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By Bob Sturm 1h ago
The Hall of Fame Game on Thursday night in Canton, Ohio, was, in fact, played. It did happen and if you watched it, you saw some classic uniforms and a few isolated things here and there worth noting. But, let’s be honest: If you decided to skip it, you can still call yourself an NFL enthusiast and keep your Cowboys fan card.
Jon Machota offered his insights and I encourage you to check those out here.
What I wanted to do was study the Dan Quinn debut a bit and to look at his initial lineups and ideas — even though it is very likely that he wanted to put the most vanilla concepts possible in these early preseason games for a number of reasons. His personnel was limited with all of the players out of the mix, it is so early in camp and, finally, Mike McCarthy teams are incredibly paranoid about giving away any deception advantages before Week 1.
First, a disclaimer: We have no real technology for this game. With the many advances that have happened since I started doing this sort of work in about 2008, it appears it is almost all stripped away for at least this game. I have no All-22, no NFL Next-Gen lineup information, no real replays from Fox of substance. This feels like how I used to do it back in the old days, which include me basically replaying the TV copy over and over again. I tried to snap a few shots with my phone, but this is not going to advance your knowledge like you have become accustomed to.
Since it was a game on Aug. 5, let’s simply try to figure out who is where and what they are running — even though most coverage plays will be wild guesses since we won’t see the safeties.
Above you have the TV snap from the first play of the game.
First-and-10 from the 25. Dallas has a four-man front that includes DE Brent Urban (95) on the near side, the two tackles are Neville Gallimore (96) and Carlos Watkins (91), with Tarrell Basham (93) up top. The next row is Leighton Vander Esch (55), Jaylon Smith (9) and Micah Parsons (11) is closest to us. Then, we have the two corners in Kelvin Joseph (24) and Anthony Brown (30) with two safeties off the screen — I believe those are Damontae Kazee (35) and Jayron Kearse (32).
On this play, the Steelers are in 11 personnel and RB Najee Harris flares out taking Parsons with him, so Mason Rudolph hits Diontae Johnson in the zone for 7 yards. Dallas appears to be in a pretty basic early-down zone against a formation with tight splits and has two safeties up.
I thought second-and-3 was interesting and we saw this in several second-down situations where Dallas is very much in a three-man front. Now, again, without the end-zone copies, this gets a bit difficult to be certain, but here we see what looks to be a little wider alignment from the defensive ends.
Dorance Armstrong (92) is in for Urban, but Watkins, Gallimore and Basham stay the same and all seem to take more of a traditional 30 front (I think.) as Basham is outside shoulder of the far tackle, Gallimore seems almost head-up on the center, and Watkins might be slightly inside the left tackle, leaving Armstrong as an edge outside that same left tackle. This allows for some pre-snap shifting from the Steelers to try to confuse Dallas, but on second-and-3, Dallas wants to be sound against a likely run. On this play, the Cowboys have Smith and Vander Esch at linebacker with a nickel defense to match up against the Steelers’ 12 personnel. The nickel is Darian Thompson (23), Kearse and Kazee are safeties (you can see Kearse and Thompson flanking the linebackers) and the corners are Joseph and Brown again. Kazee is too deep to be seen.
Against this setup, in 12 personnel the Steelers are still going to want to run if they can insert the tight ends inside and they do just that. With seven offensive bigs blocking six defensive bigs, the numbers require these safeties to hold their own — on second-and-3, that it is unlikely.
Smith is run off the screen by right tackle Joe Haeg (71) and Harris works out to the 38 easily for 6 yards right up the gut.
The third defensive snap was another first-and-10. This is where I was really trying to watch the linebacker personnel. In those first two snaps, it was Smith and Vander Esch. Keanu Neal (42) had not been on the field yet, but now he runs on and joins Parsons, who was taken off on that second down.
This is going to be what we study in this preseason from my perspective. I cannot think of any great defense that had key linebackers who are trying to coordinate a young defense that would rotate in a key spot once the season begins — another disclaimer here: this is not that at all. This is the Hall of Fame Game and is treated as a glorified practice so before you get too excited about this, understand that I am sure that little thought went into the number of snaps each player receives and what that should tell anyone.
But, I really think Parsons has a chance to immediately be your best linebacker. And I really believe that Neal has the best chance to carry out exactly what Quinn expects from his defense and philosophy. As Quinn said in camp, Neal has been playing this spot all along, they just didn’t call it linebacker. But that is what he was doing. This will make our designation of nickel or base far more complex, but in the end, it doesn’t matter if a safety is actually a linebacker. This is the point of the hybrid in the first place. Create uncertainty among opponents in the modern game (also an argument for the new number rules actually helping a bit).
The issue is whether the Cowboys can find roles for everyone. Even if we leave Jabril Cox out of the equation for the present, there are still four linebackers who all are believing they are starters. And, all have been starters (Parsons, of course, is a rookie). The rookie might be the best of the bunch and you want him playing roughly 100 percent of the time. This leaves the other three fighting over one spot or moving these guys into other spots where they might not be as familiar or as good.
This is very interesting because you don’t just want these roles divided for “sharing” purposes. You want them divided so that you make the communication efficient and to do that you shouldn’t rotate linebackers any more often than you should rotate quarterbacks. Again, it is just the Hall of Fame Game. And yet, we saw this coming back in May when I wrote about it. If everyone stays healthy, this is going to come to a head.
Anyway, another first-and-10 is next and this is a more traditional 40 front with four linemen (even if the top one is standing, he is still just playing that same edge we always see). That standing player is Basham again, with the tackles still Gallimore and Watkins. The closer edge is Armstrong as their edge choices were pretty limited Thursday. The Steelers love their tighter splits, so the box is packed with safeties and linebackers. We have Parsons and Neal at linebacker, with Kearse on this side of Neal and the impressive-in-camp Maurice Canady (31) getting his first snap at slot corner. The outside corners remain Brown and Joseph, and Kazee is off screen.
Snap 4 is a second-and-7 and this one appears to be that 3-4 alignment we have been told to be ready for, but with only one middle linebacker in Vander Esch. Parsons is playing the outside linebacker on the near side and Basham is the opposite. The defensive line is Urban, Watkins and Gallimore with Canady at slot, Kearse as hybrid overhang defender and Kazee up top off the screen. Same corners in Joseph and Brown. This was a very nice snap that resulted in Vander Esch and Parsons showing their range against a wide receiver handoff to Ray-Ray McCloud.
That brings along our first third-down situation — third-and-5.
The third-down linebackers are Neal and Parsons — just like we figured. You have to play the linebackers with the ability to cover ground and cover players with twitch in space. I might argue those are your full-time starters all along, but you can see the delicate nature of competition at this point in camp. You want Smith and Vander Esch to make this a very difficult decision and force a work-share program or you want options in the event of injuries at a position where they happen all the time. The front four is the same with Basham and Armstrong outside and Watkins and Gallimore inside. That leaves the nickel of Joseph, Brown, Kearse, Canady and Kazee.
Rudolph hits Chase Claypool for an easy 11-yard out against Brown. First down over midfield.
And then the final snap of the drive is another first-and-10 and we go right back to the 11 personnel that starter the first play of the drive.
This was the fumble on a missed exchange on the Claypool handoff which was recovered by Parsons (who is always on the ball). This lineup features Parsons, Smith and Vander Esch together with a front of Basham, Urban, Watkins and Gallimore and a four-man secondary of Joseph, Brown, Kearse and Kazee.
This is only six snaps. Keep in mind that Kearse will be Donovan Wilson. Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence will be the normal edges. Trevon Diggs will be the normal corner. But, that linebacker spot is what interests me and these first few drives already show that Dallas has lots of options.
The development of where this leads will continue to be monitored closely in this space. Parsons is very good and needs to be on the field at all times in some capacity. Difference-makers must be allowed to make as big of a difference as possible.
Otherwise, most of Thursday night’s proceedings were pretty optional for your viewing, depending on what you think of the Olympic water polo semifinal between Greece and Hungary.
