Sturm: Figuring Out Dez Bryant – And Where His Situation Is Headed

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Figuring Out Dez Bryant – And Where His Situation Is Headed


Bob Sturm 9 hours ago

There are few athletes as polarizing as Dez Bryant, even inside his own fanbase. There are many who love him so much that when his play drops, they will stop at nothing to protect his good name and find somebody else to blame. They ride or die with this man and they certainly didn't come this far to give up now. Dez is NOT the problem.




There is also a growing number on the other side of this aisle. People who now believe the biggest thing holding them back from having a team that can satisfy their lofty expectations is getting this guy out of the huddle and off the sideline. This was an easy prediction years ago: When the 1,000-yard seasons stopped, so will the unanimous adoration of the public. We have seen this story countless times when behavior quirks and personality traits that are certainly not the norm can be overlooked as long as production is always present. But, stop the highlights and you will pay dearly for emotional outbursts or a momentary lapse of reason. In short, people will describe their feelings as “they are just tired of Dez Bryant” and that implies plenty.


Today's piece is meant to try to cut through all of the Dez Bryant noise and emotion. Fans will be fans and homers will be homers. But, in this space, perhaps we can look at the player as he enters his 9th NFL season – we assume in Dallas – and figure out why his last 3 years have been the three least-productive seasons of his career (aside from his rookie season that was cut short with a fractured fibula) and try to see if this is a normal straight decline or if there is a revival of sorts on the horizon if the proper changes are made.


But, there is a lot to consider.


At his peak, which I consider 2012-2014, Dez Bryant was as good as any NFL WR short of Megatron. He was unstoppable and he beat teams in so many ways. His 41 touchdowns in those 48 games (he never missed a game) is 6 more than any other player in the business. He was physically dominant, breaking tackles, and near the top of the charts in YAC (yards after catch) each season. He was 23 when that 3-season span began and turned 26 by the time his 2014 season ended at that potential career crossroads playoff moment at Lambeau Field which most people in these parts still don't like to revisit.


That playoff game was January 11, 2015. You could argue at that moment, there was no more feared WR in the entire league. But, some very important things were about to change:



  1. Bryant would sign one of the biggest WR contracts in NFL History that summer.
  2. Tony Romo would make four starts for the rest of his career.
  3. Bryant was about to suffer a number of injuries.
  4. He was also about to play under his new contract, the least productive 3 seasons of his career in succession.

January 11, 2015, was a long time ago in a football career. A man, then in his prime, is now on the doorstep of 30 years old – which normally is about the time explosive athletes who fought valiantly for every single yard for nearly a decade would start to consider the next chapter of their life.


The Cowboys have implied plenty in the last six weeks, with Stephen Jones talking publicly about business decisions and how much they love Dez (“especially Dad”), but they need to do “what's right for the Dallas Cowboys”. Most people don't believe this is a set-up for an outright release, but rather to set the table for a financial “haircut” to take Dez Bryant from the top of the salary list at Wide Receiver (only Antonio Brown and Larry Fitzgerald are currently on the books for more than Bryant's $16.5 million in 2018) to something closer to the $10m-$12m range that receivers in the top 10-15 range make.


Before we discuss the football reasons for a haircut, let's make sure everyone knows Bryant's current standing in the league. These are the seven receivers who currently have a contract exceeding $60m in value
AgeTotal DealAvg Per YrGuarantee
Deandre Hopkins2581m16.2m49m
Julio Jones2971m14.2m47m
Demaryius Thomas3070m14m43.5m
Dez Bryant2970m14m45m
AJ Green2960m15m32.7m
Antonio Brown2968m17m19m
TY Hilton2865m13m28m


It is a small group of outside receivers (slot guys do not get contracts like these) and most of them are of a similar age and signed their contracts in close proximity to each other in that '15-'16 range.


The harsh reality then will turn to their production. Here is that same list of receivers, with the vital statistics of the 3-year span of 2015 to 2017:


CatchesYardsTDsSnaps
Hopkins2853853283254
Jones3074724172439
Thomas2783336162704
Bryant1502035172024
Green2273339222338
Brown3434651312892
Hilton2173538152794


As you can see, of the “Big 7” WR contracts in the NFL, using the sample from the moment Dez signed his new deal, he ranks last in catches, yards, and snaps taken. He tied for 4th in Touchdowns, which speaks to the reality that he is still a beast in the red zone, relative to his peer group.


The contracts are real and the statistics are objective. Where subjectivity comes into play is why those numbers are what they are. So let's get to that next.


When we look at 2015-2017 and compare it to 2012-2014, we would be foolish not to address the most obvious difference. Tony Romo was not a perfect QB, but he could really see the field and make the difficult throws. He could anticipate coverages and by the time he played his best football in ever in 2014 at the age of 34, he was throwing the ball less, but with significantly better results. He was making defenses wrong no matter what they tried, with an expert-level combination of mental power and arm strength that tore through the league with Dez Bryant his most powerful weapon.


It is possible that Romo had 3 or 4 more seasons of that coming, but his body gave out in Week 2 of 2015 in Philadelphia. It gave out again on Thanksgiving that year and again in the preseason of 2016 in Seattle. Each time, the organization attempted to keep a brave face and assure us that A) this was not a huge deal and B) each injury was unrelated to the others. Unfortunately, each time it was a huge deal and, of course, they were related. He had been beaten continuously for years and finally, the human body had a loud message for Romo to go do something that didn't involve giant linemen attempting to break you. He finally relented last spring.


Now, you will still find people who don't fully believe that previous paragraph. They believe that Tony was forced out and that he could and should still be the QB of the Cowboys. I guess they think his body was and is fine, despite Romo basically telling you it isn't – and that's why he sits next to Jim Nantz. This is what fan denial looks like, but in fairness to them, he was that good when he left. In 2014, you could easily argue he was finally a QB who could win the Super Bowl if his team got a break or two.


Romo was gone. That meant Dez no longer had the ball where he needed it continuously. He would be dealing with Brandon Weeden (who didn't use WR's much), Matt Cassel (who didn't see coverages well), and Kellen Moore (who could see everything but couldn't really throw).


Then, in 2016, the Cowboys were pretty sure Romo would return, so they decided to go all-in on a RB to recreate that 2014 offense. Romo was injured again and that meant that Dak Prescott would be the young QB now steering the ship. Everything was glorious. Prescott was putting the ball in the end zone and was playing about as well as any young QB could ever play, let alone a 4th round compensatory pick. In January of 2017, the Cowboys returned to Green Bay for a playoff game and Dez Bryant was unstoppable. On that day, Dez had his biggest day of the last 3 seasons, with highs in catches, yards, touchdowns, and yards after the catch. He caught 9 passes for 132 yards and 2 Touchdowns.





Bryant still can punish any corner left on an island and that day Ladarius Gunter was punished.



If there is any argument that Dez Bryant is still that same guy from 2014, it would be that day against the Packers in the 2016 playoffs. He was flat-out unstoppable and Dak Prescott was his QB.
So it can happen. We saw it in the biggest game. But Bryant has played in 29 regular season games with Prescott, and we have seen nothing that resembles that day against the Packers since. In fact, their average day together has featured 4 catches on 8 attempts for 56 yards with 14 yards of YAC and a Touchdown every other week. Prescott's QB rating on passes to Dez Bryant is 88 since they started playing together and in 2017 it was even worse at 74.8. Yuck.


Prescott's 2017 passer rating when throwing to anyone but Dez Bryant wass 90.8. But, to his best receiver, it was somehow 74.8! For Dak's career, he has a 97.6 rating to everyone else and an 88 rating (ironic, at least) to Dez Bryant.


What gives?


Well, there is plenty to unpack here, too. Dak Prescott is not the QB that Tony Romo was. Nobody should ever dispute that. Of course, that conversation has no more value than Romo vs Troy Aikman or Troy Aikman vs Roger Staubach. Romo doesn't live here anymore and despite the wild conspiracies of imagination that tells your inner Cowboy that he could still be the QB1, it is over.


Dak Prescott cannot do things Romo could do at age 34. He has completed 2 years in the NFL and defenses now know what he can do and what he can't do. The Cowboys have a very predictable set of route combinations and ideas and while we have been told that should be better and more creative in 2018, we will reserve the right to be convinced when we actually see it. For now, nobody thinks the Cowboys have changed much of anything when it comes to WR usage or design and for the most part, they seem to still be running the “Jason Garrett Offense” with Scott Linehan at the helm, rather than Scott's full design.


Add to this the realities of Prescott. He appears to have a remarkable mental make-up and seems generally unflappable to pressure and the noise of being the Dallas Cowboys QB. But, the 2017 season was a flying circus throughout and ultimately the suspension of Ezekiel Elliott combined with losing Tyron Smith at the same time caused the roof to cave in. The 8-sack debacle in Atlanta where he was repeatedly battered due to substandard protection seemed to shatter his confidence for most of the remainder of the year.


Add to all of that Dez Bryant and his makeup. If he isn't producing, it often feels like that fuels his emotions. In other words, there are times where the state of the game seems secondary to his usage in the offense and while Tony Romo might have had the clout to control that and perhaps have an authoritative voice with Bryant at the moment things are boiling over, Prescott does not and appears to force the ball to 88 as an appeasement for the demands. When you force the ball to any one receiver – especially the receiver that the opposition knows to key upon – things generally don't get better.


The Cowboys were a frustrating offense in 2017. Very. They did some great things for a while, but when Ezekiel Elliott and Tyron Smith were subtracted, the bottom fell out. In fact, here is a rough visual of the first 8 games versus the last 8.




We can explain the whole thing away if we simply argue that Elliott and Tyron Smith are the two best offensive players in the organization and they were both gone. During that time, as the frustration grew, it continued down the path of – why can't Dak and Dez do something about this? If Zeke is not there, why can't the passing game carry the load?


And the answer is not simply 'Dak Prescott is a horrendous passer.' While he is not Tony Romo, there is no reason why the Cowboys can't experience success in a run-first offense in which Prescott has a passer rating over 100, uses his legs to extend plays and move the chains, and relies on his judgment to keep the ball out of harm's way. Prescott has issues, for sure. But, to hear the Dez Bryant fan club explain it, there was not suitable QB play on any level. Surely, you have heard people quote stats about how most of the balls Dez Bryant did not catch were simply “uncatchable”. And there is no question that many passes were uncatchable. The question is whether Dez Bryant dealt with a normal number of uncatchable targets for his position or not?


So, as you might expect, I investigated this. I used Pro Football Focus and their basis for “uncatchable” as well as “slot usage”. Primary slot receivers cannot be measured against outside receivers because of the obvious difference in throw difficulty and coverage options. According to their numbers, here is Bryant measured against the Top 10 targeted “non-slot (less than 30%) receivers.”
Was he was the victim of brutal delivery?


Catchable %CatchableTargetsSlot %
M Thomas7610613922
D Adams737910819
D Thomas68.49313618
A Brown6810615513
J Jones67.19614323
B Cooks667210917
D Bryant64.28112622
R Anderson626911128
D Hopkins61.510116415
AJ Green59.78013414
M Evans56.77513221


The average “Catchable %” of the top 10 outside receivers in the NFL last year was 65.8%. It looks like Michael Thomas enjoys Drew Brees quite a bit. It looks like Mike Evans and DeAndre Hopkins would dream of playing with Dak Prescott. Dez Bryant's rate was 64.2. Basically, if 2 more passes over the entirety of 16 games were “catchable”, he would have been right at the league average. Forgive me if I consider that negligible.


Now, since we are on the topic, we also have the issue of drops. Much like defining whether a ball is catchable, we can easily admit that defining a “drop” is also a subjective question like assigning an error in baseball. Sometimes, it depends on who the official scorer might be that day. But, when it comes to drops in 2017, Dez Bryant led the NFL according to several different sources. Allow me to cite Pro Football Focus again:




He had the most drops, but Amari Cooper had a worse drop rate. I found other sources that had him for 14 drops and a few that said only 11. The point is that he dropped way more passes than he should, so the discussion about whether the delivery was good enough falls on deaf ears when the ones that are there actually hit him in the face-mask (At New York).


Some of these throws could improve, but playing QB is not easy, either and I imagine the point of paying a WR over a million a game implies that he can make a catch at knee level or over his head a bit.


Dez Bryant is not generally a poor catcher. 12 drops is a huge year in any case, but I think you will see that most of them were in the 2nd half of the season. In 2016 he had 2 drops and in 2015 he was credited with 7. The 21 in those 3 seasons aren't fantastic, but they are a lower number than Demaryius Thomas, Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Davante Adams, and many others. Drops happen. At the same time, it is possible that the only thing that kept Bryant from 80 catches and 1,000 yards (numbers that I assume would be enough to avoid this conversation altogether) in 2017 were the two things attached to Bryant's arms.

3rd and 10 and this slant is going to hurt. Bryant pulls up and the ball is easily intercepted.



The disconcerting issue with Dez and his drops would be that it appeared he also checked out around Thanksgiving last year. His concentration dipped badly and you could certainly accuse him of a few “business decisions” late where on 3rd down in Oakland and against Seattle, he had a chance to make a play but it was going to hurt. He decided to avoid the collision and preserve the well-being. It is not a great look, but it is also not the first time a player opted out of pain late in a season that had died on the vine. Again, if you are Stephen Jones, you might not want your team leader to set the pace like that for the paycheck you write him, but, I would argue that Bryant has significant warrior credit in the bank.


Is Dez Bryant used properly? Patrick Peterson once famously explained Dez Bryant's route tree to his sideline as saying “he only has 3 routes”. Presumably, even in his prime with Romo, that was thought of as the “Deep In”, the “Go”, and the comeback/curl. Here is the data, compiled by Marcus Mosher. The Go is still big, but they only hit on 6 of 25 (this doesn't include a fair number of penalties drawn), and beyond that, it appears the Cowboys are looking for what works.




It is true – he is not a great route runner. He rounds his routes off and for all of his ferocity, it doesn't appear that he confuses defensive backs with his releases. Also, Next-Gen stats seem to suggest he creates very little separation. This has never been his forte, but the more your explosiveness slows down, the smaller the windows become. Add to that the reality that what made him such a force – his absurd physicality and battle – is what might be causing a breakdown in his body over time. That limits the number of times you want to just throw him a quick screen and let him do battle. You can start to see that there are some concerns about where he can go as he hits 30 this season.



Plays like this are where Dez is at his best, but the punishment takes a toll.



Is that enough to say goodbye? Again, I don't believe that at all. Dez Bryant affects coverage. He keeps secondaries on notice. He makes safeties nervous. Yes, this will continue to diminish as defenses lose their fear of him as his skills diminish, but I saw enough rolling coverage in 2017 to conclude that he still is the biggest weapon for Prescott and he still causes defenses stress, which, in turn, makes the running game's job easier due to higher safeties.


I do think that he needs a much shorter emotional leash. He clearly has a difficult time regulating his emotions and he has to realize that this is not helpful to a young QB on any level, let alone the teammates that find it annoying in the huddle as his agenda is always going to be less important than the team agenda if it ever differs at all.


Dez Bryant has matured and come a long way in his development. But, he now has to face his evolution as a player and team leader or his career could be in peril soon. Many wish for him to play inside more and evolve like Anquan Boldin or Larry Fitzgerald have, but after watching his business decisions in December, I wonder if bringing him into the tight spaces where route precision is vital and the collisions are more brutal makes any sense at all.


It is fair to admit that he isn't what he once was, yet still hold to the idea that if he leaves this offense will greatly feel the effects and count me amongst those who think you need to add to this receiver group, not subtract its best threat.


There is a price where this can make sense. The Cowboys are correct in suggesting that another year of paying him like Julio Jones is just bad business in an offseason where they are pressed against the cap again. Let this contract sit and you lose 1-2 key players. Move him down to $10m and maybe Anthony Hitchens and a solution at Left Guard are not possible.


Dez is also correct in saying he earned that contract and they offered it. If they don't want to pay it, there will be some teams that would surely say he is worth 3 years/$33m or so, like DeSean Jackson's deal in Tampa Bay from last season.


Find that compromise. It will require some humbling of Dez and acceptance of a drop-off in his performance for 3 seasons. The QB excuse does not hold water when you consider the QB situation that Hopkins, Green, Demaryius Thomas, and most QBs deal with. Very few of them get to enjoy Tony Romo in 2014 to put up their numbers. He did. But, now he has to make the best of the next situation.


I contend that, despite the tough talk, the Cowboys still need Dez Bryant pretty badly. And I would also contend that he doesn't wish to wear another uniform. They need growth and more accountability from him, but they also still need him. He can get back to 80 catches and 1,000 yards, but it will require the coaching staff, the design of the offense, the Quarterback, and yes, Dez Bryant to do better in 2018.
 
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