Cardinals Stuff...

[Smitty]

Garrett is ultimately in charge of the game plan going in, so he is just as much to blame as Linehan.

I'll believe you are being honest about that sentiment when I see a bunch of "Fuck Linehan" posts from you.

And like I said, I don't really have a problem with Linehan (or Garrett) right now, other than saying, they need to get this cleaned up. It's a problem.

But I don't think it's gonna continue going forward. Nor do I think that it really cost us the game in Denver. We couldn't do much of anything.

 

[Cotton]

I'll believe you are being honest about that sentiment when I see a bunch of "Fuck Linehan" posts from you.

And like I said, I don't really have a problem with Linehan (or Garrett) right now, other than saying, they need to get this cleaned up. It's a problem.

But I don't think it's gonna continue going forward. Nor do I think that it really cost us the game in Denver. We couldn't do much of anything.

I blame Linehan, too. But, the HC always carries the majority of the blame because, you know, he's the fucking head coach.

 

[GForce78NJ]

Linehan has been a breath of fresh air since he's been here, no reason to get on him for having one bad game. Coordinators can stink it up from time to time too and its not his fault half the players gave up after the first quarter.

I'm calling Zeke to have 150 total yards and 2 scores against the Cardinals. Our defense is ass so it might be close but our offense wont have another clunker, thats for damn sure

 

[Simpleton]

Arizona's defense is tough but it's not really on the level of Denver's. Jones and Golden off the edge are legit, although neither is as good as Miller, and of course Peterson and Mathieu are excellent, but they don't have the depth in the secondary that the Broncos do.

The Broncos have three elite CB's in Talib/Roby/Harris, an excellent safety in Stewart, and apparently Harris can also double as a safety as he did at times on Sunday. The Cardinals are weak in the secondary outside of Peterson/Mathieu, guys like Bethel and Tyvon Branch can be taken advantage of unlike guys like Roby or Stewart.

Their offense isn't as good as Denver's either, which is saying something. Their WR's are worse, their RB's without Johnson are worse, and their OL is banged up and worse.

If we come out playing with something to prove and don't fuck up with penalties and turnovers it should be an easy win.

 

[Smitty]

I blame Linehan, too. But, the HC always carries the majority of the blame because, you know, he's the fucking head coach.

Yeah, the buck stops there, I get that, but again, if Linehan is solely responsible for the success of the playcalling and game management, then he's also the one who is specifically calling those plays and game management against Denver that failed. Garrett is blame worthy for not reining him in then, but the criticism I'm hearing doesn't sound like it's blaming Garrett for not reining in Linehan, it sounds to me more like people think Garrett was authoring those bad calls.

In my opinion, Garrett is behind the game planning a bit; less so with playcalling. But that also means, unfortunately, that Garrett, while deserving of blame for this game, is also somewhat deserving of credit for 2014 and 2016's commitment to the run. I know no one wants to concede that, but you have to, if you're gonna pin blame on him for "93% passing in the redzone."

 

[Angrymesscan]

Yeah, the buck stops there, I get that, but again, if Linehan is solely responsible for the success of the playcalling and game management, then he's also the one who is specifically calling those plays and game management against Denver that failed. Garrett is blame worthy for not reining him in then, but the criticism I'm hearing doesn't sound like it's blaming Garrett for not reining in Linehan, it sounds to me more like people think Garrett was authoring those bad calls.

In my opinion, Garrett is behind the game planning a bit; less so with playcalling. But that also means, unfortunately, that Garrett, while deserving of blame for this game, is also deserving of credit for 2014 and 2016's commitment to the run. I know no one wants to concede that, but you have to, if you're gonna pin blame on him for "93% passing in the redzone."

No, just like any overseer it's his job to intervene if one under his direction is fucking up, but if someone under his watch is doing a good/great job it's to that person's credit.

 

[Smitty]

No, just like any overseer it's his job to intervene if one under his direction is fucking up, but if someone under his watch is doing a good/great job it's to that person's credit.

I don't think you have much of a grasp on what a head coach does, or any overseer for that matter, if you think their only job is to stop the people under them from messing up.

Convenient narrative, though, to support the spin of giving Linehan all the credit and none of the blame, and Garrett all the blame and none of the credit. Also, flat out wrong.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I don't see a problem with it

 

[UncleMilti]

Per NFL Research, Cowboys 2-17 under Garrett in games with less than 20 rushing attempts.

 

[boozeman]

Per NFL Research, Cowboys 2-17 under Garrett in games with less than 20 rushing attempts.

Says it all right there. That is pre- and post-Linehan.

 

[Texas Ace]

Says it all right there. That is pre- and post-Linehan.

Do you know the circumstances surrounding those 19 games and why we had to pass more than we ran?

Well do ya, pal?!

 

[Smitty]

Says it all right there. That is pre- and post-Linehan.

Why would this be surprising?

If you are passing a lot and abandoning the run you are probably behind.

 

[Texas Ace]

Why would this be surprising?

If you are passing a lot and abandoning the run you are probably behind.

It's not surprising at all.

You missed the point of what Booze was saying -- which is our tendency to abandon the run or ignore it altogether has been a problem for this team long before Linehan arrived which is why your efforts to defend Garrett and deflect blame are silly.

It's like you just can't admit the problem stems from him. Could Linehan be guilty of favoring the pass? Sure, but the main source of that philosophy is Garrett so he is and always should be the party who is most responsible for our lack of commitment to the running game.

Everyone seems to understand this except you.

 

[NoDak]

Remember that stat they always showed when Emmitt was playing? The cowboys were something crazy like 100- 10 when Emmitt had 100 yards rushing or more.

Well, no shit. If he went for a hundred plus, that usually meant we were controlling the game and clock. Obvious stat is obvious. This one isn't much different.

Conversely, did we ever win when Aikman threw for 300 plus? Very rarely, I'd bet.

 

[ravidubey]

Remember that stat they always showed when Emmitt was playing? The cowboys were something crazy like 100- 10 when Emmitt had 100 yards rushing or more.

Well, no shit. If he went for a hundred plus, that usually meant we were controlling the game and clock. Obvious stat is obvious. This one isn't much different.

Conversely, did we ever win when Aikman threw for 300 plus? Very rarely, I'd bet.

Nonetheless, the 90's Cowboys passed to set up the run. You had to do that because every defense immediately keyed on Emmitt.

Watch the Cowboys Saints game in 2014. The Saints jammed the front to open the game, basically stifling Murray and putting us in long yardage. Then Romo hits Witten, Williams, Murray himself in succession and with rhythm. Murray breaks free for 11.

Suddenly the Saints are on their heels, Romo throws a tight TD pass and the Cowboys are on their way to a blowout win. Romo has @250 yards and three TDs, but the yardage total is meaningless compared with the importance of the passes made.

But they had to back the Saints off the LOS. Just continuing to ram Murray up the gut would have been a fail, no matter how good the OL is.

 

[Simpleton]

Nonetheless, the 90's Cowboys passed to set up the run. You had to do that because every defense immediately keyed on Emmitt.

Watch the Cowboys Saints game in 2014. The Saints jammed the front to open the game, basically stifling Murray and putting us in long yardage. Then Romo hits Witten, Williams, Murray himself in succession and with rhythm. Murray breaks free for 11.

Suddenly the Saints are on their heels, Romo throws a tight TD pass and the Cowboys are on their way to a blowout win. Romo has @250 yards and three TDs, but the yardage total is meaningless compared with the importance of the passes made.

But they had to back the Saints off the LOS. Just continuing to ram Murray up the gut would have been a fail, no matter how good the OL is.

Which takes you back to Denver's secondary, there aren't many, if any teams in the league who have the talent they have there and can afford to challenge our passing game in that manner.

With that said, there is something to be said for using the threat of the run to set up the pass also with play-action/bootlegs, and not simply going 4 and 5 wide to get defenses to back off.

 

[Texas Ace]

Which takes you back to Denver's secondary, there aren't many, if any teams in the league who have the talent they have there and can afford to challenge our passing game in that manner.

With that said, there is something to be said for using the threat of the run to set up the pass also with play-action/bootlegs, and not simply going 4 and 5 wide to get defenses to back off.

Right, and that's what bothers me the most

I've said many times that while I prefer to run the ball and establish the running game, I can understand the decision to go to the pass if we're doing so from a formation that offers both a run/pass look or something that works to our strength.

Like you said, lining up from under Center and doing bootlegs like we did last year or some other form of play action could help to achieve that goal of getting a defense to back off.

But when you go out there and you line up in 5 wide, and especially when it's empty backfield and offers no threat of the Run whatsoever, then that is when we run into the problems that we saw on Sunday.

No matter how many times it bites us in the ass, this staff continues to make this mistake. I just wish they did a better job of using our strengths as an offense to our advantage, and weren't so blatantly obvious and their approach at times.

 

[Rev]

You guys are just simply not watching the games.

 

[Cotton]

Cowboys move on from Denver, focus on Arizona
Todd Archer
ESPN Staff Writer

FRISCO, Texas -- The 42-17 loss to the Denver Broncos is done, gone and buried, according to Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett.

That officially happened Wednesday when the coaches and players met for the first time after the loss, and Garrett addressed the lack of effort by Ezekiel Elliott, as well as some other players, on two interceptions.

"Zeke's a professional. Zeke knows how to play football at this level. He's demonstrated that over the course of his career," Garrett said. "He's not perfect. Nobody is perfect. When things happen, we address them. We coach them and then we move forward."

Elliott stood with his hands on his hips after Chris Harris Jr. collected a deflected ball off Dez Bryant's hands for the first pick of Dak Prescott. On Aqib Talib's interception return for a touchdown, Elliott remained on the ground after blocking a blitzing Denver defender and did not get involved in the chase.

While those plays were the most scrutinized, they were hardly the reason why the Cowboys suffered their third-worst loss of the Garrett era. The offense could not generate any running game or stay on the field on third down. The defense allowed four passing touchdowns and a 100-yard rusher, while missing too many tackles.

"Every week there's issues on our team that we address head on and we make sure we handle them, we address them, we solve them and we keep moving forward," Garrett said. "There were plenty of things in that ballgame that we had to address and put behind us."

Elliott carried nine times for 8 yards, career lows in both categories. Prescott had the second multi-interception game of his career. There is some notion that the Broncos have offered up a blueprint for how to slow down the Cowboys' offense.

Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, however, wasn't buying it.

"If you can borrow Denver's players," said Arians, whose team will face the Cowboys on Monday night at University of Phoenix Stadium. "It doesn't necessarily match up sometimes for what they did and what you can do."

Arians viewed the Cowboys' lack of production against Denver as an anomaly.

"You never prepare for just one week of what you see on tape because scoreboards indicate a lot of things that happen during games," Arians said, "and we anticipate what they've done for the last year-and-a-half, not just what happened last Sunday."

 

[ravidubey]

Which takes you back to Denver's secondary, there aren't many, if any teams in the league who have the talent they have there and can afford to challenge our passing game in that manner.

With that said, there is something to be said for using the threat of the run to set up the pass also with play-action/bootlegs, and not simply going 4 and 5 wide to get defenses to back off.

This has become a pattern vs. decent defenses. @Minnesota, @NYG, and now @Denver we've faced the same kinds of crap. Problem was in Denver's case they also had the horses at WR to humiliate our young/beat up secondary.

Dak has made a living off of taking what the defense is giving, but now it's squarely on his shoulders to lift the team out of 8 man fronts and tight coverage.

Even against the Buccaneers if you consistently take the least threatening pass option, it plays into the defense's hands because they bend but don't break and then put the pressure right back onto your defense.

Dak's been unable to create plays, and the coaches are definitely not helping with this 5-wide shat.

At least represent the threat of a run!