52 -0000

Five Questions You've Never Been Asked (With Miles Austin and Tony Romo)

PRPR: Pass Rusher or Defensive Back

NYHorn — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:31:52 -0000

I made this article in response to ScarletO's excellent post on the need for cornerbacks in a good defense. To preface, I agree with Scarlet in premise, but I disagree with his conclusions that Pass rushers play less of a role in a defense than we generally think. I'm generally taken aback by this comment:

With the Giants winning the Super Bowl a few months ago, it is easy to assume that a powerful pass rush is the key to victory in the NFL. Improving the pass defense to make it difficult on opposing quarterbacks, however, seems to be closely linked to the quality of the secondary.

Once again, I think that Scarlet makes a great point, but he is giving pass rushers a short shrift, and inflating the importance of the Secondary slightly.

With the Giants winning the Super Bowl a few months ago, it is easy to assume that a powerful pass rush is the key to victory in the NFL. Improving the pass defense to make it difficult on opposing quarterbacks, however, seems to be closely linked to the quality of the secondary.

Once again, I think that Scarlet makes a great point, but he is giving pass rushers a short shrift, and inflating the importance of the Secondary slightly.

I'm always wary of anointing one group as more effective towards a better defense than another.

Case in point: It is very true that sacks have little correlation with passer rating. However, that makes sense. Why? Because when QBs get sacked they don’t throw the football, i.e. they cannot possibly affect their QB rating that play.

I have never prescribed to the theory that QBs who are sacked more are going to be quicker and more anxious with their passes than QBs who are not. If a team allows 50 (A bad O-Line plus a QB who takes a while to make decisions) sacks a year that means they are allowing 3.1 sacks/game. If there are 50 total offensive plays, and the team has a 60/40 pass/rush ratio that means that only 10.3% of offensive passing plays is the QB affected at all by sacks. That’s not counting the plays he takes off for rushing plays (6.2% sack rate). To put that in perspective only 4 teams allowed 50 or more sacks in the league last year. 28 teams had even fewer sack percentages than this If you think that’s going to affect the top 32, ostensibly, QBs in the world than I can't help you.

So far, I have only offered reasons for why pass rushers are misunderstood. However, I believe there are two sets of stats which can more adequately describe their roles:

First, let’s take sacks out of the equation. Our real focus should be how much QB Hits and Pressures affect passer rating.I would be willing to bet that these two stats affect passer rating. 3 years ago Pro Football Focus did an article on just this. In their article "Beware the Use of Sack Statistics" they lay out the situation well:

The point is that sacks are only a minor subset of pressure. Last season, across the league, they accounted for only 16 percent of all pressure when hits ad pressure on the QB are included. A hit is when a QB is knocked down but not sacked and a pressure is when a QB is forced to move in the pocket in some other way than simply stepping up into a throw.

Hits and pressures are going to force a QB to get off his throws more quickly so that he can complete the play and not be sacked. It is not a given that someone with the most sacks will get the most pressures and QB hits as well:

Taking things from a different perspective, sacks have been the measure of pass rushers for years but again, it’s only part of the whole story. Defensive end Ray Edwards of Minnesota managed just 6 sacks in 15 games but also weighed in with 14 hits and 33 pressures. The other piece of missing information is how many times he actually rushed the QB — 492 times, in this case. That’s a lot more pressure than the average DE from that many rushes.

On the other hand, Joey Porter of Miami rushed the passer 567 times and sacked the QB 17 times but managed only an additional 9 hits and 24 hurries. Porter gets notoriety from the sacks but an average 3-4 OLB, going after the quarterback as often as he does, should actually get more pressure.

Further, hits and pressures have been shown to negatively affect Passer Rating.

Second, If we want to see how sacks affect a game we should use NY/A which calculates (Total Yards gained-Sack Yards)/All Passing Plays:

GB NY/A 8.3 Sacks allowed 41
NE NY/A 7.9 Sacks allowed 32
NO NY/A 7.8 SA 24
NYG: NY/A 7.7. SA 28
SD NY/A 7.2 SA 30
Oak NY/A 7.2 SA 25
Phi NY/A 7.0 SA 32
Pitt NY/A 7.0 SA 42
Hou NY/A 7.0 SA 33
Det NY/A 6.9 SA 36
League Average: NY/A 6.3 Sacks allowed 37.1

Over a random sampling of four years there is a statistically significant negative correlation between Sacks allowed and NY/A. 8 of the top 10 teams in NY/A had below league average Sacks Allowed. Teams with a higher NY/A tend to win more than teams without.

As I said in this post teams with a high differential between O NY/A and D NY/A are more likely to have a winning schedule than teams that don’t. The Cowboys, last year and in past years, have had an offense which averages in the top 10 in O NY/A (Jason Garrett is a great offensive coach, but that’s a different story.) They need to increase their defensive NY/A in order to get to the next step. The way to do that is to maintain/increase sack level, and decrease completed passes against us. In order to do this we must get better corners, like ScarletO said, and increase the number of QB hits and pressures against the opposing QB. So, to quote Maverick, ScarletO, I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m really just agreeing with you in a confused, roundabout way. Just don’t discount the power of the pass rusher.

Brett Maxie Gone

NYHorn — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:39:35 -0000

Brett Maxie Gone

My secret CIA sources tell me Maxie is gone. I'm not sure how much he was responsible for the collapse of the Secondary but still. Apologies if this has already been posted

ITAR: Are There Better Rookie HCs Out There?

NYHorn — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:32:04 -0000

A Man Among.... Well, Men.

Welcome to my second post of ITAR. Although it may seem that this series is devoted to Jason Garret, and although I certainly am a fan of continued faith in Mr. Garrett, this will not be an article series devoted specifically to our dear Red Headed Leader.

Well, debunking seems to be the new "in" thing around BTB. Sort of like making fun of the Cowboys to every other NFL Team's fans. Or more like no fashion sense in the 80s. Still when I saw 5Blings excellent post on myth debunking, OCC's excellent thievery, and then debunkings of OCC's debunkings, I decided it was only right for me to throw my hat into the ring.

There seems to be some resentment out there towards Garrett and the way his coaching staff handled this year. Specifically, Garrett seems to be being compared to Jim Harbaugh. Didn't Harbaugh get more out of his talent than Garrett. Shouldn't we expect more out of Garrett than what we got this season. After the jump I'll express my thoughts on this. Obviously there are various levels of intensity to this argument. There is one vein that sees Garrett as a failure because Harbaugh did more with worse/"comparable" talent. There is another group who thinks that although the 49ers might have been in a better position, e.g. division, schedule, players, Harbaugh probably could have done more with this Cowboys unit than Garrett.

I'm here to debunk the first and doubt the second.

A Man Among.... Well, Men.

I'm here to debunk the first and doubt the second.

Here is a quote from Randy Galloway on the subject:

But, quite frankly, I thought ... you put Jason Garrett in charge of this team and I thought we would see a Harbaugh-type impact like we just saw with the San Francisco 49ers. That that didn't happen is a disappointment. That 8-8 happened is a disappointment. But what's really disappointing is, we didn't really see anything different than what we've been seeing around here for the last four or five years. The same stupid mistakes, the same collapse in December, the same, Oh they were close here, but somebody screws up.

It's funny how all the media seems to draw their stories from the same narrative. Let's see: Garrett doesn't impress in first season? Check. Team is dumb? Check. Team can't execute in close situations and that's why they're bad? Check.

Still there seems to be an obsession with San Francisco's amazing turnaround. Most likely this is due to the hype Harbaugh received while at Stanford and the media circus of his hiring over the Summer. First, remember Harbuagh had a pool of jobs he was choosing from. How good would the Cleveland Browns have looked with Harbaugh as the coach? Probably not so hot.

Still what was Harbaugh's big change? Did he change the culture and make San Francisco a better team? Well to explain exactly what is happening in SF we're going to have to put up some charts. The first one I'm going to use is a graph which shows the correlation between the difference in Offensive Net Yards/Average and Defensive Net Yards/Average (I'm all in on NY/A btw):

The graph is complex but here is the basic idea behind it: Teams with a significant difference between O NY/A and D NY/A are much more likely to have a better win percentage than those which don't. The correlation is quite high and can be considered pretty good predictor of future success, although it isn't 100% effective.

Anyways based upon this one would think that San Fransisco took a big leap. They were 6-10 last year, now they're 13-3 and that's all on San Fransisco. Well, in the words of Lee Corso, "Not so fast my friends." You see the statistics don't match up with that conclusion.

The basic idea behind a regression line is that it serves as a future indicator of success. Based on all of the data used for this experiment we can be assured it's fairly accurate.

The difference in Net Yards/Average in 2010 for the 49ers ended up being -0.1. In 2011, the big difference? It was 0.

The projected wins from 2010 was 7.7. The projected wins from 2011? 8.0.

So what does it all mean. Why would a team with 8 projected wins have 13 this year? Well there are a couple of reasons for this. The first, is that the 49ers are not as good a team as we think they are. It's probable that there are a number of things this year that artificially inflated this team's win total. One such thing was Smith's absolutely incredible Int rate. Smith's career average is 3.0%. This means that every 100 throws Smith should throw 3 interceptions. On the other hand Smith's interception rate this year was 1.1 %. Slightly more statistics then we'll get to the conclusion:

If Smith had thrown his standard career Int rate this year the projected wins would be around 8. However his 1.1% interception rate brings the team's standard projected wins to around 11 much closer to the record they had this year.

Ok, you might be asking. Maybe Harbaugh changed Smith's entire mindset. Maybe he'll never be an all-pro QB but he'll be serviceable now. Statistics don't help with that assertion: A 5.9 NY/A offense is horrible, it's worse than league average.The only thing that's changed for Smith is his Int Rate. There's no way he can keep up with that level.

Every single year a QB has a sterling rating one year, they fall back to earth the next year. Look no further than Tom Brady's .8% rating last year which is now a 2%. Look at Romo's 1.6% 2009 which turned into a 3.2% 2010. Look at Peyton's 1.6% 2006 which became a 2.7% 2007. The only difference between Smith and these QBs is that these ones are actually good. Smith has artificially propped up the 49ers who should not have a record as good as it is.

Harbaugh has done little if nothing to change this team for the long haul. He has not significantly altered its offense or its defense. Whatever it has going for it, was there before he got there, and he has ridden a wave of unheralded success because of the stellar play of a man who will always be remembered as the guy taken 1st in the Aaron Rodgers Draft. Their only major pickup was Aldon Smith, albeit a very good player but still a rookie and not the best one taken in the draft.

Any changes that Harbaugh is going to make to this team have not happened yet. I'm not going to deny he can be a great Head Coach; look what he did for Stanford. All I am saying is maybe we should wait a little bit longer to jump on the Harbaugh bandwagon, at least for the guy in California

So, maybe we should give Jason Garrett a break, because he's had the same statistical difference on his team in one year that Harbaugh had. The game of what-ifs is fun and all, but there's very little evidence to support its conclusions.

Poll

Better Head Coach?

Jason Garrett

37 votes

Jim Harbaugh

44 votes

Bobby Heenan

11 votes

92 votes | Poll has closed

ITAR: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

NYHorn — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:02:58 -0000

When first logging on to my computer in the morning, I tend to try to figure out what has gone on in the X number of hours I haven't been with the program. Usually this first involves stumbling to a computer and going to BTB to read the latest 8 Am posting of news. However, sometimes I want opinions that I do not agree with, and so I begin searching the "common" Sports sites on the internet. Well in my search this morning I stumbled upon a Tim MacMahon article that really surprised me.

"Jason Garrett is Making Excuses" Excuse me? Of all the people to make excuses in the world -I'm looking at you, Jerry and Rob- the first person you attack is the RHPF, Red Headed Poker-Face? After the jump I'll examine just what it is that MacMahon is calling out Garrett for.

OK, that might be taking it too far in an attempt to get something interesting out of Garrett, but he clearly wanted this season to be remembered as a rebuilding year, even though he never uttered the R-word.

"Well, we've said it right from the outset, we made some decisions in our organization where we moved on from some older players that probably would have given us maybe a better chance to win right now because we wanted to take it in a different direction," said Garrett, whose favorite phrase for the day was "growing pains."

No, Jason, you actually didn't say that right from the outset. This bull about a rebuilding season is revisionist history.

With all due respect towards Mr. MacMahon, I disagree with his conclusions. There is a saying that I'm pretty sure is a common one all across America, although if it's specifically relegated to New York I'll introduce him to it: Actions speak louder than words.

We've all complained multiple times about Jason Garrett. His first speech after becoming Interim Head Coach of the Dallas Cowboys went something like this:

Questioner: "Jason, how do you feel about the state of the defense?"

Garrett: "Well, there are some things that we want to address and do differently. All I know is that we are going to face the New York Giants at 4:15 ET at Giants Stadium. They're a pretty good football team." (On a side note, I'm going to have that quote seared into my head until I die. I hope you win a Superbowl, or that noisome quote will be one of ire).

Expecting a straight answer out of Garrett is like shooting fish in a barrel. Seriously, try it some time, it's not as easy as you think and Garrett has a funny little way of wriggling out of saying things that he does not want to. So rather than actually taking MacMahon, or Garrett for that matter, at his word let's take a look at all the moves that Jason Garrett made this year and see whether we can actually agree with either one on this one.

He released Roy Williams; Made Dez Bryant the #2 WR. He released Marion Barber and went into the season with Felix Jones and Tashard Choice as the 1 and 2 RBs. He released Marc Columbo and put in rookie RT Tyron Smith. He released Leonard Davis and put in the Cerberus Bill Ngay, Kevin Kowalski, Montrae Holland, and Derrick Dockery to man the position. He released Andre Gurode and put in 2nd year UDFA Phil Costa at Center. In the middle of the season he got so fed up with Tashard Choice that his starting two RBs became Demarco Murray and Phil Tanner. He put in Sean Lee, a 2nd Year Linebacker, as the primary linebacker of 3. He, Lee, was almost always on the field.

That's not to mention the personnel decisions he made: Rob Ryan, Matt Eberflus, Jimmy Robinson, Mike Woick, Brian Baker. Were any of these names on the Dallas Cowboys before this year? In a shortened offseason? In a sport where the media pundits preach in hindsight, but neglect in foresight, that consistency is key, that a team and a culture need to gel in order for it to be the most effective team.

Let's look at the most successful teams currently in the NFL Playoffs: Steelers, Saints, Packers, Ravens, Patriots. All of these have one thing in common among them: Consistency, same basic players in positions with a few changes.

On the other hand you have the Cowboys, the Eagles, and the Giants, who have all lost and gained players at Key Positions and changed coaching schemes. I think it's fairly obvious one of the reasons why they are not in the best of positions right now.

I've got news for all of the pundits as well. Unfortunately for you, and for all of us fans, we, as a team, are not going to gain consistency over night. Perhaps, even worse, we might be an 8-8 team next year, based off of SOS, a much better team than this year, but 8-8 all the same. The same overhaul will happen to defense that happened to offense this year. Expect to see Newman, Brooking, James, Spencer, all key guys in our defense over the past couple of years, gone. We already have some replacements for them: Lee, Carter (we hope), Scandrick (Janoris Jenkins you are our only hope), Butler (Some Pass Rusher somewhere, you are our only hope), Orie Lemon/Alex Albright (Could probably man the #3 LBer position in a pinch and one could probably grow into a solid #3. I hope Albright gets put back in at OLB though, just consult FiTat on this.), but we hardly want to go into the new season with these guys as our defense

Sometimes I feel like the Spanish Inquistion: "Amongst our needs is a new interior O-Line, a new defense, consistency and a fanatical devotion to the RHG." Last part not necessary.

To return to the original point. I will answer MacMahon's concerns. The 2011 Dallas Cowboys team was a team with serious flaws. Further, some of those flaws were at key positions which Garrett released players. I suspect the reason that some is not an all is because there is no way to drastically alter that many players on your starting lineup and field a competitive football team. Of the positions that Garrett replaced some of them worked out (Lee, Smith, Murray, Bryant); others did not turn out so well (Costa is the one who stands out in my mind); and some are still up for debate (The Cerberus, although if you told me we could replace that with a blue-chipper I'd take it). I think the philosophy is clear that the growth and development of young players is more important than the immediate talent of old and regressing old players. It is up to Garrett to make sure he finds the right young players to affect this change. If someone can't see this, maybe he/she cannot see the forest for the trees. We should not have needed Jason Garrett to tell us in a presser what we already should have known. Remember, actions speak louder than words.

IIWI: The Story of the NFL Playoffs

NYHorn — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:46:22 -0000

Greetings my friends, I bring news of the future. It turns out that the winner of the Superbowl will be one of 12 previously selected football teams. And there's a good chance it won't be the Broncos. Aren't I amazing?

Unimpressed huh? Well, I admit that I'm not from the future. Rather, I am just a humble fan watching other teams yet again have a chance for the title, while my team watches on its collective couch cushion. It is what it is. What is interesting to me, however is suggestions for how management should fix this team, as if there were an easy way of doing that. One of the most peculiar suggestions, and one that should be taken quite seriously, is that we focus solely on offense yet again and try to build an elite team like Green Bay and New Orleans.

I am quite unconvinced by this line of argument, not because it would not be nice to have an elite offensive team, but because the data doesn't support that this is a good idea. The Dallas Cowboys did not make the playoffs this year because of their lackluster defense, it had very little to do with the offense.

Mood Music: Back in the Saddle by Aerosmith

I took the liberty of compiling statistics of all playoff teams plus Dallas and the League Average for both offense and defense according to NY/A.

Offensive NY/A is a good measure of a team's offensive prowess. As you can see 6 NFL Playoff Teams have a Net Y/A of better than the Dallas Cowboys: Green Bay,Houston, New England, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and, New York.

The Offense definitely could be better. The only problem is that a 6.9 is a pretty good NY/A (it sits a standard deviation above the mean offense of the entire league) especially if adjusted for the game in which Stephen McGee played, the lowest NY/A of the season.

On the other hand our defensive statistics are not so pretty:

The mean for Defensive NY/A is about 6.1. As you can see almost every playoff team falls within one standard deviation of the mean. Being one standard deviation above the mean, in this case, means you are bad compared to the mean, and below, in this case, means you are good compared to it. There are only 5 which don't fall within a standard deviation: Pittsburgh, Houston, Dallas, Green Bay, and New England. Obviously both Pittsburgh and Houston are very good defensive teams, one of the reasons they made the playoffs.

Contrary to popular belief only two teams which are "bad" defenses made the playoffs. It is no surprise to me that they are the two highest rated offenses according to NY/A. Some others which are mediocre made the playoffs but this is not the same thing. Dallas, on the other hand, is not one of the highest rated NY/A teams and also falls one standard deviation above the mean.

Compared to the league average: 2 Bad Defenses, 4 Mediocre Defenses, 4 Pretty Good Defenses, and 2 Really Good Defenses made the playoffs.

What is the solution to all of our problems then? Well, if we want to make the playoffs the answer seems fairly simple: Get our defense at as good as or better than Playoff Average, and maintain our offense at or increase it to above the playoff average.

Here is a list of teams with average or better than average Playoff Offenses and Defenses:

Detroit, Pittsburgh, Houston, Philadelphia

Here is a list of teams whose NY/A on both sides falls within 1 Standard Deviation of the mean

Washington, Atlanta, New York Giants, New Orleans, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Fransisco, Detroit, Cincinnati, Houston, Pittsburgh.

I'd say that depicted the final playoff race pretty well, wouldn't you?

CISL: The Cowboys Struck Out

NYHorn — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:43:09 -0000

Well that was depressing. There will be ample time to discuss the loss to the Giants last night and the 7 others. Rather than do this, I wanted to share my feelings on a couple of things after the season was over and relate some final thoughts.would

On this week of Catharsis is Short Lived we will discuss the Dallas Cowboys.

A Disappointment?:

This game was hard to watch. I was in a bar in New York watching this game and as you might expect the crowds were hard to handle. A lot of my initial feelings about this game were raw and I let my anger get in the way of any rational analysis of this game or this team, much like I always do.

Before the game, during last week I was preparing to attribute a poem to the Dallas Cowboys. Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade seemed aptly appropriate for this team. They were put into a do or die situation by their own fault, but they couldn't dwell on it. They could only play the game that was left to them. I expected that this team would rise to the challenge, or at least play a better game than they did. Obviously, we all know how that turned out.

Instead of the Charge of the Light Brigade, a much more apropos poem for this 2011 Cowboys Team might be Casey at the bat:

The outlook wasn't brilliant for Number Nine that day;
The score stood 7-5, with but one more month to play,
And then when Newman died at first, and Bradie did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Romo could get a throw begun -
We'd put up even money, now, with Romo in the gun.
But Vick preceded New York, as did also Tampa Bay,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was just prey;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Dallas getting to the bat.
But Felix had a field day, to the wonderment of all,
Then Vick, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Dallas safe at second and Philly a-hugging third.
There was ease in Dallas' manner as it stepped into that place;
There was pride in Dallas' bearing and a smile on Austin's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, the game was just begun,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Romo in the gun.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Dallas stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Dallas. "Loss one," the Ref said
With a smile of Christian charity great Garrett's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the Giants, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Dallas still ignored it, and the Ref said, "Loss two."
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Ryan and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Newman wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Dez's lip, his teeth are clenched in rage;
He pounds with cruel violence his hands upon the stage.
And now Manning holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Spencer's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Dallas — the mighty Cowboys have struck out.

Other Thoughts: It needs to be remembered that the Cowboys are and were a flawed team. Most of our upsetness comes from their losses in close game. Many close games is the sign of a mediocre team. Our ability to win in close games is not what is at stake. Rather Dallas being in so many is more important

At the beginning of the year, there were people who made a solid prediction of 8-8 and stuck to it. Unfortunately I was not one of them, however here is a link to someone who was.

Obviously we all know the media narrative will be that Romo choked. However I think this game showed what is wrong with this team to everyone who wants to see it. One point that I did see was by Joey2zs who made an interesting point that regardless of how good Romo was, we really should not be bragging about it when all that matters at the end of the day is the total win-loss total. Romo is a good QB, obviously he's not good enough to do it by himself. I don't know if any QB is; I doubt that is the case. He needs help. We have a few very good players on both sides of the ball; we need more.

Regardless of how this season turned out I am happy that the Cowboys played in it. Although I may feel disappointed I'm thankful that we even had a season to play and I could spend another with BTB. Thanks for all the great discussion and debate, and here's to more of it next year.

ORDJ: Pass Defense Isn't Really Your Thing? Choose Cowboys

NYHorn — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:13:25 -0000

Ok, I kid. I, like many people on here, am annoyed with the lack of adequate Pass Defense on our team, and while I don't think it was the biggest reason we lost, it seems that we always let bad teams have great passing yardage against us.

Next week we face the Giants and we'll see just how well our defense holds up. That's not what this post is about. This post is my grievances with the game. So join me after the jump on this week's edition of Overreacting is my Day Job.

Mood Music: Hard Way by Eric Church.

Ha, I bet you thought I was gonna use more Heavy Metal, well I fooled you didn't I? What? You don't care? Well you didn't have to say that out loud.

The Timeout Call on the FG

Yeah, people were pretty upset with Garrett's call of a TO while getting ready for Bailey's FG attempt. Why? "Well, he iced his kicker, didn't you see the FG go through, and then it didn't the second time." Well two things about Dan Bailey's kick going in.

First: the circumstances for the two kicks were totally different. Examine the two different kicks:

Notice the pressure differential in the two kicks. On the first kick everyone knew there was a time out. Bailey was essentially taking a free kick. On the second kick there are defenders crashing in. They were collapsing the pocket and disrupting the kick. Second kicking is a mental game. There was absolutely no pressure on Bailey to make his first kick, and he makes it easily.

Actual Anger:

Can you believe that Dez punt return? You know, the one he returned to the Cardinals 25? The one where we could've taken legitimate shots at the endzone? What, you mean Orlando Scandrick had an illegal block in the back? Was it Ticky Tack, not unless tumbling over face first can happen from thin air

Yeah and you're not that good a corner either. I really don't know what this team was thinking when they signed him to #2 CB money before Jenkins. Yes I know Jenkins had a bad 2010, but the response should be to not sign either one, and wait for one of them to actually prove something to you.

The Point that Needs Stressing:

I've said this before; I know I'll say it again. A close 4th quarter/OT win or loss is not the symbol of a "good" or "bad" team. A close 4th quarter score where 1 mistake can deflate the team and lead to a loss shows an inability of the offense, defense or special teams, or all of the above, to sufficiently extend the lead to where a Single Mistake will cause a loss.

This game was full of mistakes in all 3 elements of the game. Could we have won? I guess. But it wouldn't change the quality of this team, only its final record.

WDFJ: Using Jones the Wrong Way

NYHorn — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:48:42 -0000

Well, Demarco Murray certainly has been an interesting emergence. A 3rd Round Running back is one of the best rushers in the NFL, at this point, only having started really rushing in the St. Louis game. I think we can all agree, in some form or fashion, the emergence of Demarco Murray has helped this team. However, I have a strong sense of consternation about a couple of things surrounding DeMarco Murray, as well as the role of Felix Jones on this team.

In this week's post of What to Do with Felix Jones, we need to have a serious discussion about Murray, Jones, and the running game situation in general.

Mood Music: Running Free by Iron Maiden

Using Jones the Wrong Way:

I think it's safe to say that many people have concluded in some form or fashion that Jones is done as the primary running back, and may even be considered a bust at this point. I don't disagree with the notion, rather, I think that if you believe Jones' place in this offense is somehow gone because of Murray you are discounting a rather large notion. Felix Jones is a Change of Pace, Scat Back.

Now many ask how Jones can be a COP Back when Murray is the same type of back as Jones. Well first of all, we should probably compare combine statistics on these two.

	Felix Jones	Demarco Murray
Height	5 – 10	5 – 11
Weight	207	213
40 Yrd Dash	4.44	4.37
20 Yrd Dash	2.59	2.53
10 Yrd Dash	1.46	1.52
225 Lb. Bench Reps	13	21
Vertical Jump	33 ½	34 ½
Broad Jump	10'04	10'10
20 Yrd Shuttle	4.19	4.18
3-Cone Drill	6.9	7.28

So yes, in case you were wondering Murray is a stronger and slightly faster runner than Jones. Yes, Murray has had more success running the ball in the past few weeks than Jones has had in a while, but this is not what I'm concerned with.

See I mentioned in my film review last week that one of my favorite things about a Running Back with good ability is what he does with checkdowns and screens. Well what if we look at comparing stats between Jones and Murray when it comes to receptions:

Career	Felix Jones	Demarco Murray
Rec	83	15
Yards	684	104
Avg	8.2 yds/rec	6.9 yds/rec
Tds	1	0

As you can see Jones is clearly a better receiver, at this point in their careers, than Murray is. Even if you object to my use of career statistics, on the season alone Jones is catching passes at a 7.5 yard/reception clip.

Anecdote Time

I am an off and on fan of Pittsburgh football. A lot of you may be a familiar with a certain phenom that came out of Pittsburgh a few years ago, LeSean McCoy (By the way I love this guy and will always hate Philadelphia for getting him).

Well the heir apparent to McCoy's thrown was a small shifty running back by the name of Dion Lewis. His first year, he was absolutely amazing. He gained 1800 yards at 5.5 yards a clip, and was looking like the next big thing for Pittsburgh. Except, the next year that production dropped by 800 yards. He was even benched at one point in the season for his "horrible play." Well what was the difference between year 1 and 2? Most of his runs in year 1 were off tackle, tosses, and sweeps. Essentially they were East West plays that allowed him to get separation from Linebackers and D-Linemen and get favorable match-ups.

In the second year Pittsburgh decided he would be a more versatile runner if they had him running up the middle, and while he still had an alright season, 1000 yards, he wasn't the explosive runner he used to be.

What I'm trying to say is this: When you have a shifty smaller fast back with great acceleration who can't seem to hold up for an entire season, and isn't getting the yardage you want him to don't keep running him up the center. Instead use him how he was drafted for, put him on outside plays; make him a threat for the passing game. Line him up in 2 RB sets. There are ways of using a complementary Running Back effectively. Making him your feature back is not one of them.

DeMarco Murray:

Here's a question: How many of you were scared when Murray went down right before half-time? Why were we running Murray right before half-time when we were just going to run out the clock anyway? Isn't that what a back-up is for? We don't want to only have to rely on Tanner because Murray and Jones are both injured.

I'm also skeptical that DeMarco Murray is going to keep up his pace on the season. He's going to slow down eventually, even Adrian Peterson has multiple under 100 yards a game a season. This is not at all a slight at Murray, just don't be upset when he has a 40 yard rushing game, some defenses are just really good like that.

This leads back to another point, Running Backs catching out of the backfield is as beneficial, if not more beneficial, to an offense as running between the tackles. I'll probably repeat this mantra until you all get sick of it: You need to be able to get significant yardage on Checkdowns to be successful.

DMAB: Murray Film Analysis

NYHorn — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:02:58 -0000

Well this certainly has been a fun week. We beat the Seahawks; the Eagles lost; The Giants proved once again to be the luckiest team on the face of the planet. Personally I was expecting a slightly more elated reaction from Cowboys Nation- the fans not Raf's site- this week.

Think of it this way guys: Let's say it actually was mistake-prone. Were still 4-4, we could be in the Eagles shoes today, 3-5 and barely any chance of making the playoffs barring a very fortunate Giants collapse, which usually occurs in December right around when we play them... But I digress

I wanted to share some positives I took away from the game today. That's why in this week's version of Demarco Murray is a Boss: I appropriately titled my article: Murray Film Analysis.

Ambiance: Running Through the Fire by Silent Force

Demarco Murray Film Analysis:

Sorry Front Page Guys, I love film analysis, and you know what? The more the merrier. Here's something to consider: we are, and always have been, a pass first team. The running game was running on all cylinders on Sunday and guess what? The Offensive Net YPA was the second-highest it has been all season long. What does this mean? It means our offense is working like it should.

Personally my favorite part of a Running Back, i.e. his "Big-Play Ability," comes not from 93-yard TD runs, those are really nice, but from his ability to catch passes out of the Back Field.

I want to tell you guys a little story about another Texas football team. No, not the Texans, but the Longhorns, their 2010 incarnation, widely hailed as one of the worst seasons in team history. A team that had just been to the NC a year ago, couldn't even qualify for a bowl bid, just 6 wins in a season, in an 11 game schedule.

Well much of that season was blamed on a now, unfortunately, much maligned QB who was entering his first full season as a Starter. Coincidentally the same year that he became the starting QB, Texas decided it wanted to become much more of a Pro-Style offense, and Pass-Catching TEs and RBs became a big thing.

But here's the thing, because Texas couldn't run, teams were basically playing back, and covering all the deep threats. They would let our QB take checkdowns but the TEs and RBs couldn't get a First Down off of these dinky passes. Texas constantly went Three-and-Out that year.

There's another way to make a defense give you favorable match-ups in the deep passing game, besides running the ball. That was is to have checkdowns and screens that can get first down yardage, or close to first down yardage on single-coverage.

Well that's where a fast, pass-catching RB comes in, as evidenced by the play I'm about to analyze. Let's recap. It's 1st and 19, The Cowboys were just called for holding and they're backed up to the 9 yard line. The Boys decide to line up in a 3-Wide Receiver Power I Formation

Bryant and Austin are lined up wide, and Witten is lined up as the slot reciever. Murray is in the backfield with the H-Back, lined up left of center. The Seahawks have 4 down-linemen with a Linebacker in a standup position on the LOS presumably to rush the passer, or to cover Murray. Both Bryant and Austin are being covered in Man with presumably deep safety help.

Romo takes his drop back, and has a really nice pocket, also a key to an offenses success. As you can see Bryant and Austin are both being covered 1 on 1, daring Romo to throw underneath to one of the two of them. Witten is running what seems to be a slant across the slot.

By this point in the play the Offensive Line has completely neutralized the 4 man rush, I should hope they did, they put 6 guys on the four of them. Presumably Austin, Witten, and Bryant are all being well covered. There's a Linebacker and Safety on Witten and a safety roaming the backfield in Zone. So what's Tony to do? Well notice that guy completely open near the 10? Yeah...

Nothing really much to add here besides maybe it was a bad idea to have only 1 linebacker within 20 yards of Romo on the left side of the field

Man Murray just makes making the first guy miss look so easy. Linebackers? No problem for this guy. Murray deftly sprints ahead 17 yards for a 2nd and 2.

2 Plays Later the Seahawks decide to keep an 8th man in the box, you know to stop Murray from happening again, leaving Dez Bryant, streaking down the sideline, open. 39 yards and a 1st down later and my only impression is when this offense is clicking they make it look too easy. Just remember it takes great checkdowns to keep a defense from cheating.

I really hope Felix Jones becomes the Change-of-Pace back, when he comes back from injury. If each of these guys gets 2-3 checkdowns/screens per game, only good things can happen for this offense.

YPAL: Objective Vs. Subjective

NYHorn — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:32:20 -0000

In this version of Why Do You Only Post After Losses You Horrible Person, I'll be examining my views of subjective analysis on Football, as well as other things that ~~irk me~~ make me a pleasant and wonderful fan to be around.

First Up Theme Music: From the Ashes by Gamma Ray

Objective Analysis vs Subjective Analysis

Let me preface what I'm sure will be a very controversial section. The reason I write these articles is because I'm a football fan. Being a football fan I absolutely do many of the things that I'm about to criticize. I'm not attacking fans I'm questioning fan perception as a source of knowledge about a football team. Please send all ~~hate mail~~ words of adulation my way.

I've touched on this before but I am very worried about intangibles and the eye test as sources of realistic football analysis. Why might that be? Well the problem is merely that you can't even correlate these things into wins. How much does Player X not exhibiting leadership affect the game perversely. Can you quantify it? It'd be nice, but it's simply not possible.

Another iffy factor is biased views of Football games that come from being a fan of a particular team. Here's something I've noticed myself doing while watching games. When our team makes a play on offense, who is responsible? Well of course our offensive player. When there's a pass breakup for our defense, who makes the play? Why the defense of course. Now perhaps there are quite a number of you out there who can easily proportion responsibility between an opposing team and our own, I wish I was you.

What am I getting at? Subjective analysis can and often is correct but is a flawed metric and has little correlative value in actual wins. It's my opinion that many subjective things, like intangibles and "how well a person plays", can actually be represented well with objective statistics. Now, objective statistics seem very flawed and even when teams play very well by those numbers they lose, but the goal then shouldn't be to revoke stats altogether, but to improve our metrics until we can accurately discern how well a team is doing

My frustration is that I still think we have the ability to put blame on the same people, but can actually make substantial claims that are also productive to seeing this team get better. I don't think telling Player Z to be more clutch is going to make this team any better but I do think telling Romo to be better in decision making, or realizing that certain O-Linemen are giving up too much pressure and need to be replaced will make this team better in the long run. And that's what we want, right?

Moral Victories:

Not all games are moral victories. Nor do I see moral victories, or merely taking positives out of a game as a bad thing. We just need to recognize that there are some games where that isn't possible. This was one of those.

Linebacker Play:

This absolutely fascinates me. How can a linebacker, Sean Lee, have so big an effect in the passing game? Well... actually he didn't. Granted, take Lee out of the game and the defense looks absolutely porous in the second quarter. But for the second half the team actually played better than the first half, and this was without Lee. Borrowing FiTaT's stat metric before Lee was injured The Eagles Net YPA was 9.29. For the next quarter it was a horrible 11 Net YPA before the defense finally settled down to a Net 7.0 YPA in the second half.

A couple of thoughts for analysis. First, we can probably credit Ryan for defensive adjustments in the second half that brought down the Net YPA, even though that number is still high. Secondly the Eagles could have taken their foot off the gas pedal in the second half. However it is worth noting that the Net YPA for the rest of the game actually went down with Lee out of the game.

(Disclaimer: As always the stats I use seem to have very small sample sizes. There were only 8 passing snaps in the first quarter, 10 in the second quarter, and 12 for the rest of the game after that.)

Offensive Line:

Can we call this experiment a failure please? I have faith that Arkin and Smith will get better, but no hope for anyone else. That contract we gave to Free is starting to bother me, and I'm starting to think we should take advantage of playing Smith at LT while we're paying him RT money to offset playing Free at RT for LT money.

Free has allowed 3 sacks this season, to put that in perspective he allowed 5 all of last season. We aren't even halfway through the season, and this is not even counting QB Hits allowed and Pressures allowed. He's also holding a lot more than last season as well.

The Eagles:

Tough loss, but we need to realize that the Eagles may be the only team in the league in the league engineered specifically to beat us. Hat tips to I Am Ironman and Foyesboys who took advantage of ~~my laziness~~ inability to put out a post fast enough and to express this point a lot more eloquently than I could have. You guys are this weeks winners of Which Way the Wind Blows.

Failed Analysis:

Have you ever had that one great idea that you thought would rock the way the world works, and were about to express it when someone beat you to it? Well this is nothing like that.

This is the section where I express ideas that I've had over the week that were categorically wrong. The First I've mentioned above is the positive effect that Sean Lee has on the Passing Game. At least for the Eagles game it wasn't there.

Second: Tony Romo's rib injury and subsequent decrease in statistics can be correlated to Michael Vick's rib injury and decrease in stats. Yeah, that's not going anywhere. Some of Vick's best games last year came after his injury.

Well that's it for this week. As always feel free to leave comments at the bottom, I enjoy hearing counter-arguments.

Poll

What no poll this week?

Yes

2 votes

No

0 votes

Wait you're asking us?

4 votes

This is that inanity of excellence again isn't it?

4 votes

10 votes | Poll has closed

BR Author Calls Out BTB for being Bandwagoners

NYHorn — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 03:17:50 -0000

BR Author Calls Out BTB for being Bandwagoners

I don't know if anyone has seen this, but apparently someone over at BR has felt free reign to call multiple members of BTB out for being Band wagoners.

DYRC: It's all about the clutchness.... OR IS IT

NYHorn — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:37:33 -0000

Theme Music: Fire Your Guns by AC/DC. Got this idea from 2 other SB nation sites.

In this weeks edition of Do You Really Care (How many words my title is so long as I can make it four initials), I want to examine the legitimacy of a fanatic position that's sweeping the nation: Clutchness.

Ah, we all know the word. It's a part of the trinity of "intangibles" that supposedly measure a players worth beyond statistics. Leadership, Ability to win, and Clutchness and the greatest of these is Clutchness... or something. We'll also have a Week 6 edition of Which Way the Wind blows, and finally address play calling, execution, O-line readiness, and contemplating my navel; I swear it's not as bad as it sounds.

Theme Music: Fire Your Guns by AC/DC. Got this idea from 2 other SB nation sites.

Stick Shift -> Clutch -> Clutchness

I love intangibles. I like seeing a guy get up in a player's face or giving them a pep talk. I like seeing a QB drive the ball down the field for a game winning field goal. Admit it, you do too. We all do it... well maybe not everyone

via www.waitingfornextyear.com. Shame on you if you don't know who this is.

Still, if such a thing as intangibility exists, I can't help but think it's overblown to the extreme. What's one of the complaints people often hear? "I don't like statistics because they can easily be skewed to say whatever you want them to say." And this is true to an extent, but I think we need to ask a follow-up question: "Objective statistics are unreliable therefore we should trust instead subjective notions like the eyeball test and intangibility?"

What makes our situation even more difficult is that we as fans see what we want to see. And that's why Today I must engage in an attack on the Sacred Cow of Clutchness.

Disclaimer: I don't think Clutchness is a failed metric in all sports, and think it's much more applicable in a sport like Basketball where both teams are constantly scoring and a blocked shot or a drawn 3-pt play is much more integral to a game in the 4th quarter than in Football. Consult your doctor before starting a lynch mob.

There is a double-standard currently being employed by many DC fans.

Sentiment 1: The defense cannot be blamed for its inability to stop Tom Brady on the last drive. My response: Absolutely correct. The defense held the Pats under 30 points and kept us in the game when the offense was doing horribly.

Sentiment 2: The offense, TR specifically, needs better situational awareness, when to throw the ball away, when not to be a hero, etc. My response: You can't have it both ways. You must pick which line of thought you want to agree with. Is winning/losing a team aggregate, like sentiment 1 suggests, or is clutchness a factor like sentiment 2 suggests?

If we agree with sentiment 2 we are rightly able to scold the defense for the last drive of the game. But, let's look at the facts. Football is an aggregate game. All that matters is the final score. This is why we praise the defense for holding the Pats to 20 points and getting 2 interceptions off of Tom Terrific, gag me by the way.

After we lost to the Lions I posited a question: Would you be more upset if we lost a game 20-17 and Tony Romo threw a pick-6 in the first half, or if we lost by the same amount and Tony Romo threw an interception in the last 5 minutes. I was surprised to hear that people really did believe the former scenario was preferable to the latter scenario. Football is an aggregate game. Throwing a pick-6 is going to hurt equally no matter when you throw it.

But NYhorn, you may protest, don't you believe that it is more essential to throw better in the last quarter because the game is so close and the game hinges on a single play? No I do not. If the game is that close in the 4th quarter this reveals an inability of the Offense, Defense, or Special teams to significantly extend the game to where a single horrific play by one of the three groups will not ruin it. In the case of the past couple of losses the blame is significantly skewed towards the Offense. In the Jets game, the blame was equally on the defense for keeping the Jets in the game, and on the offense for committing 2 turnovers.

To close up this point a couple of weeks ago FiTaT wrote an excellent post on close games that I recommend you read. One point really strikes me from it though:

That doesn't just apply in the last minute -- superior coaching makes the team better all game through. That means a team that formerly played close games against mediocre teams and got whomped by good teams now whomps mediocre teams and plays its close games against good teams. It's gotten better, thanks to its coach!

The lesson? Close games are a coin flip. It’s not toughness or attention to detail or any of the other fairy tales that people like to make up about it.

Edit: The bolded section is actually from Jim Glass

Couldn't have said it better, now please don't steal Christmas this year.

On Play Calling

People seem upset by the way Jason Garrett called the game Yesterday. I have two separate points on this.

Firstly, I think there is just criticism in the second to last offensive drive. I personally would've wished for a screen but was not unhappy with how it was called. Penalties killed that drive, like they did most drives Yesterday.

Secondly, People say that JG was handcuffing Romo. That's not how I look at it. What do we know about Romo? He likes to play hero, a very valuable trait in close games, especially when you are behind. However Jason Garrett was doing right by this team and Romo by calling things the way he did. First of all, he is preserving Romo's confidence, sorry if you don't like to hear that but just like Pitchers, Quarterbacks need confidence. By letting Romo go out on a relative high note, in comparison to throwing the game away, he has begun to plant the seeds to turn Romo into the 4th Quarter player he wants. Second he trusted his Offense to get a first down without Romo, what a horrible request I know, and he trusted his defense to hold Tom Brady to at most a field goal. The reasoning was correct even if the results were unfortunate. But I could be completely wrong.

On The Offensive Line

It was offensive. Next

On Penalties

Ticky Tack, but they were primarily on two groups: The Offensive Line, and Anthony Spencer. This should tell us something. I'm not sure what though.

Which Way Does the Wind Blow?

What am I a Meteorologist? Go check the Weather Channel or something. Oh... you meant who do I agree with this week.

Well, while I have been rather optimistic the past couple of weeks for this season. That opinion is beginning to change slightly. We are a couple of defensive players and the maturation of an O-line away from a championship. This would probably be even worse if Rob Ryan gets picked up for a Head Coach next year. Hopefully Eberflus is taking notes.

Once again Dire Wolf shows up on my list for this point

You'll notice FiTaT appears a lot in my posts, OCC and he are the best Stat Guys on this site. He had a great piece on interceptions that I agree with, which also adds to my point about clutchness.

On my Navel

What exactly is a moral victory? I'd like to see a team not try to take positives away from a loss. Tell me when the Patriots or the Packers abandon this horrible notion. Moral victories only seem pointless when we lose to a massively inferior team. Please name one of those we've faced so far.

That's it for this week. Join me once again next week for a look once again at the inanity of excellence.

Poll

Do you agree with Nyhorn on Clutchness?

No

1 votes

No

0 votes

What? No

1 votes

Really?

1 votes

Why is there no option for yes?

5 votes

What the heck is the inanity of excellence?

9 votes

17 votes | Poll has closed

INFW: Cowboys Meltdown Thoughts

NYHorn — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:15:21 -0000

Welcome to a new Fanpost idea of mine now formally known as: The Title isn't four words long or INFW for short. The title is a homage to two of the great Fan Post writers on this site: IAMIRONMAN and his WWGD and FiTaT and his TMQB. (This is of course not an attempt to drum up ratings or procure favorable comments from those two, although those would be helpful. Thanks guys!).

The intent of this series is to bring up a few of the thoughts that I've had for this week that I couldn't express adequately in a comment, and then see whether the Cowboys fan base thinks I'm a complete loon or agrees with me and thinks I'm a complete loon. I can't lose either way!

The Romo Debate:

So we got our butts handed to us on a silver platter, huh. That sucks, who did we lose to? The Detroit Lions? They're allowed to win games now?

Well yeah, we lost to one of the losingest teams in the history of the NFL. But all is not bad Cowboys fans, Colin Cowherd is all in on us. Ok maybe that's little consolation but there are a few things I was able to take from this game.

1. Let's get the obvious out of the way. Tony Romo sucked Yesterday. I don't think anyone would disagree with this. What's more egregious to Cowboys fans is that he wasn't clutch Yesterday. And let's be honest many 'Boys fans are starting to think that Tony Romo is/was/never will be clutch. And while I agree that Romo is certainly not clutch as of this moment that doesn't mean he can't have a great turn around like he did in 09 or 07.

On a separate note I hate the use of the term clutch, but I'll get to that in a later post.

2. My second point follows directly from my first. I believe that the Dallas Cowboys franchise has established a very elaborate con on us. Living in upstate NY I was treated to a Bills comeback win vs the Pats last week where Tom Brady, the great and all-powerful, threw four interceptions against the Bills. Peyton Manning had 3 horrible INT games last year. What I'm trying to get at is this. We had a 2 possesion lead coming in to the 4th. The defense couldn't stop Stafford, and in 3 drives the gained 17 points. Granted one of the drives was due to a Romo interception but losing was a team effort.

And this is the really important point. If we're going to start throwing words like Clutch and Leadership around, is QB going to be the only position we deign to throw them at. In my opinion there are 2 players on this team objectively better than Tony Romo.

Demarcus Ware is supposedly the best defensive player in the NFL. Did he come up big in the 4th Quarter when the Dallas Cowobys needed a stop and a punt back? Where was his clutchness? Where was his rallying the team, to get a stop? Isn't that what leaders do? Isn't that what elite defenses do?

What about Jason Witten. He is a better player, a more experienced Cowboys, and, again supposedly a leader on the offense? Was it clutch to be in miscommunication with your QB on an over-the-shoulder throw that would've resulted in a first down if you were working the seam? You can say it was Romo's fault, but you've played with him since 2006 you're supposed to have this great connection. It really hasn't showed thus far.

These are the two elite players on this team. Where were their epic 4th quarter plays to give this team a shot to win? Nowhere, and I'll venture why. The NFL and the Cowboys have been pumping a bunch of horse manure that it's on the quarterback to come through in the clutch to make the big plays. And it really doesn't seem like anyone else was stepping up Yesterday. Let's not talk about the first 2 ints, first of all I didn't get a chance to see them, and second-of-all we can all admit they were bad. When Tony Romo made the 3rd Int the Lions had just scored on an 80 yard TD drive that took 5 plays. The Defense couldn't stop Matthew Stafford and they certainly couldn't stop Megatron. The Cowboys are up by 6 points and they need to keep the drive alive. Tony Romo evades pressure and tries to do what he does best, make a great throw to Witten in the clutch. Well the DB makes a better play on the ball and gets it back. Why would Tony do this? He doesn't trust his defense to hold the lead. And as we saw later in the game, they couldn't

This team is inextricably linked to Tony Romo. When he plays well, everyone seems to play well. When he plays poorly the offense doesn't work, and the defense looks like garbage. I believe that this is a result of the culture that has been established in the Cowboys for a long while.

3. I do want to put my 2 cents in on Garret's play calling. People say: Romo's a Pro-Bowl QB; Garrett shouldn't have to limit his offense for him. But Romo isn't Manning or Brady, he's not a top 3 QB, and he certainly makes mistakes. It's on the coach to limit the weaknesses of the players and enhance the strengths. It is way too early to say he hasn't, or won't, done this. But this is one of the most important things that separates a good coach from a bad one.

Do you Know Which Way the Wind Blows?

As you may or may not know, depending on how much you read my comments, or how long you've been on the blog I like to describe myself as a bit... bipolar when it comes to Sports, probably like most fans. What this means though is that every week I'm probably going to be singing a different tune and there will be different BtB members I agree with more or less. Which Way the Wind Blows is my attempt to ~~identify these problems and eliminate them~~ give each of them the credit they deserve for their ability to influence my interpretations of this team. Let's start week 1:

1. Tanstaafl: He's been arguing since the beginning of this season that losses are team losses and wins are team wins. I, being a Romo fan, have only believed him weeks 1 and 4 while giving Romo too much credit in weeks 2 and 3. Unless your name is Peyton Manning I have to agree with Tans on this one.

2. Dire Wolf: I can sum up most of Wolf's position in 3 sentences. Romo sucked. Stop being Bandwagon fans. The Eagles losing is always a cause for celebration.

3. Bigham: Ever the voice of reason argues once again that the defense collapsed in the 4th just like the offense. Again Team's win and they lose

In Depth Look at 6-10 Teams' Futures

NYHorn — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:46:52 -0000

A standard result for 6-10 teams in the next year is an 8-8 record. The reason for this is that since 2004 teams that have gone 6-10 the year before have had a winning record 42.9% of the time, a losing record 35.7% of the time, and a dead even record 21.4% of the time.

Teams that hold a 6-10 record the year before average 7.64 wins the next season or, as FiTaT says, about 8 wins the next season. However this does not factor in the whole story.

Win Totals Adjusted for Year Prior Record

I was inspired to do this experiment by an interesting proposition by FoyesBoys in FiTaT's excellent article on what to expect from the 2011 Dallas Cowboys. Does the record from the year before the 6-10 season, in this case our 2009 season, determine at all what we as fans can expect from the year after.

Teams	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Bills		9-7	5-11	7-9	7-9	7-9	6-10	4-12
Browns		4-12	6-10	4-12	10-6	4-12	5-11	5-11
Cardinals	4-12	6-10	5-11	5-11	8-8	9-7	10-6	5-11
Cowboys	10-6	6-10	9-7	9-7	13-3	9-7	11-5	6-10
Dolphins		4-12	9-7	6-10	1-15	11-5	7-9	7-9
Eagles		13-3	6-10	10-6	8-8	9-6	11-5	10-6
Giants	4-12	6-10	11-5	8-8	10-6	12-4	8-8	10-6
Lions	5-11	6-10	5-11	3-13	7-9	0-16	2-14	6-10
Packers		10-6	4-12	8-8	13-3	6-10	11-5	10-6
Rams		8-8	6-10	8-8	3-13	2-14	1-15	7-9
Ravens		9-7	6-10	13-3	5-11	11-5	9-7	7-9
Redskins	5-11	6-10	10-6	5-11	9-7	8-8	4-12	6-10
Texans		7-9	2-14	6-10	8-8	8-8	9-7	6-10
Titans		5-11	4-12	8-8	10-6	13-3	8-8	6-10
Vikings		8-8	9-7	6-10	8-8	10-6	12-4	6-10
49ers		2-14	4-12	7-9	5-11	7-9	8-8	6-10

Since 2004 there have been 14 teams, sans the 2010 6-10 teams, that have held a 6-10 record. Of those teams 6 had a winning record the year before, 7 held a losing record the year before, and 1 had an 8-8 record the year before. The actual record varies a great deal between these 3 groups.

If we examine the group that had a winning record the year before we'll notice that this group holds a much higher 67% winning percentage the year after, a 17% losing record, and a 17% 8-8 record. Among these teams the year after, the average win total was about 9.2, which is slightly skewed by the atrocious 1-15 2007 record for the Dolphins. If we extract that 1record, teams the year after average 10.8 wins.

For programs that held a losing record the year before, there's a much poorer 29% winning record rate, 57% losing record rate and 14% 8-8 record rate. These teams average a much lower 6.71 win total average the year after with no real statistical abnormalities to skew the data.

Finally for the lone 8-8 record the year before, the team had an 8-8 record the year after.

Win Totals Based upon 1st Half to 2nd Half Performance

No one doubts that the Cowboys second half performance was much better than anyone truly expected it to be. But would you believe that since 2004 the 2010 Cowboys are the only 6-10 team to boast a winning record in the second half of the NFL season? It's true:

	1st Half Record	2nd Half Record	Next Year Record
2004 Cardinals	3-5	3-5	5-11
2004 Cowboys	3-5	3-5	9-7
2004 Giants	5-3	1-7	11-5
2004 Lions	4-4	2-6	5-11
2004 Redskins	3-5	3-5	10-6
2005 Browns	3-5	3-5	4-12
2005 Eagles	4-4	2-6	10-6
2005 Rams	4-4	2-6	8-8
2005 Ravens	2-6	4-4	13-3
2006 Dolphins	2-6	4-4	1-15
2006 Texans	2-6	4-4	8-8
2006 Vikings	4-4	2-6	8-8
2008 Packers	4-4	2-6	11-5
2009 Bills	3-5	3-5	4-12
2010 Texans	4-4	2-6	?
2010 Titans	5-3	1-7	?
2010 Cowboys	1-7	5-3	?
2010 Redskins	4-4	2-6	?
2010 Lions	2-6	4-4	?
2010 Vikings	3-5	3-5	?
2010 49ers	2-6	4-4	?

Unfortunately this does present a problem in how to predict future results based solely upon this fact. So what I shall do is to classify all these teams into 3 groups: Teams with more wins in the first half, Teams with more wins in the second half, and teams with equal wins in both.

Since 2004, again not including 2010 teams: 5 teams have held an equal record, 6 have held more wins in the first half, and 3 have held more wins in the second half.

The equal teams held 3 losing records and 2 winning records. The average number of wins for a team a year after is a very meager 4.6.

For teams that held more wins in the first half of the season, there were 3 winning records 2 8-8 records and 1 losing record. The average number of wins was 8.8.

For teams with more wins in the second half there was 1 winning record 1 losing record and 1 8-8 season. These teams averaged 7.3 wins the season after. The 2 caveats with this group are that the 1-15 dolphins and the 13-3 ravens are included in it, which significantly skews the data for average wins the next season, and the fact that 3 teams is a significantly small sample size to judge teams by.

Regardless the Dallas Cowboys most closely resemble the 3 teams with more wins in the second half than the first half. My 2 theories have provided one 9.2-10.8 win record, depending on how one weighs the Dolphins season, and a much more meager 7.3 win record. I tend to prefer the prior rather than the former, just because of the ridiculously small sample size and extremely skewed records of both the Dolphins and the Ravens, but maybe that's just because I like the bigger number rather than the smaller number. What do you guys think about the two metrics, which one do you think is more accurate?

Mike Jenkins Returns to Team Drills

NYHorn — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:04:29 -0000

Mike Jenkins Returns to Team Drills

"Jenkins had been limited to walkthroughs and individual drills since he suffered the injury during the second week of training camp.

"He looked like he never left today, which is good," secondary coach Dave Campo said. "That means he stayed on top of things.'"

Post Season Thoughts: Are the Spurs No Longer Special?

NYHorn — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:12:56 -0000

Well Pounders, it's that time of year again. The time of year where the Spurs get ready for a nice bonding fishing trip. The time of year where the media pundits rejoice that the boring small-market team doesn't bog down the NBA Finals ratings again. And, more recently, the time of year when the pundits call us too old and transform to kids at Christmas finally speculating about the end of the Spurs Dynasty and the retirement of Tim Duncan.

I really don't know what annoyed me more about this post-season: the annoying punk-ass Z-Bounding Memphis Grizzlies or the insistence by the media that a loss by the Spurs would finally crush the '00s Spurs Dynasty. I'd like to address each of these points individually.

Firstly, this series was awful, horrible, I hated it, it sucked. There are teams that I would be alright with losing to, like the..... like the..... like the not-Grizzlies.

Did you hear that Zach, if someone existed who was the complete opposite of you, and we lost to him, I might actually be OK with it. MY OPINION COUNTS!!!

This series sucked, and many of our players didn't play up to capacity.

Seriously Matt, don't you watch Coach B. USE BOTH HANDS

But honestly what pissed me off the most about the Grizzlies were the players arrogant, attitudes. They walked into Game 5 expecting the Spurs to lie down, and they were upset when they didn't. That's what made this moment so perfect for me:

"The first thing I want you to do is to get those pieces of crap out of my arena! Don't just get them out of the Arena get them out of San Antonio. Because I've proved son, without a shadow of a doubt, that you don't have what it takes to beat us at home. You talk about your Gasol, your Z-Bounds and your Shane Battier 3s, well Gary Neal's 3 says we just whooped your ass." - Ice Cold Gary Neal

Sadly a series comeback was not to be, and I think we all saw it coming. But it was a great ride, we took a team whose main pieces consisted of 2 over the hill players, one injured player, and Tony Parker, and whose playoff hopes still rested upon Richard Jefferson doing something. I'm damn proud of this team, nobody thought we would even get 50 wins. We were #2 in the NBA, we beat out the Lakers, the Celtics, and the Heat. Think about that. We started losing because we were tired. We were tired because we were older, and for nobody was this more evident than in Tim Duncan. He was clearly gassed by Game 6 and it showed. If we want to contend next year we're gonna need a lot more pieces.

But nothing baffled me more then the talk of the crumbling of the Spurs dynasty. Uh... guys. Get with the news! The Spurs last won the title in 2007. The NBA has moved on, Tim Duncan has grown older. Let's assume Tim Duncan leaves and doesn't have the chance to get another ring. They assume that we cannot win anymore once Timmeh leaves. they assume that we will no longer special. They assume that we will go away.

I'm here to defend the Spurs and say right now, the Spurs may not win another title for a long time but I'm here to say that the Spurs are not going away. I'll admit, I'm not the oldest Spurs fan out there, my earliest memories of the Spurs are of David Robinson and Sean Elliot wrecking the league right before some young upstart from Wake Forest took the league by storm. I remember never having won a championship and having the thrill of the first, then the second, the third, and the fourth. Who would've thought that the Spurs would've been able to have a comparative decade to the Lakers? And yet we did? But why? What made us special?

Before we had GOATPUFF we had this guy.

The reason I began watching the Spurs, besides the obvious of being born in San Antonio, was their character. Think of it, who were our biggest stars of the last two Spurs eras. Tim Duncan and David Robinson.Good-natured big men, who played tough but are both great individuals. Was this coincidence? Sure, we lucked out by getting both of these guys as the first pick in the NBA draft, but for the Spurs character is just as much a consideration as talent. We would've found players of good-character to represent the Spurs had we not gotten Tim Duncan and David Robinson; we would not have enjoyed the success that we have, but we would've found the players.

When people say the Spurs will go away, they are talking about win/loss totals. But what they don't understand is that behind all the wins, behind all the championships, behind the long line of great players to don the silver and black. There remains one thing. Be good off the court first, and on the court second, the Spurs will never go away, no matter how much you want it. Deal with it.

Cowboys vs. Indians First Half Offense

NYHorn — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 15:16:48 -0000

I'll be honest, I've always been an offensively-minded observer. It's not about following the ball for me, but more about what happens to move that ball from point A to point B. Why do we credit our offense for big passing plays on one down and then yell at our defense for giving up a big play on another? Since taking over the reins as Head Coach, JG's play calling has been one of the most fun to watch around the league. That's why this session I want to talk about his first half coaching against the Indians.

There's a fine line between a good offensive play and a horrible defensive play. Good offenses can force mismatches against even the best defenses and therefore score points. The Redskins are not considered the pinnacle of defensive production by any means, they are 32nd with 397.6 Yards/Game, and have given up 24.5 points/game for 10th in the league. Wanna guess who's number 2 in that ranking? That doesn't mean that our offensive production was not spectacular (outside of the red zone) for the first half. That's why I am going to introduce to you the new and improved Dallas Cowboys Razorback formation (Warning: May contain levels of awesomeness not fit for human eyes. Do not use against normal opponents or in situations where you need offensive production to win games. This formation is not useful against the Eagles or Giants, they are too tough for this sort of wrinkle. Use only against division rivals with whom you are competing for dead last in the division. Ask your GM before switching HCs.)

Seriously though, this happens to be one of my favorite plays of the entire season for the Dallas Cowboys.

Ah, the Wildcat. Bet you guys haven't seen this in a while. We'll start with the offensive formation. Choice is in the Shotgun behind the line to take the snap. Felix Jones is in the WR Z position 3 yards back from the Line of Scrimmage on the bottom of the Screen. Miles Austin is in the Y, or the slot receiver position near the top of the screen, and Jon Kitna is in the X receiver position 2 yards from the line of scrimmage at the top of the screen. Martellus Bennettand Jason Witten are to the right and left of the line of scrimmage respectively and will be responsible for blocking duties only on this play. So, there are currently 7 blockers on the LOS. The Redskins have 5 guys on the line, in a 3-4 set, with 2 Cornerbacks and 3 Middle Linebackers playing 3 yards back from the LOS, and there is one safety hovering at around the 45 yard line. The Redskins are obviously playing run defense as most wildcat is running.

Presnap, Felix Jones turns to his left and begins running towards Choice. This play looks like it is turning into a zone-read, that is there are two possible runners on the play. Choice is responsible for dissecting the play. The way a normal zone-read is run Tashard Choice should be looking at number 97, Lorenzo Alexander. If he stays where he is, or at home, then he hands the ball off to Jones to run it. If Alexander rushes at Jones, Choice keeps it and runs to the right of the field.

In this play Alexander stays at home and so Choice hands the ball off to Jones. Further, there are 4 linebackers on the right side of the field so it would seem a bad choice to go that way regardless. However there seems to be something wrong with this play. Jon Kitna is beginning to run towards the center of the field, Miles Austin is running past all of the defenders, and the Offensive Line + 2 TEs is pass blocking, not run blocking.Choice steps up right next to Bennett to participate in the blocking. The Redskins haven't keyed in on this fact and so they are still in a Run Defense mode. That will quickly change.

While running towards the left side of the field Felix Jones tosses the ball to Jon Kitna. At this moment FJ begins to run a wheel route first slanting towards the sideline and then running a go towards the end zone. Miles Austin runs a slant route across the middle of the screen. There are now 8 blockers on the line, two receivers and 1 passer.

Austin's slant route is important to this play. At this moment there are 5 persons in run defense on the LOS. Kevin Barnes is responsible for coverage on Austin, with presumably a safety on top to prevent the deep route. Carlos Rogers, on the right, is looking towards Kitna but speeding towards Austin to prevent the deep play. This means that the only 2 DBs on the field are covering the WR, DeAngelo Halland a Linebacker are completely out of the play on the left side. There are 5 guys rushing the passer. There is a 10th player on the field, but he is off the left side of the screen. That leaves Brian Orakpo on man coverage with Felix Jones, very similar to an earlier mismatch I highlighted.

Austin's slant to the middle of the field took Rogers off of the sideline route for just long enough that by the time he identified the Kitna throw to Jones it was too late for him to come make the stop. Orakpo is fast but he is simply not fast enough to prevent the pass to Jones. As a result Jones gets the 30 yard pass and the momentum in the passing game.

#600

Jason Witten has to be one of my favorite Cowboys. Professional, Good Sportsmanship, and Elite Talent. In honor of his great skill, I'll now detail his 600th career catch.

Presnap offense: It's 3rd and 9, Jon Kitna is in the Shotgun, Choice is to the right of him and Jason Witten is on his let side about a yard back. On the top of the screen Hurd is playing the X receiver position while on the bottom Manny Johnson is playing the Z and Austin is playing the Y slightly above him.

Jason Witten is motioned to the right side of the screen, ot the right of Manny Johnson. On defense, from top to bottom, Andre Carter, Jeremy Jarmon, Chris Wilson and Brian Orakpo play the LOS. London Fletcher plays right behind ths group. Philip Buchanon is covering Hurd on top. Kevin Barnes play safety. Behind Barnes Kareem Moore plays deep safety. Carlos Rogers plays 5 yards off of Austin and DeAngelo Hall is on the right of the screen.

With the motion Rogers is now on Johnson and Hall is on Witten. Washington employs a five man rush with everyone on the DL, besides Orakpo who switches into Zone coverage to bump Miles Austin, and Barnes who blitzes from the safety position. At the top of the screen Sam Hurd employs a basic Go route. Miles Austin is going to employ a double move on Brian Orakpo and Manny Johnson is going to get past Rogers and slant into the endzone. Witten is going to run a hitch route. Witten is the designed read on the play.

Jason Witten catches the ball against an overly aggressive Hall, with no safety support. Aggravatingly, it's about 4 yards behind the LOS. However, because of Hall's aggressiveness Jason Witten easily breaks off coverage and rushes for the endzone. Manny Johnson is now at the threshold of the endzone and running a slant towards where Witten will be entering.

Manny Johnson makes the block on Brian Orakpo allowing Jason Witten easy access for the TD and the completion of his 600th catch.

Were these examples of bad defense or good offense? The first play was simply an example of superior play calling and better execution. Washington employed a formation to stop the run and got burned for it. It wasn't bad defense. The second play was a combination of bad defense and a superior skill player. DeAngelo Hall shouldn't have gone on tight coverage. Witten was still 4 yards behind the 1st down marker and a tackle would've sent the FG kicker out. Regardless Jason Witten's skill-set allows him to easily shake off the would be tackler, and Manny Johnson makes very good down-field block to seal the TD for the Cowboys.

So to end, congratulations to Jason Witten on 600+ catches, and here's to the greatest TE of all time.

On a side note I just wanted to say thank you for the words of encouragement and recommendations. It means a lot to me. Feel free to leave any feedback on the format of the posts; any advice would be helpful.

Cowboys vs. Indians Play-by-Play 1st Half Defense

NYHorn — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:45:53 -0000

When I first became a member of this blog, one of the best things I found were Raf's Play-by-Play reviews. After his departure there has been a dearth of posts on the subject. In an attempt to rectify this situation, I shall now present to you the first (in what I hope to be) a long series of posts on "Explosive Plays" in Cowboys games. Where better to start than Cowboys vs. Indians?

The first explosive play actually goes to the Redskins. After an intense series of returns by Brian McCann resulted in for a total of 13 points in the first quarter, the Redskins and their enigmatic quarterback Rex Grossman decided to actually attack our weak pass defense. Silly, right? Their most successful play actually came off a wheel route that Sensenbaugh attacked for an interception in the first quarter. This time the Cowboys got burned.

It's 1st-and-10. The Redskins are on their 48 yard line in a strong side formation. The Cowboys are in a 3-4 with the DL, Ware and Spencer on the LOS. Orlando Scandrick is on the island at the top with Santana Moss and Michael Jenkins is playing a 5 yard cushion against Anthony Armstrong at the bottom of the screen. Bradie James and Keith Brooking are the inside linebackers and I'm fairly certain, though I can't be positive, that Alan Ball and Sensei are playing 2 deep coverage around the 40.

Redskins tight end Chris Cooley shifts from his strong side blocking assignment to create more cushion on the left side of the field. Cowboys linebacker Keith Brooking shifts with him and leaves the right side of the field with Bradie James, Orlando Scandrick and Anthony Spencer who will be assigned responsibility for the Fullback Mike Sellers. Rex Grossman snaps the ball.

At the top of the screen Santana Moss is going to run a slant route against Orlando Scandrick and try to weave space between Bradie James, playing spy zone coverage, and Scandrick's man coverage. Keith Brooking bumps Anthony Armstrong, who seems to run an out-route, and slips back into zone coverage besides James, leaving coverage of Armstrong up to Ball. Jenkins slips back into a flat to cover Chris Cooley on a slant towards the sideline. Anthony Spencer drops back into man coverage to cover Mike Sellers on what seems to be a slant towards the sideline. The Cowboys give a four man rush of Demarcus Ware, Stephen Bowen, Jason Hatcher and Jay Ratliff. Jay Ratliff aptly takes the Redskins center out of play in under a second.

Focusing more on the pass rush, Demarcus Ware knocks Trent Williams to the ground but is tripped up for a half second in the process. Stephen Bowen is able to create some pressure on the pocket but isn't able to get past the left guard. Jay Ratliff is now double teamed by the right guard and the half back, and Jason Hatcher is being handled easily by the right guard. Rex Grossman rolls out to the right. Once Sellers reaches the sideline he continues on into a wheel route. Anthony Spencer following close behind makes the mental error of looking back towards the QB to get an eye on the location of the ball.

Sensei is playing the middle of the field and runs towards the sideline to catch up with Sellers to make the play. It takes about 2 1/2 seconds for the ball to leave Grossman's hands and reach Sellers hands. Before that Grossman had already been rolling to the right and Sensei, the strong-side safety, was only responsible for guarding two routes on his side of the field: the slant route, which Scandrick and James both had coverage for and which was heading towards of the middle of the field, and the Sellers wheel route. In order for Grossman to make the play he would have needed to pass through the zone coverage of Brooking and James and he would've needed to break Scandrick's man coverage. It would've been the smarter decision to head for the Sellers route since the middle of the field was well covered.

However, even if it he didn't make the smart decision and stayed towards the middle of the field, what is the point of a coverage safety? He must be able to cover his half of the field and break up deep passes with his lateral speed. Sensei showed a definite lack of speed and quick decision making in being at least 2 1/2 steps away from Sellers. If this were one play it could be written off, but Sensei's lack of ability to efficiently cover his half of the field makes him a liability at safety and until the Cowboys upgrade, they're going to have to give up these deep passes. This doesn't put Spencer off the hook, as he should've stayed on Sellers the entire time, and it was his mistake that gave Grossman such an easy pass. But safeties are supposed to be a safety in case coverage gets past the first defender. Expecting a 3-4 pass rushing linebacker like Spencer to make the play is not thinking.

On another note, those thinking that Ratliff's dip in production is his fault need to take a closer look at how he is handled. In this play the center, right guard and half-back all step up to block just him. It takes Hatcher and Bowen 2 1/2 seconds to come off of one block. Part of the point of a 3-4 DL is to be a big force that requires people to double team them. If we had one really good DE at either RDE or LDE, Ratliff would not have been triple blocked and Grossman would not have had so much time to get off the pass.

Until the Cowboys address these two issues, this pass defense is going to continue to haunt the team.