Sturm: Jaylon Smith challenged us to “watch the film.” Here’s what we learned

[Clff15701]

Jaylon just likes to showboat. Its like he plays for the camera. Hes always out of control and takes bad angles because he's trying to show off.

 

[boozeman]

Jaylon just likes to showboat. Its like he plays for the camera. Hes always out of control and takes bad angles because he's trying to show off.

There are smarter ways to show off.

 

[Cotton]

You will post part deux also

 

[mcnuttz]

When Jaylon talks, he sounds like Sam's Choice™ LeBron James.

 

[1bigfan13]

This is one of Sturm's better pieces, IMO.

The bold part of this text pretty much covers the point I've been making when discussing 2021 LB options. As Sturm points out here, the Cowboys don't need to hit a home run at LB. They just need to find some LBs who don't kill you with boneheaded mistakes.

Not only did Smith make more big plays, but he made far fewer poor plays. This is the true key of a special NFL player. When you are not making difference-making positive plays, it’s important to avoid the difference-making negatives.”

Coach 4 made a lot of excuses for Jaylon and placed most of the blame on Nolan and his scheme. But those of us who follow the Cowboys closely know that Jaylon's struggles pre-date Nolan's arrival.

The general assessment that I took away from all of the coaches is that Jaylon's biggest problem is between his ears. He lacks confidence, can't ready keys which leads to him guessing too often, and doesn't have a clear understanding of his responsibilities.

 

[p1_]

Lifted this from PFF draft profile:

Biggest concerns:

• Far too timid in the run game. Will contact blockers moving backwards at times. Rarely wants to come stack an offensive lineman.
• Slow to read keys in the running game. Takes false steps much more than you’d like
• Huge missed tackle issue as a sophomore (18 MTs on 118 attempts). Remedied as a junior (9 MTs on 130 attempts)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hit the nail on the head

 

[Cujo]

It was absolutely his fault with some of his ridiculous reads and lack of vision.

It's so startling, I am amazed that he made it to the pros. How in the hell does he not understand gap responsibility? How is this not easily remedied by coaching? So many questions.

 

[Smitty]

Props for posting, I love this stuff.

This tells me not everything was maybe Jaylon's fault, but so much of it was that he's every bit the problem we've thought.

Plus, Crawford, Xavier Woods, Worley and at times Wilson were often problems.

And ultimately, the scheme and coaching was garbage.

Not too far off from what we've been saying.

I suspect he could be better but still not great in a new scheme. Seemed the three high school coaches blamed the scheme nearly equally, but the Division 1 LB coach who probably knows the most laid it all on Jaylon as damaged goods.

 

[Cotton]

Should the Cowboys keep Jaylon Smith? Our conclusions after watching the film

By Bob Sturm 16m ago

On Tuesday, we spent a very long time looking back at Jaylon Smith’s 2020 and his challenge to “watch the film” to really dig into what went wrong, why it went wrong and why he was definitely in the vicinity of on-field breakdowns so often.

I can’t sufficiently thank the panel of experts who helped us with that, and I would also highly recommend you read that story before you get to this one because this all will be referencing it plenty, and I would hate for anyone to get lost.

From this point on, I will assume you looked at that piece and read what our coaches had to say. It is interesting to note that football is a game in which there is a right way to do things and a wrong way, but there were coaching points that jumped off the screen at all of them and others that only occurred to a few. Some saw a play as a byproduct of one problem and others interpreted it another way. Without the actual Cowboys coaches telling us how everything is supposed to look, there is an element of us standing and all looking at the same painting, not talking about it with each other, writing our thoughts independently and seeing if we can find a consensus.

It was very interesting to roll through their findings and the general view that while Jaylon had his share in several of those plays, he had plenty of help. That is relevant in getting the defense fixed, but it is also somewhat irrelevant with regards to the ultimate ruling on whether he should remain with the team into 2021 and the Dan Quinn defensive era.

As we have talked about quite a bit, Smith signed a five year, $63.75 million contract extension with the Cowboys on August 20, 2019. At the time, I suggested that the deal felt like it landed out of nowhere and was being used as an incentive to show the Ezekiel Elliott camp what happens if you “play ball” and find a number that makes sense. Of course, it would be insane if this ever were admitted to be a demonstrative gesture to a different player, so I will concede that it probably only seemed that way. (Although we did later learn that the agreement was at least partly rooted in Dallas hitting a roadblock in other negotiations). Elliott got his deal anyway — at no discount whatsoever — so if it was a gesture, it didn’t really work.

Either way, the deal is just starting and runs from 2021-25. But only $19 million of that money was guaranteed and Smith has been given half of it, so there is actually a scenario in which the Cowboys could already walk away if they wanted. His 2021 cap number is $9.8 million, but he has only a $9.4 guarantee remaining; if the Cowboys designate him a June 1st release, the team would actually only owe him $2.4 million against the 2021 cap and would actually save $7.2 million for the year. He does have a clause that this must be done by the fifth day of the league year (usually mid-March) or his deal guarantees for the year, so they should probably have serious discussions posthaste. It would certainly seem incredibly odd to release a player before his contract technically begins, but it would also be odd to keep someone only because you apparently made a mistake.

But we should also not be quick to want to see a player cut simply to feel like a price was paid for a lousy season. As I said in the piece after awarding him the 2018 Player of the Year, I think there are two ways to look at this:

My evaluation of Jaylon’s 2018 comes down to more than just his splash plays. But, he made many, many splash plays. He had sacks, forced fumbles, passes defended, and tackles for loss. He made plays that helped win games and one or two we will not soon forget.

Not only did Smith make more big plays, but he made far fewer poor plays. This is the true key of a special NFL player. When you are not making difference-making positive plays, it’s important to avoid the difference-making negatives.

So, in the last piece, we focused on the opposite of “splash plays;” primarily the moments when the Cowboys made a horrid mistake. Jaylon was right there for a lot of them.

But, in this one, I want to remind us all that he has made a ton of big plays for this team in the last 50 games or so. So much so that if you take every single defensive player on this roster and add up the last three years of positive plays, you will find that Jaylon is easily second-best behind only DeMarcus Lawrence. This does not mean everything, but it does mean something.

Splash Plays: 2018-2020 (3 yr totals)

PLAYER	2018-2020	2020	2019	2018
Demarcus Lawrence	100	33.5	32.5	34
Jaylon Smith	67.5	17	26.5	24
Leighton Vander Esch	41.5	10.5	14.5	16.5
Randy Gregory	33.5	20		13.5
Chidobe Awuzie	32	6.5	15.5	10

Herein lies the issue with Jaylon Smith. Do we focus on what he cannot do or what he can do? And is there a path toward using him properly without exposing him and his weaknesses to teams that can generally find any weak spot and keep attacking it relentlessly until you pull it off the field? This league has no charity to nice stories that still aren’t up to grade.

The Cowboys will be up tightly against the cap, especially if they have to franchise tag Dak Prescott again. They need all the money they can get, but they also need all the talent they can get on this defense, too.

Before we spend more energy on Smith, in particular, let’s address the “other items” on the list.

These are non-Jaylon explanations that are reasons why Jaylon never looked just right. They are as follows:

• Mike Nolan’s scheme did seem to cause the defense to underachieve beyond the normal realms of a first-year adjustment. Now, I have spoken with many who have known and worked under and with Mike Nolan, and there isn’t a man among them that would suggest he doesn’t know the sport and the defensive side of the ball as well as anyone. But there was a clear disconnect between his vision and what we would see from week to week. Was it the lack of an offseason program? Was it limited ability to install before live action? And was it a panic from all a few weeks into the campaign when they were crushed by Atlanta, Seattle and Cleveland in such succession that the whispers already started that this isn’t working? Once injuries and buy-in from the troops quickly took hold, the ship was sinking fast, and it never really recovered until they purged several vagabonds and tried new players. The damage was done, the numbers were not salvageable and, frankly, the die was cast on Nolan. Fair has very little to do with it. These are the stakes in this league.
• The disconnect in the scheme seemed to put many aspects of the team on separate pages and there were clear cases — even if we looked at just our seven plays of study from the last piece — that showed a clear issue of the secondary, the linebackers and the line not working in harmony but rather a disjoined, mish-mashed mess. Why are two players taking this gap and why are no players handling that one? Defense is an 11-man job where you are implored to “do your job,” and it sure appeared nobody was very clear on what that was.
• Defensive tackle was an abject disaster. The Cowboys probably expected Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe would both be massive additions, but neither made a single play (McCoy didn’t even take a single snap). Therefore, they were left with nothing but backup players who had to play full-time snaps. That unit was outclassed and overmatched, and it never really improved. With the possible exception of a few games from rookie Neville Gallimore, they seldom found a splash play of any consequence and gave the linebackers very little chance in many situations because they could not hold their ground in the slightest. According to our friends at Pro Football Focus, only one DT cracked the 100 top-graded interior defensive linemen of the 2020 season, and he was near the very bottom. Keep in mind that there are only 32 teams, so everyone should probably have three top-100 defensive tackles. But the Cowboys had nobody in the top four-fifths of the list. That is very tough to do, and it might explain the linebackers looking so overmatched as a group (and they did).
• Add to that a safety position that also was more than a little lacking. Donovan Wilson appears to be a nice find and Xavier Woods has his strengths, but neither appeared to have a great grasp on assisting in run defense. While we might suggest that is a coaching/scheme issue, we could also argue that the team clearly lacks an alpha safety who could be a key leader of the unit and help usher a youngster like Wilson along. I would not be supportive of bringing that pair back as a starting unit.
• Perhaps most importantly, the issues of losing Leighton Vander Esch for so many games this year after building a good portion of the offseason around switching their positions. He played Week 1 for a few quarters and then didn’t return until Week 7. Then he played until Week 15 against San Francisco, when he was knocked out for the remainder of the season. If we were to look at Smith’s worst games, they do seem to generally overlap with games when he was joined by Joe Thomas rather than LVE. Not all of them, and there is a major issue if you promised huge money to a player who needs another guy to be present to play competent football and that guy also happens to appear to be injury-prone. But I do think if Vander Esch can play 1000 snaps instead of 460, Jaylon might have made a better impression this season. Instead, he was pushed back to the position he was supposed to have vacated, which seems less than ideal.

So, if you figure out the coordination and scheme with Quinn, address both defensive tackle and safety in the offseason, and have a healthy Vander Esch available more often than not (which is quickly becoming a new version of the Sean Lee problem all these years), is Jaylon Smith salvageable?

It could certainly go either way.

One other thing: He is an attention magnet. That could be for a number of factors: his great personal story, his personality, his hair, his style, his position, his love of celebrations and his contract. Maybe a combination of these. Do we grade him more harshly because of his elevated attention? Because that is definitely important on the outside (media, social media, etc.) but it is not important at all when trying to make the Xs and Os work.

Let’s wrap this two-part study by answering our frequently asked questions about Jaylon Smith as a Cowboys key piece in 2021 and perhaps even beyond.

What can Jaylon do better?

He has to take this season (and maybe even reviews like this) very personally. He has to make sure that if he is to be a key leader in the 2021 defense, it starts with him playing the scheme as a coach would dream and basically come back an expert on not only his responsibilities but ones that help assist the youngsters behind him. It was amazing how many times on film it appeared the young safeties were following Smith and trying to use him to show them where to be, only to truly be a case of the lost leading the lost. He has to be positive of his role, and I would be concerned if you can sit in five years of meetings with Sean Lee and not have this down by now. We cannot go back in time, so it is now time to make sure this stops now. He has to be a scheme expert, or he will not be a useful player in the future. We definitely know that he has physical limitations from his injury that may make any sort of drastic improvement in his play impossible. However, he had that issue in 2018, and I thought he was generally an excellent player that entire year.

What can he do better as a leader and voice of this defense?

It appears he might have a case of tone-deafness. Perhaps if he would at least occasionally sound like some of his teammates in press briefings about his role in the issues and that he takes it more personally, he would then gain more benefit of the doubt from the public when he needs it. His comments generally come off a bit as though he is not aware that the defense’s performance starts with him. He is a defensive captain, and it is vital for players in that role to both be willing to take the blame when the team is setting all-time lows in dubious categories and to lead the young players to see that is the type of ethos the squad needs. Regardless of paycheck, true leaders take losses very personally and want to fix the problem immediately. I would think many of Smith’s detractors are concerned that he never seems to let the public see his uneasiness with team failure enough. I know it is a show — of course he feels that way — but I do think it can shape perception quite a bit.

Would Jaylon Smith be better as a pass rusher?

If I had a dollar for every time a fan wanted to make him a full-time pass rusher, I would have enough money to buy a week of lunches. He is a fine pass rusher — for a linebacker who doesn’t pass rush. It is like saying a 6’2 point guard has good post-up moves: That doesn’t mean he should do it full-time, only that it has its utility in special situations. What most people do not realize about Jaylon and his ability to pass rush and blitz is he has never pass rushed more than eight percent of his total snaps in a season. It was just seven percent this season: 73 attempts, which resulted in nine presures and getting in on two sacks. Some fans see him as some sort of NFL-average pass rusher, and I will tell you that is not the case. Again, he is useful as a blitzing linebacker, but that is a small component of that position, not the biggest one.

Would I bring Jaylon Smith back in 2021?

My first priority would be to see what Dan Quinn envisions. I would also have a long talk with the front office and the head coach about the global vision of the team because if they were to lose Jaylon Smith, they would need to make his position a pretty high priority immediately, and I am not sure they have the cap room to do this right now. He can definitely be replaced by some of the fine linebackers in free agency, but that money might be needed to address several other spots. My gut instinct is it is worth another season to see what Quinn can do to solve other problems above — scheme, better DT play, safety, adding in a (hopefully) healthy Vander Esch — to take away many of the reasonable excuses for Smith’s poor play.

Look, we have seen him do the job and he has done it well at times. I might have had moments this season when I thought this should be his last year — and I do think it is still a distinct possibility — but I believe I have come around on allowing Quinn a chance to fix this spot. I will say that when I look at a team like Tampa Bay, with Lavonte David and Devin White and the destruction they do for that defense, I would tell you that having a compromised Smith and what appears to be an injury concern in Vander Esch must give everyone significant indigestion.

Smith has to be better. He has to be a key run defender, and he has been very poor with runs between the tackles. He has to be a scheme expert. He has to be a leader of men, and he has to know when to take the responsibility on his shoulders. This is all true.
But we cannot throw the baby completely out with the bathwater. Yes, he was poor this year, but the mitigating circumstances all around him and the year-to-year style of his contract tell me that I think (unless Quinn disagrees) it would be worth the effort to give him a fresh start with many of the shortcomings around him reduced. I just cannot quite convince myself that a 25-year old who has been recognized as a very solid NFL linebacker and who is second behind DeMarcus Lawrence in positive splash plays over the last three seasons can possibly be so lost that he cannot be part of my defensive rebuild this offseason.

I may disappoint some with my final conclusion, but for now, I would keep him around and challenge him to erase this entire conversation with his play in 2021. Now let’s see what they think.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

I suspect he could be better but still not great in a new scheme. Seemed the three high school coaches blamed the scheme nearly equally, but the Division 1 LB coach who probably knows the most laid it all on Jaylon as damaged goods.

I think Jaylon needs a simple scheme. Sort of the old school cover 2 where it's basically see ball get ball for that weakside LBer. Once you start asking him to be sound with responsibilities he just gets confused and hesitant and plays like shit. Mentally the guy just looks broke at this point.

 

[Cotton]

I think Jaylon needs a simple scheme. Sort of the old school cover 2 where it's basically see ball get ball for that weakside LBer. Once you start asking him to be sound with responsibilities he just gets confused and hesitant and plays like shit. Mentally the guy just looks broke at this point.

Even a simple scheme won't make his change of direction any better. The man can run fast in a straight line, and then turns corners like he is going around a building first.

 

[p1_]

This, as a result of poor drafting and the worst free agency moves and strategy:

Defensive tackle was an abject disaster. The Cowboys probably expected Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe would both be massive additions, but neither made a single play (McCoy didn’t even take a single snap). Therefore, they were left with nothing but backup players who had to play full-time snaps. That unit was outclassed and overmatched, and it never really improved. With the possible exception of a few games from rookie Neville Gallimore, they seldom found a splash play of any consequence and gave the linebackers very little chance in many situations because they could not hold their ground in the slightest. According to our friends at Pro Football Focus, only one DT cracked the 100 top-graded interior defensive linemen of the 2020 season, and he was near the very bottom. Keep in mind that there are only 32 teams, so everyone should probably have three top-100 defensive tackles. But the Cowboys had nobody in the top four-fifths of the list. That is very tough to do, and it might explain the linebackers looking so overmatched as a group (and they did).

 

[1bigfan13]

It was amazing how many times on film it appeared the young safeties were following Smith and trying to use him to show them where to be, only to truly be a case of the lost leading the lost

This is an excellent observation that never crossed my mind until now. I'm guessing most of this "blind leading the blind" activity occurred during the games that LVE missed.

After reading the article I tend to side with Sturm. I'd give Quinn time to work with Smith to see if the new coaches can get him back on track. Plus as mentioned in the article, the ineffectiveness of Cowboys DTs led to a lot of the issues we saw. That's why I think the Cowboys take a measured approach with Jaylon. I'd be shocked if they released him in March. I have a feeling they want to see how he looks with whatever DT and Safety additions they make during the offseason. If he's still struggling throughout camp and looks lost in preseason games, I could see him being one of those surprise cuts.

Regardless of what they do with Smith, they still need to come out of this offseason with at least two quality LBs. At a minimum one of them should be starter quality.

 

[1bigfan13]

I think Jaylon needs a simple scheme. Sort of the old school cover 2 where it's basically see ball get ball for that weakside LBer. Once you start asking him to be sound with responsibilities he just gets confused and hesitant and plays like shit. Mentally the guy just looks broke at this point.

If we have to dumb down the entire defense just so one guy can understand it, I'd rather just replace that one guy. Things seemed pretty simple last year yet Jaylon still looked lost defending simple bootlegs and play-actions.

More than anything I think Jaylon needs to rededicate himself to being an expert at his craft. He needs to hit the books hard this offseason so that he understands his responsibilities inside and out. The coaches need to ride him hard to make sure this happens.

 

[Genghis Khan]

Regardless of what they do with Smith, they still need to come out of this offseason with at least two quality LBs. At a minimum one of them should be starter quality.

This is where I'm at. I'd cut bait and move on, but I recognize they probably won't. At the very least though, they need to cover their ass and bring in some quality linebackers to round out this roster. If Jaylon steps up, great, if not we're still covered.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

If we have to dumb down the entire defense just so one guy can understand it, I'd rather just replace that one guy. Things seemed pretty simple last year yet Jaylon still looked lost defending simple bootlegs and play-actions.

More than anything I think Jaylon needs to rededicate himself to being an expert at his craft. He needs to hit the books hard this offseason so that he understands his responsibilities inside and out. The coaches need to ride him hard to make sure this happens.

I don't agree that anything was simple on defense last season. Guys were confused across the board all the time. It was easy to see as guy were waiving their arms around before snaps and late getting lined up even.

But the rest of your post I agree with. You either dumb it down and be limited in what you can do or you just go and find a better player who is capable of doing more. I'd just move on. It's not worth the effort to help a LBer succeed. They are too common and easy to replace. But I don't trust Dallas to do it.

 

[p1_]

I don't agree that anything was simple on defense last season. Guys were confused across the board all the time. It was easy to see as guy were waiving their arms around before snaps and late getting lined up even.

But the rest of your post I agree with. You either dumb it down and be limited in what you can do or you just go and find a better player who is capable of doing more. I'd just move on. It's not worth the effort to help a LBer succeed. They are too common and easy to replace. But I don't trust Dallas to do it.

weve already invested way more time and money in Jaylon than we probably should have.

 

[1bigfan13]

This is where I'm at. I'd cut bait and move on, but I recognize they probably won't. At the very least though, they need to cover their ass and bring in some quality linebackers to round out this roster. If Jaylon steps up, great, if not we're still covered.

They'd be fools not to look at it that way. One LB can't stay healthy and another looks lost and ineffective.

 

[1bigfan13]

All this Jaylon talk reminded me of this play.

 

[bbgun]

not sure what I hate more, his play or his antics