It seemed to me that the Cowboys opened the playbook some against the Texans. They used a few more exotic formations, using a bunch twice after not using it once on any of the other plays I’ve broken down. They also used a tight four-wide formation that they hadn’t shown before in the other plays I looked out. I guess it’s possible that they’ve been busting these out after the first team leaves and I just haven’t noticed, but it sure seems like they showed a little more. It worked: in those three exotic formations on the first drive, they netted two 10-yard gains and the Crayton touchdown. Also, after using it a decent amount in the first two games, the Cowboys did not use pre-snap motion once on their first drive.

Barber rush, 10 yards:
The first play is the first example of an exotic formation. The offense lines up with TO on the left and Deon Anderson, Witten, and Crayton in a bunch just to the right of the offensive line. The play is a draw. Romo drops back and looks downfield. Leonard Davis and Marc Colombo pass block and let their men penetrate a little. The rest of the players, though, act as they would in a running play. The receivers are looking to block all the way. The run is to the right, and after the two defensive lineman on that side have taken themselves out of the play by pass rushing, Davis and Colombo seal them off from chasing the play down from behind. Anderson gets out and blocks Demeco Ryans, the middle linebacker. Flozell is left without a defensive lineman to block, so he runs over and takes out linebacker Zach Diles. I think Adams could have been called for a penalty. He basically just shoves Diles in the back, knocking him over. Illegal or not, it’s effective. By this time, Barber has a clear path out in to the secondary. Once there, Crayton and Witten both prevent their man from making a play. Barber cuts inside Crayton’s block, and he’s seven yards downfield without much resistance. From there, he bowls over cornerback Fred Bennett, which gives Will Demps enough time to come in and finish the tackle. This play is a perfect example of a good running play for the Cowboys: they use their effective blockers to give Barber seven yards, then Barber uses his physical style to tack on a few extra.

Romo to Hurd, 11 yards:
The second play is the second fresh formation. Four players are split out wide, two on each side. But they’re not very wide at all, only a few feet away from the offensive line. Romo is in the shotgun with Barber on his left. Both inside receivers, Witten and Crayton, run a few yards upfield before breaking for the sidelines. The two outside receivers, Hurd and Owens, run about seven yards before wheeling around to the outside and facing Romo. What really makes this play, though, is the defense. The Texans opt for a zone blitz, and Romo reads it just about as well as one could. One of the linebackers is on the line of scrimmage, showing blitz. That leaves one linebacker to each side. The linebacker on the left side, the Hurd/Witten side, follows Witten out into the flat. The area he just left is then supposed to be defended by defensive end Anthony Weaver, who is dropping into coverage as part of the zone blitz. Weaver is a 280-pound man coming from a three-point stance who has to turn around and run to get into position. Hurd weighs 75 pound less, plays a position known for having speed, and is starting the play upright. Guess who gets to the area first. Weaver also is playing inside, so when Romo hits Hurd’s outside shoulder, it’s an easy 11 yards. Romo made the decision so quickly that even though there was an unblocked blitzing linebacker, he was under no pressure.

Barber rush, 4 yards:
The Cowboys line up with two tight ends, both to the left side, two wide receivers, and Barber. Gurode and Colombo block to the right. Kosier, Witten, and Curtis block left. Leonard Davis loops around to the space opening up between Kosier and Gurode, cleaning up the hole for Barber. None of the lineman get a particularly great push, but none of them allow penetration. Barber hits the hole so very hard, picks up everything to be had there, and ends up with 4 yards.

Barber rush, 6 yards:
Both tight ends stay in. Crayton is substituted for Deon Anderson. Most of the line blocks left. Colombo loops around the outside. Romo tosses the ball to his right, to Barber. Witten blocks the defensive end on that side. Anderson gets out and blocks the linebacker. Colombo takes out the cornerback, and Barber has a clean corner to run around. As usual, Barber lays a punishment to linebacker Morlon Greenwood once he gets there. Amobi Okoye does blow by Leonard Davis’s block and has the potential to create trouble chasing the play down from the backside. Davis provides resistance just long enough that Barber has time to get upfield so that Okoye is irrelevant.

Crayton rush, 11 yards:
Curtis comes out, and Crayton comes back in. Owens is on the right, and Crayton is on the left. Pre-snap, Crayton begins motioning to the backfield. If you’ll remember, the Cowboys motioned Ownes into the backfield on a Barber rush in the Broncos game, and also ran an end-around later in the game. The entire line just blocks straight forward. It’s the only time I’ve seen them do such a thing. This was about the only example of poor blocking Witten has shown. He whiffs on Diles, and Diles has a chance to blow the play up before it starts. Anderson comes in and blocks Diles before he can even mount a true threat. Okoye again beats his man—this time it’s Flozell—but does so just late enough that the play still succeeds. At the snap, the Texans have five men up at the line, including Diles. Four rush, and Anthony Weaver again drops back. When Romo fakes to Barber, both the remaining linebackers are frozen. By the time they realize the play is going to the outside, they’re trapped in the all the junk created by the lineman just pushing the defenders back. Weaver is the only one who doesn’t commit to stopping Barber. Had he been a real linebacker and not a defensive end playing as one, he might have made the stop. In the real world, though, Crayton outruns him.

Barber rush, 4 yards:
Three wide receivers, two right. Witten is on the left, and Barber is alone in the backfield. The line blocks to the left, and Kosier loops around to outside of Witten. Witten seals his man off, and Barber is supposed to go between Witten and the pulling Kosier. Problem is, Romo fumbles the snap. Without a camera that violates Andre Gurode’s personal space, I have trouble telling who is at fault, but Romo leaves the snap without the ball. Without the fumble, this had the potential to be a touchdown. There was large hole between Kosier and Witten with few defenders in position to make a play. Even with the fumbled snap creating time for it to close, the hole is large enough to allow for a four-yard gain. When going through the line of scrimmage, many defenders get their hands on Barber, which slows him down, but he fights through the arm tackles for four yards. Everyone does a nice job not to give up on the play, from Tony picking up the snap, to Barber staying ready to receive the handoff, to the lineman holding their blocks. Even when bad things happen, good things happen.

Romo to Crayton, 6 yards:
The final example of a non-vanilla formation looks a lot like the first one. TO is left with a bunch to the right. This time Romo is in the shotgun with Barber on his right almost behind the bunch. Martellus Bennett is in the middle of the three receivers with Witten on his left and Crayton on his right. Bennett goes out and smashes into the defender in front of him, cornerback Fred Bennett, before releasing to the inside. Crayton takes off immediately on a crossing route, and Witten hesitates near the line of scrimmage before settling in to the space vacated by the other receivers. TO just basically runs around, clearing space for Crayton’s crossing route. Everything works: Crayton is free to catch a pass, Tony leads him perfectly, and he runs away from Will Demps and into the end zone. Digging deeper, there’s some really mind-blowing defensive ineptness going on here. The four defensive lineman rush, a cornerback covers TO, and Will Demps is the safety on the TO side of the field. That leaves five defenders to stop four players (Witten, Crayton, Bennett and Barber). As far as I can figure, M. Bennett is basically setting a pick. I believe F. Bennett was assigned to cover Crayton. When M. Bennett grabs F. Bennett, he can’t do that. Further, Diles looks to be assigned to M. Bennett. Instead of switching assignments, Diles stands around and looks at Martellus while he mauls Fred. Demeco Ryans runs over to cover Barber coming out of the backfield. Most spectacular of all, however, is strong safety CC Brown. Brown kind of hops around in the end zone before half-assedly chasing after Martellus. DeMarcus Faggins appears to be on the CC Brown plan. He, too, stands around, just sort of drifting. That means of course, that of the four men that these five defenders had to cover, two are wide open. Witten could have scored the TD as well. Martellus Bennett, however, was definitely not scoring, as Houston chose to triple cover a rookie tight end. Part of the hope of a bunch formation is for things like this to happen. When the offense lines up in a non-traditional way, the defenders are at a greater risk of becoming confused about their assignments. If one word can capture the behavior of these defenders, “confused” would be that word. I was very confused, as well, and may have missed some of the nuances. I understand it what makes a play go well. It’s easy to tell what someone’s trying to do when they end up doing it. When they totally fail at their objective, it can be hard to tell what that objective was.

Also, I think it’s worth noting that Bennett played a pretty big role here. Although much of it was because of the defensive confusion, Bennett did do a good job of messing up the coverage. Further, I think it says something that the coaching staff would put Bennett on the field so early in the game in such a critical situation. Yes, Hard Knocks shows a pretty disinterested guy. But this play at least reveals that the coaching staff might not agree with that characterization.

Not only did the Cowboys not need a third down on this drive, they only reached second down twice in traveling 51 yards. Football Outsiders.com deems a play successful if it gains 40% of the yardage needed for a first down (unless it’s third or fourth down, then you have to reach the first down). By that definition, every play on this drive was successful. If this represents what can happen when Garrett opens the playbook a bit, just imagine what’s in store when the full extent is unleashed on Cleveland. It’s also worth noting that this is the second time in the preseason the Cowboys have scored on their opening drive, something they had real problems with last year. Man, I hate to sound like a sheep. If I was seeing bad things, I promise I would say so. But it’s hard to bring a negative slant to a drive with such positive results.

Here are some more efforts to get a grasp of what the Cowboys offense was doing when the first team was on the field. These observations come from someone who hasn’t been part of organized football since the eighth grade, so they’re more of a series of guesses rather than actual facts.

DRIVE ONE:

Barber rush, 2 yards:
The Cowboys line up in the I with two receivers left and Witten right. Before the snap, Owens motions in to the backfield as if to receive an end-around. That’s just window dressing; this is a normal running play. The line blocks to the right. Elvis Dumervil is lined up against Flozell, and he’s pass rush all the way, which is kind of the book on him. Flo lets him run himself out of the play opening up a hole to the left where Kosier is doing a serviceable job of sealing off the other side of said opening. I don’t think that’s the design of the play, though, because Ronnie Cruz isn’t really looking to lead that way, and Barber is pretty intent on going up the middle. Marc Colombo is blocking John Engelberger. ’Berger pulls a bit of an ‘Ole!’ move, using Colombo’s momentum against him, slipping past Colombo’s outside shoulder. When Barber insists on going up the middle, the ’Berger is there to meet him. So far as I can tell, the fault is equal parts Colombo and Barber. Had Marion been looking to go to the left, he probably could have outrun Engelberger, who was coming from the right side. Then again, if Colombo had blocked Engelberger, that all wouldn’tve mattered.

Romo to Owens, 6 yards:
The offense has two tight ends and after a motion from right to left by Curtis, both of them are on the left side. Owens and Crayton line up to the right. Throughout the drive, the Broncos seem intent on playing safety Marquand Manuel right at the line of scrimmage, usually covering Witten. That leaves one safety over the top as the only insurance if a receiver gets behind his man. Given that, playing bump-and-run, especially on TO, becomes a bad idea. In fact, they give TO a 10-yard cushion on this play and many others. TO takes off from the line, making the corner retreat even further, then he just turns and catches the pass. With all the space between him and Dominique Foxworth, it’s easy yards. Had he so chosen Tony could have done the same with Crayton, who was actually matched up on a linebacker. The other corner, Dre Bly, was protecting against a pass to the tight ends on the other side of the field.

Romo to Hurd, 3 yards:
There’s no way that Foxworth would surrender the same play two times in a row, right? Wrong. This time, it’s Hurd lined up to the right with Foxworth covering him. Romo is in the shotgun with Witten and Hurd to the right, Crayton and TO to the left. Foxworth is playing Hurd much closer, as he does not respect the deep threat the way he does with TO. Hurd uses that to his advantage. He explodes at the snap, going aggressively to Foxworth’s outside. That forces Foxworth to turn and run with him. The second Foxworth moves his hips, Hurd pulls up for the same hitch route that TO just ran. The play got more yards the other way, with Foxworth playing so far off, but the Cowboys only needed three yards for the first down, and this was as easy a way to get them as there is. To make sure everything goes smoothly, Witten runs a pattern going away from Hurd, pulling his man with him. Barber also comes that way in a shallow pattern, forcing another defender to focus on him.
After the play, Colombo shoves a Bronco linebacker, tripping him on another Bronco. That drew an entirely unnecessary penalty. There was nothing to gain from Colombo’s shove, and he must have known that. Very Stupid move.

Barber rush, 1 yard:
The Cowboys line up with two tight ends, one wide receiver, and a fullback. The Broncos counter with the one safety over the top, a corner on the receiver and nine men in the box. That leaves eight offensive players to block nine defensive players. The unblocked player, linebacker DJ Williams, was the farthest from the play of the men in the box. No matter. When Barber ran to the right, Williams knifed between Kosier and Flozell and took Barber down. So despite the result, no one really missed a block. Actually, there was some pretty good blocking, mainly by Tony Curtis. He was matched up on Manuel and just mauled him. It was as if the two just held hands and skipped out of the play, that’s how little resistance Curtis seemed to be encountering. In the end, the play design placed a bet that Williams wouldn’t fight through the traffic to make a play on the other side of the field, and Williams called that bet.

Romo to Owens, 10 yards:
The offense lines up with four receivers split out and Tony in the gun. Witten was one of the four receiver split out. I don’t know if they have done that before. If they have, I haven’t seen it. Then again, I didn’t have TiVo last season, so there were a lot of smaller things I didn’t catch.
As to the play, you’ll never guess how it goes. Karl Paymah is lined up on Owens to the far left. He’s playing close. The camera angle makes it impossible to see how exactly he does it, but Owens comes open on a hitch. That’s right, the same hitch that’s already been thrown for a completion two other times on this drive. Paymah blankets Owens pretty well, but he’s behind Owens’ inside shoulder, and Romo puts the pass in just the right spot to the outside where Owens can reach out to catch it but Paymah can’t break it up. Also, Crayton runs a deeper pattern to make sure that his man doesn’t get in between Romo and Owens.

Romo to Owens, 4 yards:
Witten goes back to his normal spot along the line, but other than that, this formation is just a mirror of the previous one, with Owens and Crayton on the left side this time. I hope this isn’t the shocker to anyone, but the play is a mirror, too. The nuance this time is that TO doesn’t run a hitch exactly. This time it’s more of an In, where instead of turning and facing Tony, he cuts to the inside of the field. Still, he receives the pass right after he makes his cut just like the hitches, and the principle is the same. So long as the corners are playing man coverage and keeping the receivers in front of them, the Cowboys will keep dinking and dunking Denver to death.
One key to these passes is that Romo doesn’t look to his target until he’s throwing to them. On this pass especially, the camera angle makes it clear that Foxworth is looking in the backfield, and he breaks to TO the second Romo looks his way.

Romo to Barber, 6 yards:
With a fullback, a tight end, and tow receivers, Romo goes to play action. Off the play action, though, whatever options Romo was looking for aren’t there. The camera angle makes it unclear why Romo thought better of throwing to Crayton or TO. Witten is bracketed by Manuel over the top and linebacker Jamie Winborn underneath, and he slips as he’s going past Winborn. Romo is protected well, so he waits for something to open up. That something ends up being Barber, working in the space in front of Witten. When Barber comes in to that area, Winborn has the chance to do one of two things: stay in front of Witten, keeping him covered, or come up to cover Barber. Instead, he bites on a pump-fake and takes himself entirely away from both players. That leaves Barber open for an easy six yards.

Barber rush, 11 yards:
The Cowboys line up with two tight ends initially, but Witten motions in to the fullback spot, offset to the left. The run is to the left. The line blocks right. Kosier pulls to the left and establishes the corner. Witten comes along behind him and just cements that corner, pushing Manuel, the outside man, up the field for five yards. Given the success Curtis and Witten had at taking Manuel out of running plays, I’d say he has trouble fighting off blockers. That’s not exactly uncommon among safeties, but he can’t be proud of the way he was shoved around. Anyhoo, Crayton does an adequate job of blocking his man. He doesn’t push him back much, and he might have held him a little, but he neutralized him long enough to let Barber by.

Romo to Owens, Incomplete:
The Cowboys line up with three wide receivers and a tight end. Romo fakes to Barber. TO is in the slot to the right and runs a crossing pattern. At first, he is bracketed by Manuel underneath and Dre Bly over the top. He outruns Manuel and is open near the right sideline. Romo throws it to him but leads him too much. The inaccuracy probably had something to do with the pressure Romo was under. Witten is pass blocking on this play. He and Marc Colombo double-team Engelberger. Winborn hangs just behind them, and after a bit, he runs by Colombo’s inside shoulder and towards Romo. Either he was by design part of a delayed blitz or he was assigned to cover Witten, and upon seeing he didn’t have to, decided to rush the passer. Either way, Colombo was not in a position to block him; he was too committed to Engelberger. In going around Colombo, Winborn had looped in front of Tony’s face and prevented Romo from stepping up when he threw to Owens.

Barber rush, 6 yards:
The offense lines up with a tight end, a fullback, and a receiver on either side. Hurd, the receiver on the right, motions to the left side. That clears Foxworth out of that side, opening it to a run to the outside. At the snap, the left side of the line cut blocks. On the right side, Witten blocks Engelberger. Colombo loops around them and cuts Manuel. Deon Anderson chips in on Witten’s block just long enough to take Engelberger out of the play. From there, he leads the way, mauling Winborn upfield a few yards. When Barber receives the toss from Romo, he has a clear path to six yards. At the end of the run, he sees that there are too many defenders to go outside Anderson’s block, so he goes inside just so he can pop Winborn. He’s a badass that way.

Romo to Owens, Incomplete:
Clearly it’s been too long since we had a hitch pattern. Romo lines up in shotgun with two wide receivers left and one right. Dre Bly is covering Owens on the far left and giving him quite a cushion. Owens takes a few running steps off the line, then turns for the pass. As mentioned before, these routes require that Romo wait until the last second before turning to look at his target. So it’s possible that he could have been expecting that when he turned to look, Owens would be breaking the other way. Either that, or Romo missed really, really bad. Also, the Broncos actually employed two deep safeties on this play, leaving Witten on a linebacker. Needless to say, Witten was quite open. In this case, however, they were using a timing route, so it wasn't as if Tony was going through reads. He knew before the snap that he was going to TO.

The offense then lined up to go for the 4th down conversion before a fluky false start set them back. One of the Broncos defenders moved, causing the Cowboys lineman to jump. The refs said the defender did not enter the neutral zone, so the Cowboys were charged with a false start. It’s things like that which ought to cause people to pause before speaking ill of the offensive performance in this game. Without that fluke, the Cowboys could have kept on rolling. Had they scored a touchdown there, wouldn’t we think of this game as more of a success?

DRIVE TWO:

Romo to Curtis, 4 yards:

The offense had two tight ends and a fullback in, leaving one wide receiver. Romo faked to Barber and followed that with a roll-out. Unlike the previous fakes where Romo simply extended the ball to Barber, this play also included run blocking by the line to further sell the fake. Tony Curtis chipped Engelberger before heading in to the flat. Engelberger closed on Romo fairly quickly, forcing him to throw to Curtis rather than Witten or Owens, both of whom looked to be coming open. Manuel was covering Curtis. When Curtis chipped, it wasn't enough to lose Manuel, but it was enough to create some separation. When Manuel went to tackle Curtis, he threw Marquand to the ground. It was quite impressive, but it slowed him enough for another Bronco to come finish the tackle.

Barber rush, 2 yards:

With two tight ends, Curtis motions to the fullback spot. The line blocks right, and Leonard Davis pulls left. Curtis also looks to head left. While they don’t allow penetration, the line doesn’t create much of a hole either. Barber sees the mass of lineman and bounces to the outside. Marquand Manuel is waiting, and he stops him for a gain of two.

Romo to Hurd, Incomplete:

With four yards to the first down, Romo sets up in the shotgun with three wideouts and a tight end. Dumervil beats Colombo, but Tony steps up and to the right. At that point, he had more than enough green in front of him to pick up the first. But things were developing downfield that kept his eyes on his receivers.
On the left side, Sam Hurd had started as if he was going to another dreaded hitch route. Karl Paymah had broken in to blanket him. Hurd used that commitment by Paymah to get behind him. With Witten, Crayton, and Hurd all on that side, there was no safety in the area. When Hurd got behind Paymah, he was behind the defense. Romo saw that, and instead of going for the first down, he went for the touch down. Alas, he overthrew Hurd. In his interview at halftime, he mentioned that the thinner air had something to do with it.



I was excited because I think I can grasp their game plan here. Romo mentioned in his halftime interview that they knew the Broncos would play a lot of man coverage. He also said that there would have been some big opportunities if they had stayed on the field. By running so many hitches, the Cowboys were begging the corners to creep up to play the hitch. Once they did, the Cowboys would use a double move to get behind them. That was what happened on the final play. With the Broncos bringing a safety in the box to stop Witten, they were sacrificing some of their ability to have that last line of defense. Were TO to beat one of their corners with a double move, it’s game over. And if the Broncos never do come up to stop the hitch, then the Cowboys can just hitch them to death. If you can pick up 4-10 yards every play, you can put up some points.
He also was asked in the halftime interview if he was intentionally targeting TO because Owens had been held catchless in San Diego. Romo poo-pooed such an idea. I can’t say what motivated it, but give the number of timing patterns designed to go to Owens, Romo can’t poo-poo the notion that Owens was a big part of this game after not being targeted once last game. But  hey, saying the offense wants to get its number one receiver involved isn’t exactly Nostradamus-level prophecy.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this post. I want to also break down the Miles Austin Drive, but I’m not sure when I’ll get the time. Hopefully today or tomorrow.

I got a TiVo for this season, so I thought I'd put it to use. I went through the plays on that first scoring drive looking for how and why each play worked. I don't have any sort of football training. I only know what I read about it, and I think just about anyone could gain the information presented here by doing what I did (watching the plays in slo-motion several times each), but still: I think there's some value in it. It's the sort of thing I would read.

Romo to Witten, 10 yards:

There were three passing plays on this drive. The Chargers brought five rushers on all three of them. Such is life with the Chargers: they brought five rushers on 44.7% of defensive snaps last year, the most in the league. With the two outside linebackers blitzing, the inside linebackers both dropped back. They did so to such an extent that it appeared as if their main goal was to just keep everything in front of them. Given that, Witten had no trouble breaking outside of Stephen Cooper and catching his first pass of the night. In addition to playing back, Cooper was shading inside, so this was a completion waiting to happen. The only two hopes for the Chargers on this play is if the cornerback would have come underneath and broken up the pass or if the rush got to Romo. The cornerback was playing press, so he was nowhere near in position to do anything, and Barber neutralized Merriman with ease. This was about as easy a way to pick up ten yeards as there is. That was the beauty of this posession: all of it looked so simple. It was as if the defense had no choice but to let them score.

Barber rush, 4 yards:

At the start of the play, the line flows to the left, but Andre Gurode stops flowing and is pushed over by Jamal Williams. With the push, however, Williams loses balance. Colombo gives Williams a shove of his own, and he goes down next to Gurode. At this point, there are no holes to run through but thanks to Colombo, no immediate threats either. Flozell wasn't really in position to seal his man off for when Barber bounced outside (that was not, after all, the design of the play), but he had pushed him far enough upfield that Barber had the chance to pick up four yards. Barber deserves extra points for maintaining his balance after Gurode fell in to him.

Romo to Witten, 7 yards:

The offense lines up with two receivers right and two tight ends left. As the two outside linebackers blitz, the inside linebackers cover the two tight ends. Tony Curtis is the outside tight end while Witten is inside. Curtis starts upfield before breaking to the sideline and taking Cooper with him. That clears out space under Witten. Witten's route is pretty similar to the first one. He runs up the field before cutting outside to spearate from the linebacker. Since Curtis took Cooper with him, Wilhelm is starting out from pretty far inside, so when Witten makes his move outside, it's an easy completion. Wilhelm does manage to close towards Witten after his move better than Cooper did. That's why the play nets seven yards instead of 10, because Witten has no chance to make a move with the ball. Still, it's a first down and an unstoppable play.

Barber rush, 15 yards:

The offense sets up with one wideout, two tight ends and a fullback. The entire line blocks to the right except for Witten. Deon Anderson helps out to the right while Witten takes care of Merriman to the left. The line just smashes the opposition. Barber brings a lot of things to the table, but he didn't need any of them for the first six yards or so. Dominance. The interesting element of this play is Witten. He takes care of Merriman coming in from the left, disengages at the earliest possible time, and heads out in to the secondary. Barber follows Witten's blocks to 14 yards. Without a tight end who can take on Shawne Maerriman by himself before becoming the lead blocker, this play would not work. And those things aren't easy to do. Football Outsiders said that given Witten's combination of blocking and receiving skills, he is probably the best tight end in football. When he allows the offense to run plays like this, such a claim seems justified.

Barber rush, 4 yards:

To the extent that the blocking made the previous play, Barber made this one. Tony Curtis lines up as a fullback before motioning to the left side of the line. That puts the Cowboys in what Madden '08 tells me is an "Ace" package. From that, they run a stretch to the left. Jamal Williams gives Gurode trouble again, blowing by his right shoulder and to Barber. At the same time, Merriman defeats Curtis' block. They both try to tackle Barber and sort of brush each other off. Barber keeps his footing throughout. Had he not, the play likely would have gone for no gain. Merriman and Williams do, however, succeed in slowing Barber. On the other side of the play, Jacques Cesaire gets inside the block of Marc Colombo, letting him free to tackle Barber. Had Marion not been slowed, he probably wouldn't have had much trouble outrunning Cesaire. In this case, though, Cesaire is able to get Marion's legs and bring him down. Barber tries to step though the tackle. The effort does not succeed, but it does net him an extra yard or two. In the end, Barber scratches four yards out of blocking worthy of no gain.  I don't claim to know how getting beat by Cesaire affected him, but it's worth noting that Colombo was called for a false start on the next play.

Romo to Crayton, 16 yards:

As Mickey pointed out on the broadcast, Crayton really makes this play. He's taking on San Diego's first-round pick Antoine Cason. Crayton slants in and turns back towards Romo. Cason has good coverage to this point, but when Crayton turns in, Cason thinks he knows what is going on and tries to come in off of Crayton's left shoulder. Crayton has played him like a game: he breaks right, and Romo is ready with the pass. Eric Cooper has drifted towards Sam Hurd on the left side of the play, and he is in poor position to make the tackle. He does, however, slow Crayton long enough for Cason to catch up. The cameras caught a cool moment after the play where Colombo came up to Crayton, presumably thanking him for bailing him out.

Peter King had mentioned about a week ago that the focus of Romo's offseason was to stay back in the pocket. There is a tendency to shuffle towards the line of scrimmage when making reads, but a quarterback can give himself more time if he avoids that tendency. We only have three passes to work off of here, but it certainly seemed like the work paid off. The Chargers blitzed every time, and he wasn't bothered. After watching Rex Grossman move four yards up in the pocket during the Bears' preseason game, it is refreshing to see a quarterback do it right.

This is only one drive. Even the Dolphins had one good drive at some point last season (unconfirmed). Still, if the first-team offense could have done anything more to show they'll be as deadly as ever, I can't think of what that would be.

So Joe Sheehan did kind of the same thing, but I'd been working on some of this for a little while, so I figured it might be worth posting anyways. I just wanted to take a look at various elements of the White Sox and see if there were any inidcators that they were due for a fall or if I could relax, confident that the Sox will remain in the race on through the summer. I'm starting with the pitching staff.

When looking at luck for pitchers, the three areas of focus are Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP), the Home Run-to-Fly percentage (HR/FB), and the Line Drive Percentage (LD%). In a normal, average world, BABIP ought to sit around .300, HR/F should be approaching 11%, and LD% should be a bit under 20%. It’s been demonstrated that pitchers have no control over these numbers, so significant variations from these norms indicates luck either way.

The one pitcher on the staff having no success is staff ace and favorite player of TC Fleming, Mark Buehrle. The luck points to a number of interesting things for Buerhle. His LD% and HR/FB rates (18.9% 8%, respectively) are right where they should be, but his BABIP is a suspiciously high .328. One way to see the effect of this sort of thing is to look at FIP vs. ERA. FIP stands for Fileding-Independent Pitching and uses the three factors over which a pitcher has control (strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed) to say how many runs a pitcher would be expected to give up over nine innings separate from the performance of his defense. Basically, it takes out the effect of BABIP. Mark Buehrle’s ERA this year has been 4.82 while his FIP has been 3.93. He has continued to strike out and walk batters at his career rates, but he has cut down on the home runs allowed. There is precedent for this: his home runs allowed per game are almost identical to what he allowed in 2005, his career year. Once his BABIP inevitably evens out, that ERA will drop, and the Sox will achieve still more success.

With Javier Vazquez comes more confidence that the pitching staff is for real. With a 2.62 FIP, Vazquez places second among all pitchers in the Major Leagues. And here’s the thing: his 21.5 LD% and .323 BABIP show he isn’t really getting any bounces. Well, he actually kind of is. His 4.8% HR/FB shows that he isn’t giving up nearly as many home runs as his number of fly balls would indicate. Home runs are pretty costly, so when they do start leaving the par, it’ll be bad. That badness, however, ought to be offset somewhat by his BABIP and LD% falling back to normal levels. In the end, the home runs ought to be costly enough that his FIP will rise, but he could still end up with an ERA less than his current 3.43. He’s pitching at an All-Star level, and that’s not likely to stop.

On the other side of the ledger, we find Jose Contreras. Contreras ERA has been better than last year, but he isn’t striking out any more batters than he ever has—in fact, it’s less. The only noticeable shift in his numbers lies in the number of home runs he has allowed, and with a HR/FB of 4.2%, that isn’t really anything he’s doing well. His .260 BABIP and 18.8 LD% show he has nowhere to go but down. His ERA is going to balloon, and it’ll probably do it soon. I’m expecting an ERA somewhere in the mid 4’s.

Going in to the year, the fate of the staff--and to some extent, the team--looked to hinge on the two young starters, John Danks and Gavin Floyd. Were they to live up to their draft slot in ways they had not thus far, the Sox could really improve. With both sporting ERA's under 3.00, both appear to have done just that. Digging deeper, however, indicates only one is likely to continue to perform at such a level.

John Danks certainly indicated he might have something last year and has continued on that path. Right now, his still-excellent 3.29 FIP is a bit higher than his 2.94 ERA. His LD% and BABIP (16.5% and .288) bear that out, indicating some luck. His HR/FB is a fluky 5.7%, but his HR/G are down to such an extent that not all of that can be attributed to luck. He is, in fact, getting a lot more ground balls this year (51.3% Groundballs this year, compared to 34.8% last year). He's also been cutting down on his walks. Danks is improving. His BABIP, LD%, and HR/FB all indicate regression but not a ton of it. His ERA should stay under 4.00.

The bad egg, then, is one Gavin Christopher Floyd. Looking at every stat but ERA, this is the worst year of his career. He's striking out two less batters per nine innings than he was last year, 6.0 to 4.1. He is walking two more batters per nine innings than last year, 2.3 to 4.3. His home runs allowed per nine innings is down, but that can be expected, given the drop in HR/FB (17.3% in '07 to 6.3% in '08). His BABIP is .193, and his LD% is 11.8. His ERA is 2.92 while his FIP is 5.02. This is all to say that he should be buying lotto tickets in bulk. Floyd is about to get rocked. Hard.

Four of the five starters discussed here have HR/F rates that should cause concern—and a good bit of it. While pitchers can get lucky for a whole year (18 pitchers finished 2007 with a HR/F under 10%), none of them stay as lucky as Contreras, Danks and Vazquez are right now (no one finished 2007 with a HR/F under 6%). And, of course, it’s not the sort of thing one wants to depend on. But with the BABIP’s evening out in the favor of Buehrle and Vazquez, they shouldn’t be so bad off. As Sheehan noted, they're not giving up walks.