JJT: Marinelli maniacal about Cowboys forcing turnovers

Marinelli maniacal about Cowboys forcing turnovers
January, 6, 2015

By Jean-Jacques Taylor | ESPNDallas.com

IRVING, Texas - Defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli has done the impossible by making the Cowboys one of the NFL's best teams at forcing turnovers.

The Cowboys have forced a turnover in 16 consecutive games, including 12 in December. They added three more in Sunday's 24-20 wild card win over Detroit.

The Cowboys are now 10-0, when forcing at least two turnovers in a game.

There’s nothing fluky about the Cowboys taking the ball away. It’s all orchestrated by Marinelli, who's maniacal about his players attacking the ball every play. Dallas recovered 13 fumbles this season. Only four teams had more.

"You hold people to a certain standard of how we’re going to play,” Marinelli said. "A lot of people give lip service in the offseason, but as the season goes on, they don’t stress it as much.

"Every day we work on stripping the ball, sprinting to the ball and tackling. We work on it every day of the year. We talk about it every day of the year, and we watch it on film. We grade effort. There’s nothing magical about it. It’s consistency in our approach."

The Cowboys added two more forced fumbles on sacks by Anthony Spencer and DeMarcus Lawrence in the fourth quarter.

“We’re just relentless on it. As soon as you don’t emphasize it, you don’t do it,” Marinelli said. "Sometimes, you can have a game where you don’t get any, but the strip attempts are there.

"I keep looking for strip attempts. If you have enough attempts, eventually you’re going to get it out. If the attempts aren’t there, there’s no way it’s coming out.”

The Cowboys also play so much zone defense that the linebackers and defensive backs are always looking at the quarterback, so they see tipped passes like the one Kyle Wilber intercepted in the third quarter. Teams that play man-to-man often tier back turned to the quarterback, when the ball is thrown.

More important, the Cowboys are getting most of their turnovers at winning time. The Cowboys have forced 17 turnovers in the fourth quarter, including two against Detroit.

But it's going to be difficult taking the ball away from Green Bay.

The Packers turned the ball over just 13 times, tying New England for fewest in the league. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw just five interceptions in 520 attempts.

He hasn’t thrown an interception at Lambeau Field since 2012.

Just imagine how good this defense would be if we actually had some legitimate pro bowl talent.

Just 2 or 3 players more, that's it. I bet that would make a significant difference.

Still, it's hard to be mad at what this defense has accomplished so far. They may not be a strength, but they aren't a liability anymore. They are helping us win ganes and that's something none of us thought would be possible 5 months ago.

Everyone knows this isn't possible because this defense was going to be terrible.

L.T. Fan said:

Everyone knows this isnt possible because this defense was going to be terrible.

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They've definitely overachieved.

I don't think it is a case where people underestimated the talent.

They are what they are, but they are really giving max effort, about as much as we have seen from a Cowboys D since well, almost ever.

boozeman said:

They've definitely overachieved.

I don't think it is a case where people underestimated the talent.

They are what they are, but they are really giving max effort, about as much as we have seen from a Cowboys D since well, almost ever.

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I think what some didnt factor in was the unknowns with the personnel that was brought in. Thats what i harped on early on because i thought it was a mistake to project on some of those guys. I really didn't know what the out come would be with some of them nor did i think anyone else could project what they would be bad.

boozeman said:

They've definitely overachieved.

I don't think it is a case where people underestimated the talent.

They are what they are, but they are really giving max effort, about as much as we have seen from a Cowboys D since well, almost ever.

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No exaggeration, we haven't seen a cumulative effort to get to the football like this since that early 90's defense.

We've had much more talented defenses than this in recent years, but none as aggressive or as determined as this one. Those " talented" defenses always ranked well in yards allowed and things like that, but always near the bottom in turnovers.

And don't even get me started on their inability to make a game-clinching stop, because they were damn near non-existent.

This defense excels at both creating turnovers and getting big time stops when they are needed most. And I've got a good feeling that they are gonna find a way to get some turnovers out of Green Bay as well.

boozeman said:

They've definitely overachieved.

I don't think it is a case where people underestimated the talent.

They are what they are, but they are really giving max effort, about as much as we have seen from a Cowboys D since well, almost ever.

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I think you are selling them a little short. I admit, I had zero hope for this defense coming in to the season. But I think we may have under estimated them a little, not a lot, but some. Here's why;

1) Linebacker play - McClain has been everything we could have asked for (outside of whatever is going on with him right now). Hitchens has been better than we could have imagined, not sure how many tackles he has recorded but he seems to always be close to the ball. Durant was solid when healthy, and Carter has been better than bad the past 6 weeks or so.

2) Safety play - Church has been solid again (although he has missed some tackles and pissed me off on a few occasions). But the surprise to me was Wilcox, he has been solid and aggressive. We've had aggressive in the past at that safety spot, but its been all long time since we had "solid" in both spots.

3) D-line hustle & rotation - We gave this group no chance to compete in the preseason, none. But Crawford and Mincey surprised us by giving some production and Spencer has returned to some sort of form (not sure he's 100% but he has been better the second half of the season). Melton has been a no show, and for the rest of the group to step up and not get dominated has me appreciating their hustle.

Not trying to say we shouldn't be upgrading in the offseason, we all know we need to get better on defense, but for a group of no name defenders I think they have done pretty well.

boozeman said:

I don't think it is a case where people underestimated the talent.

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I think some of the talent was most certainly underestimated. No one thought for example that Rolando McClain would be such a big contributor to this defense. No one thought Anthony Hitchens was a legitimate NFL player. To a lesser extent I think Mincey has shown he has more in the tank then people were giving him credit for. I think Wilcox's talent was underestimated. No one thought Crawford would be this good this year.

But in general I agree that this defense is overachieving just like I think the defense underachieved last year.

Texas Ace said:

Still, it's hard to be mad at what this defense has accomplished so far. They may not be a strength, but they aren't a liability anymore. They are helping us win ganes and that's something none of us thought would be possible 5 months ago.

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The 31 turnovers were huge and a large part of our offensive success. While they don't get many sacks, they do get pressure and when they get sacks its often in the 4th quarter when it really matters. Of course they are pinning their ears back because they are usually protecting a lead, but both sides of the ball feed each other that way.

Rodgers and Lacey are a bad matchup for them, and they will rely on the Dallas offense even more this weekend. But I think if they can stop Lacey, Dallas will win.

Cowboysrock55 said:

I think some of the talent was most certainly underestimated. No one thought for example that Rolando McClain would be such a big contributor to this defense. No one thought Anthony Hitchens was a legitimate NFL player. To a lesser extent I think Mincey has shown he has more in the tank then people were giving him credit for. I think Wilcox's talent was underestimated. No one thought Crawford would be this good this year.

But in general I agree that this defense is overachieving just like I think the defense underachieved last year.

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Having players like T McClain, Melton, Spencer and Lawrence as your rotational guys is a huge jump from what we had last year, the talent has definitley been upgraded.

What we were sending out there on 2nd string was comically bad.

L.T. Fan said:

I think what some didnt factor in was the unknowns with the personnel that was brought in. Thats what i harped on early on because i thought it was a mistake to project on some of those guys. I really didn't know what the out come would be with some of them nor did i think anyone else could project what they would be bad.

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They're playing as a team instead of waiting for Ware or Lee to make a big play

dallen said:

They're playing as a team instead of waiting for Ware or Lee to make a big play

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Team wins out every time.

dallen said:

They're playing as a team instead of waiting for Ware or Lee to make a big play

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That is really the bottom line.

I think too many guys sat back and expected 1-2 superstars to come up with a splash play and the effort was never there.

The current group does really play for one another....the effort is there from each guy to do their job. Its showed up in the take-away dept more than anything.

Texas Ace said:

Just imagine how good this defense would be if we actually had some legitimate pro bowl talent.

Just 2 or 3 players more, that's it. I bet that would make a significant difference.

Still, it's hard to be mad at what this defense has accomplished so far. They may not be a strength, but they aren't a liability anymore. They are helping us win ganes and that's something none of us thought would be possible 5 months ago.

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This is why adding a guy like Suh would be so huge to our d-line. He may be an epic scumbag, but his production on the field can't be denied.

dallen said:

They're playing as a team instead of waiting for Ware or Lee to make a big play

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That's one of those unknowns at the start of the season.

Effort and desire can make all the difference in a football game and that is something this team as lacked for a long time. They aren't that talented on defense but they suck it up when they have to and that's a pleasant change from the last 15 years or so. For a long time this has been a team that plays for three quarters but forgets there's a fourth remaining. I can even remember losing games under Campo where they were playing well enough to win before going into hibernation late.

Marinelli has them playing with an edge and that has been key.

Plan9Misfit said:

This is why adding a guy like Suh would be so huge to our d-line. He may be an epic scumbag, but his production on the field can't be denied.

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He's awesome. But completely useless given the current FA system. Some team is going to have to bankrupt their future cap to sign him.

L.T. Fan said:

That's one of those unknowns at the start of the season.

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Yep. I wasn't arguing with you. I meant to add to what you said

dallen said:

Yep. I wasn't arguing with you. I meant to add to what you said

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As usual. It's appreciated.

Might be unpopular to say but has Rolando McClain kinda fallen off the past couple weeks?

I wonder if he's wearing down.