Watkins: Mackenzy Bernadeau prepares to start

IRVING, Texas -- Mackenzy Bernadeau has been here before.

The Dallas Cowboys guard has started 47 games in his NFL career and might get another one Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals. Starting left guard Ronald Leary is nursing a pulled groin and his status is uncertain, so that means, coach Jason Garrett may turn to a veteran who played in overtime in last week's loss to Washington when Leary was injured.

"It's always exciting to get a chance to play and I don't consider this as me taking Ron's spot," Leary said. "I consider it me being accountable when one man goes down somebody has got to step up and play. So its just a great opportunity to get out there and play and hopefully Ron gets healthy and if not, I'll be ready to go."

Bernadeau has become a reliable lineman for the Cowboys because he's played both guard positions and started two games at center in 2012. When Bernadeau played in Carolina he started at both guard positions so just moving around the offensive line isn't a big deal.

"I'm comfortable at all three," Bernadeau said. "I played left most of the time, I've been prepping for it all season long in case something like this happens."

His potential return comes against an Arizona defense with just seven sacks on the season but is determined to send pressure on the quarterback by sending six and sometimes seven defenders. Arizona, despite being tied for 29th in the league in sacks, is tied for third with 10 interceptions because they play a tight man-to-man defense.

The pressure on the quarterback forces him to hurry throws and make quick decisions. The offensive line's communication has to be good, especially if Brandon Weeden is forced to start because of Tony Romo's back injury.

"They're good, they have a great front four, in the sub front they're great, they got a great 3-4 defense they got some guys who move around pretty well and some guys who can blitz and played a lot of games," Bernadeau said. "It's a great opportunity to just get out and play, we're preparing real well for it and just [by] looking at their games we'll be ready."

As the week goes on, I'm leaning more and more on the idea of just letting Weeden start.

Not only is Arizona going to blitz the shit out of us after what the Skins did to us last week, but it's going to be even worse considering Leary is gone also.

Romo will be ducking and voluntarily giving himself up every other play. Let Weeden sit back there and find some open targets on hot routes.

Jwooten15 said:

As the week goes on, I'm leaning more and more on the idea of just letting Weeden start.

Not only is Arizona going to blitz the shit out of us after what the Skins did to us last week, but it's going to be even worse considering Leary is gone also.

Romo will be ducking and voluntarily giving himself up every other play. Let Weeden sit back there and find some open targets on hot routes.

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Romo can deal with corner blitzes and even up the middle but when the fire drill method breaks out, he is cooked.

Good God. If Burnindeuce has to start for us, we're doomed before the game even starts.

Plan9Misfit said:

Good God. If Burnindeuce has to start for us, we're doomed before the game even starts.

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~looks at avatar and sig line.~


~Dismisses any and all OL evaluation.~

L.T. Fan said:

Romo can deal with corner blitzes and even up the middle but when the fire drill method breaks out, he is cooked.

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The Redskins brought more 7 an blitzes in that game then we had seen all season. If a team is bringing a 7 man blitz with any regularity you should be smoking it. Throw a WR screen for gods sake. You'd have more receivers then the other team has cover guys.

No matter who starts....if they let another team blitz like the Redskins did, with no answers nor a way to slow it down....fuck'em all.

Fuck you Garrett.

Fuck you Linehan.

Fuck you Callahan.

Fuck you OL.

Double Fuck You Jerry.

Bernadeau was actually classically decent last year.

UncleMilti said:

Fuck you OL.

Double Fuck You Jerry.

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Team brings 7 men on a blitz. I'm not blaming my 5 O-lineman for not picking them all up. Hell even with an extra blocker in the backfield a guy is going to come free. The question is with 4 guys in coverage, what the fuck was Romo doing? If you complete even a basic pass you have the potential for a huge play. Instead Romo was tucking into a ball before the rush even got close to him.

Cowboysrock55 said:

Team brings 7 men on a blitz. I'm not blaming my 5 O-lineman for not picking them all up. Hell even with an extra blocker in the backfield a guy is going to come free. The question is with 4 guys in coverage, what the fuck was Romo doing? If you complete even a basic pass you have the potential for a huge play. Instead Romo was tucking into a ball before the rush even got close to him.

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I kept saying to myself all game, "where's the hot read?" I don't think there were any.

L.T. Fan said:

I kept saying to myself all game, "where's the hot read?" I don't think there were any.

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I saw the replay of the blitz where Romo got hurt. First off all they brought 7 guys on that play. We had 6 guys to pick up the blitz.

The part that bothered me most was that Romo had turned and tucked into the fetal position with plenty of time to still get the ball off. All he had to do is loft the ball up to Dez for grabs. A back shoulder fade, just throw something. If Dez breaks that tackle he is off to the races. Instead all Romo could see was the rush and the need to protect himself, which is what ultimately got him hurt.

Cowboysrock55 said:

I saw the replay of the blitz where Romo got hurt. First off all they brought 7 guys on that play. We had 6 guys to pick up the blitz.

The part that bothered me most was that Romo had turned and tucked into the fetal position with plenty of time to still get the ball off. All he had to do is loft the ball up to Dez for grabs. A back shoulder fade, just throw something. If Dez breaks that tackle he is off to the races. Instead all Romo could see was the rush and the need to protect himself, which is what ultimately got him hurt.

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That is Romo' s tendencies. When he has no direction to turn he tucks rather than give ground. He does pretty well avoiding directional blitzes by turning or dodging but when surrounded he goes down. It's a judgement whether he does or doesn't have time to get rid of the ball. I never really observed that enough to know but I have done some observations on his blitz tendencies

L.T. Fan said:

That is Romo' s tendencies. When he has no direction to turn he tucks rather than give ground. He does pretty well avoiding directional blitzes by turning or dodging but when surrounded he goes down. It's a judgement whether he does or doesn't have time to get rid of the ball. I never really observed that enough to know but I have done some observations on his blitz tendencies

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It's not really a judgment. You know how long it take Romo to physically throw a ball. You know how far the blitzer was away when Romo turned and tucked into a ball. When the time of one exceeds the other then he had time to throw the ball.

There's no excuse for him not being able to fire off a pass to someone.

ESPN timed his release as faster than Marino's.

Cowboysrock55 said:

I saw the replay of the blitz where Romo got hurt. First off all they brought 7 guys on that play. We had 6 guys to pick up the blitz.

The part that bothered me most was that Romo had turned and tucked into the fetal position with plenty of time to still get the ball off. All he had to do is loft the ball up to Dez for grabs. A back shoulder fade, just throw something. If Dez breaks that tackle he is off to the races. Instead all Romo could see was the rush and the need to protect himself, which is what ultimately got him hurt.

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Problem is they are slow developing routes, if you watch Dez presnap it looks like he is trying to Romo's attention, maybe to audible to him a hot route or at least to let him know he's singled up

jsmith6919 said:

Problem is they are slow developing routes, if you watch Dez presnap it looks like he is trying to Romo's attention, maybe to audible to him a hot route or at least to let him know he's singled up

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Look at that play. Imagine if Dez just runs a slant. There are litterally 3 guys in coverage to tackle him and the corner is so far off he could never have stopped the slant from being caught. Sorry, that's a line of scrimmage adjustment and it should be easy. It's a retarded easy defensive call to beat. How we couldn't do anything is crazy to me.

BipolarFan said:

There's no excuse for him not being able to fire off a pass to someone.

ESPN timed his release as faster than Marino's.

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Not making excuses for him. Just relating what he tends to do.

So much fail on that play.

BipolarFan said:

There's no excuse for him not being able to fire off a pass to someone.

ESPN timed his release as faster than Marino's.

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Arm speed and release is only effective if the brain makes it.

Romo had a bad game. But keep things in perspective, he is not an all timer at reading defenses, never has been.

He relies as much on broken plays for success as he does scanning the field and attacking weakness and exploiting opportunities.

Think of literally every great signature play he has had.

Nearly all involve him buying time.

That's why his injury concerns are becoming more and more concerning. Take away his mobility, he's not what he has been at his best.

Why are all those routes so damned long? He doesn't have time to wait for those receivers to make any type of break. That's on Linehan I think.