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Randy Gregory has been dominant. What does it mean for Cowboys’ DL? Nolan Report
By Bob Sturm 1h ago
The skies were ominous right out of the gate for the Cowboys defense on Sunday. Before Dallas could do much of anything, they were down 14-3 after Philadelphia went touchdown-touchdown to open the contest. Then, somehow, they limited the Eagles to a field goal the rest of the game. Surely this has something to do with the Eagles’ game-situation decisions to go for it a lot, and those risks and gambles going badly very fast. Still, things changed quickly, as Dallas stuck to a gameplan they surely started the game with and just needed a larger sample than two possessions to work. Work, it did.
The Jalen Hurts era is still only a month old, but it appears that we now have a trend. All told, Hurts is not a better QB prospect than Carson Wentz, but Wentz is so fried mentally that he had to be benched. Meanwhile, Hurts is not ready. Most of his tape demonstrates that he is a very capable player in certain situations, but basic QB fundamentals will still take time.
Here is what happens in the NFL and why it is a massive jump from the college game: Even the mediocre defenses have ways to slow you down and at least make you beat them with your third-best idea or plan of attack. Dallas did what his other opponents have done so far and what he will see again on Sunday versus Washington: slow-rush him to the edge, keep him contained and make him throw the ball.
The zone read will always be hard to stop, as Hurts is very impressive in that area. He and running back Miles Sanders were gashing the Cowboys defense. If there is major frustration in Philly, it is that they stopped running that and started trying to get Hurts to pass more. But Philadelphia did that because they saw what the Cowboys were doing offensively and were trying to keep up on the scoreboard in hopes they could still win the division with a win in Dallas and then a home game against Washington.
The Eagles gambled, and the Cowboys made them pay.
They did that by spying on Hurts with CJ Goodwin, who is one of the best athletes on the roster but has exclusively been on special teams. Goodwin played 16 snaps — including almost every third down — and actually got in on a few plays, too. We wondered how the Cowboys would deal with Hurts’ speed, and their strategy worked pretty well — keep him in the pocket, make him read the defense and throw to his target. He did not show he could do that very well at Alabama and Oklahoma, so we suspected that would be the key to beating him in the NFL. It is honestly amazing he was drafted so high given his issues in this regard. This has nothing to do with Kyler Murray or Lamar Jackson; they have both passed many basic thresholds of passing competence at both the college and NFL level. Hurts has not.
We try to marry the longstanding truths of our game with the new findings brought along from analytics and objective, proven facts. Sprinkle in the beauty of the Xs and Os, and sometimes we don’t all agree on certain things. For instance, does momentum exist? Does a player or a team get a “hot hand” and suddenly play above their heads for no particular reason for an extended period of time — until, I guess, the momentum runs out?
Since I have been on both sides of the discussion at some point, I will tell you that I do believe momentum is a thing — although it gets horribly misapplied by every broadcaster who doesn’t know what else to say — and that, sometimes, teams get on rolls that seems to build upon themselves.
Apparently, the Cowboys defense is on one of those rolls.
Does that mean they are good and that I need to adjust my feeling that Mike Nolan needs to be replaced when the season ends?
I still don’t think I have changed my tune very much, but what if they win on Sunday and get a little help from our friends in Washington? And what if, a week later, they show up well in a home playoff game?
Would that morph our opinion of Mike Nolan?
Take a look at this chart below, which encompasses the Cowboys’ last 63 regular-season games from 2017 through 2020. In those games, they have had only 10 games of three takeaways or more in that stretch — about 16 percent of the total games. They have now run off three takeaways or more in three consecutive games and four of their last eight, which is what we probably would call the hot hand. Or it is called “playing a lot of backup QBs in a row,” which probably happens late in many seasons. This year, however, the Cowboys have seemed to take advantage of it better than, say, 2013, when they made Josh McCown and Matt Flynn look like franchise QBs.
I’ll remind you now that my declaration of Nolan’s incapability was right before the Cincinnati game. The Cowboys have 10 takeaways in the three games since, which, as you know, is pretty much what they had the entire season until that day. Another thing to be aware of is that takeaways are awesome and act as giant erasers, but, are they sustainable and repeatable? Or should we be pretty worried that in the last two games, the Cowboys have given up 935 yards to the 49ers and Eagles, two teams we know are pretty bad and have also been eliminated from the playoffs already?
In other words, I think changing our opinion about whether this defense is bad based on a three-week boon of takeaways amidst huge yardage inputs might be the wrong answer. I think the defense is still badly in need of improvement in 2021, and while this has been a fun ride, we should not lose sight of what the first three months showed us about a unit that has been reasonably healthy compared to many others in this league as well as this team’s own offense.
It is our job to take a balanced look, and that would be my general conclusion at this point. But let’s revisit it some more if they knock off Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs in 10 days.
WEEKLY DATA – WEEK 16 – PHILADELPHIA
We must give the defense credit for this much: They found guys who can make plays on a day when DeMarcus Lawrence looked poor. If we are going to trumpet his greatness here, we must also concede when he looks bad, and this was one such day. Lawrence looks like a DE playing OLB when playing a zone-read team with an elusive QB, so it’s probably good news Dallas doesn’t play Kyler Murray twice a year. But Randy Gregory, who we’ll discuss much more below, was phenomenal.
QB NEXT-GEN THROW CHART
I assume people will think that I am out on Hurts or that I have him slotted. The truth is I would love to have him on my team in a Taysom Hill capacity. He can really hurt defenses for isolated situations. But I see a very low ceiling after Philadelphia handed him the keys and he missed basic throws so often. I also think that this might take them back to Carson Wentz eventually. Still, Hurts is a very nice talent who would be a great component of an offense.
Dallas was able to corral him after those initial few drives because it was pretty rough early, and you could tell the Dallas fanbase had very little belief in their defense to sort it out on the fly.
EXPLOSIVES
Let’s take a quick look at splash plays because Randy Gregory was awesome — I don’t think we have ever seen seven in one game before.
Splash Plays - Week 16
As you can see, he has been rushing up the charts since he rejoined the team at a pace that is starting to border on unprecedented. He has 20 splash plays now, and with only 250 snaps this season, we are hard-pressed to think of anyone since 2016 David Irving making this sort of impact in this small a workload. Look where he now ranks in the season numbers:
Season Totals - 2020 Splash Plays
And this leads us to today’s mini-essay: What do we make of Randy Gregory’s last two months?
On draft day 2015, the Cowboys took a guy at pick No. 60 who was once projected to be a top-five selection. This was clearly not something Jason Garrett was happy about, as he was told live on a camera that he likely didn’t know he was on. Garrett’s shoulders seemed to slump, and he seemed annoyed that his team was grabbing another player with “issues” — not the RKG (right kind of guy) that he was looking for.
It would be difficult to fully rehash every one of Gregory’s suspensions for marijuana, and I am not here to get into his personal baggage nor the NFL’s legislation on this issue that will surely be a big part of the comments below. In many ways, it no longer matters.
In fact, neither does the discussion about whether he was a draft pick worth taking. Or whether his problems led to them picking Taco Charlton in 2017 and the subsequent discussion about nabbing T.J. Watt instead. Or whether Robert Quinn or Aldon Smith have been nice fill-ins because Gregory has rarely been here. The fact is, since we have no means of time travel, we can’t go back. Oasis tells us not to look back in anger, so I am listening today. This is a question of the here, the now and the future.
As it stands, Randy Gregory just celebrated his 28th birthday. As it stands, he is under contract for 2021 at about $2 million and then an unrestricted free agent after that.
And, as it stands, he is a monster. He has 15 splash plays over his last six games, which is basically DeMarcus Lawrence production playing opposite Lawrence. He has been every bit the player Quinn or Aldon Smith have been in the advantageous situations that Lawrence presents them because teams are constantly helping against Tank. Gregory has destroyed many plays and gotten to the quarterback repeatedly. He has been excellent against the run and probably been the team’s best pass-rusher in the second half of the season.
And, best of all, it appears he has figured out his situation off the field (and the league agrees that the future is different on this issue than the past). Imagine what you would pay a Yannick Ngakoue, Shaq Barrett, Matt Judon or a healthy Bud Dupree to come help this defense for 2021. Imagine the impact you would expect from that player.
What if I told you Gregory has been doing that for almost two months now?
I know that there is a large part of the fanbase that has no patience for anything positive said about Randy Gregory, but I am here to tell you that this is a huge development. And while I am annoyed he has only played in 37 of 95 games so far in his career, that is the past. Gregory’s future has shown that the Cowboys have a star player at a key position — one of the most key spots on any defense — and nobody is talking about it because of his baggage.
I think there is every reason to believe that is the past, and while Gregory will never be praised much by the public, that doesn’t mean teams can block him and deal with him for three hours every Sunday. It took a long time to get here, but I believe that you can now believe in the future of Randy Gregory — one which could be very bright.
By Bob Sturm 1h ago
The skies were ominous right out of the gate for the Cowboys defense on Sunday. Before Dallas could do much of anything, they were down 14-3 after Philadelphia went touchdown-touchdown to open the contest. Then, somehow, they limited the Eagles to a field goal the rest of the game. Surely this has something to do with the Eagles’ game-situation decisions to go for it a lot, and those risks and gambles going badly very fast. Still, things changed quickly, as Dallas stuck to a gameplan they surely started the game with and just needed a larger sample than two possessions to work. Work, it did.
The Jalen Hurts era is still only a month old, but it appears that we now have a trend. All told, Hurts is not a better QB prospect than Carson Wentz, but Wentz is so fried mentally that he had to be benched. Meanwhile, Hurts is not ready. Most of his tape demonstrates that he is a very capable player in certain situations, but basic QB fundamentals will still take time.
Here is what happens in the NFL and why it is a massive jump from the college game: Even the mediocre defenses have ways to slow you down and at least make you beat them with your third-best idea or plan of attack. Dallas did what his other opponents have done so far and what he will see again on Sunday versus Washington: slow-rush him to the edge, keep him contained and make him throw the ball.
The zone read will always be hard to stop, as Hurts is very impressive in that area. He and running back Miles Sanders were gashing the Cowboys defense. If there is major frustration in Philly, it is that they stopped running that and started trying to get Hurts to pass more. But Philadelphia did that because they saw what the Cowboys were doing offensively and were trying to keep up on the scoreboard in hopes they could still win the division with a win in Dallas and then a home game against Washington.
The Eagles gambled, and the Cowboys made them pay.
They did that by spying on Hurts with CJ Goodwin, who is one of the best athletes on the roster but has exclusively been on special teams. Goodwin played 16 snaps — including almost every third down — and actually got in on a few plays, too. We wondered how the Cowboys would deal with Hurts’ speed, and their strategy worked pretty well — keep him in the pocket, make him read the defense and throw to his target. He did not show he could do that very well at Alabama and Oklahoma, so we suspected that would be the key to beating him in the NFL. It is honestly amazing he was drafted so high given his issues in this regard. This has nothing to do with Kyler Murray or Lamar Jackson; they have both passed many basic thresholds of passing competence at both the college and NFL level. Hurts has not.
We try to marry the longstanding truths of our game with the new findings brought along from analytics and objective, proven facts. Sprinkle in the beauty of the Xs and Os, and sometimes we don’t all agree on certain things. For instance, does momentum exist? Does a player or a team get a “hot hand” and suddenly play above their heads for no particular reason for an extended period of time — until, I guess, the momentum runs out?
Since I have been on both sides of the discussion at some point, I will tell you that I do believe momentum is a thing — although it gets horribly misapplied by every broadcaster who doesn’t know what else to say — and that, sometimes, teams get on rolls that seems to build upon themselves.
Apparently, the Cowboys defense is on one of those rolls.
Does that mean they are good and that I need to adjust my feeling that Mike Nolan needs to be replaced when the season ends?
I still don’t think I have changed my tune very much, but what if they win on Sunday and get a little help from our friends in Washington? And what if, a week later, they show up well in a home playoff game?
Would that morph our opinion of Mike Nolan?
Take a look at this chart below, which encompasses the Cowboys’ last 63 regular-season games from 2017 through 2020. In those games, they have had only 10 games of three takeaways or more in that stretch — about 16 percent of the total games. They have now run off three takeaways or more in three consecutive games and four of their last eight, which is what we probably would call the hot hand. Or it is called “playing a lot of backup QBs in a row,” which probably happens late in many seasons. This year, however, the Cowboys have seemed to take advantage of it better than, say, 2013, when they made Josh McCown and Matt Flynn look like franchise QBs.
I’ll remind you now that my declaration of Nolan’s incapability was right before the Cincinnati game. The Cowboys have 10 takeaways in the three games since, which, as you know, is pretty much what they had the entire season until that day. Another thing to be aware of is that takeaways are awesome and act as giant erasers, but, are they sustainable and repeatable? Or should we be pretty worried that in the last two games, the Cowboys have given up 935 yards to the 49ers and Eagles, two teams we know are pretty bad and have also been eliminated from the playoffs already?
In other words, I think changing our opinion about whether this defense is bad based on a three-week boon of takeaways amidst huge yardage inputs might be the wrong answer. I think the defense is still badly in need of improvement in 2021, and while this has been a fun ride, we should not lose sight of what the first three months showed us about a unit that has been reasonably healthy compared to many others in this league as well as this team’s own offense.
It is our job to take a balanced look, and that would be my general conclusion at this point. But let’s revisit it some more if they knock off Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs in 10 days.
WEEKLY DATA – WEEK 16 – PHILADELPHIA
We must give the defense credit for this much: They found guys who can make plays on a day when DeMarcus Lawrence looked poor. If we are going to trumpet his greatness here, we must also concede when he looks bad, and this was one such day. Lawrence looks like a DE playing OLB when playing a zone-read team with an elusive QB, so it’s probably good news Dallas doesn’t play Kyler Murray twice a year. But Randy Gregory, who we’ll discuss much more below, was phenomenal.
QB NEXT-GEN THROW CHART
I assume people will think that I am out on Hurts or that I have him slotted. The truth is I would love to have him on my team in a Taysom Hill capacity. He can really hurt defenses for isolated situations. But I see a very low ceiling after Philadelphia handed him the keys and he missed basic throws so often. I also think that this might take them back to Carson Wentz eventually. Still, Hurts is a very nice talent who would be a great component of an offense.
Dallas was able to corral him after those initial few drives because it was pretty rough early, and you could tell the Dallas fanbase had very little belief in their defense to sort it out on the fly.
EXPLOSIVES
Let’s take a quick look at splash plays because Randy Gregory was awesome — I don’t think we have ever seen seven in one game before.
Splash Plays - Week 16
| Q - TIME | D/D | PLAYER | SPLASH |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-3:51 | 2/3/21 | Gallimore | Tackle For Loss |
| 2-10:21 | 1/10/36 | A Smith | Run Stuffed |
| 2-9:31 | 3/14/40 | CJ Goodwin | Heavy QB Pressure |
| 2-5:53 | 1/10/25 | Gregory | Tackle For Loss |
| 2-5:53 | 1/10/25 | Gregory | Fumble Forced |
| 2-3:57 | 2/2/49 | Lawrence | Heavy QB Pressure |
| 3-11:45 | 2/4/31 | Lee | Run Stuffed |
| 3-11:08 | 3/3/32 | Gregory - J Smith | Heavy QB Pressure |
| 3-7:43 | 1/10/32 | Gregory | Sack |
| 3-7:43 | 1/10/32 | Gregory | Forced Fumble |
| 3-0:34 | 2/10/28 | Lee | Holding Penalty Drawn |
| 4-15:00 | 2/18/36 | Gregory | Pass Batted Down |
| 4-8:37 | 2/5/48 | Crawford | Pass Broken Up |
| 4-7:09 | 1/10/15 | Gregory - Gallimore | Sack |
| 4-6:42 | 3/12/17 | Brown | Interception |
| 4-4:06 | 1/10/18 | Gregory | Forced Fumble |
| 4-4:06 | 1/10/18 | J Smith | Fumble Recovered |
| 4-0:45 | 3/2/41 | Diggs | Interception |
As you can see, he has been rushing up the charts since he rejoined the team at a pace that is starting to border on unprecedented. He has 20 splash plays now, and with only 250 snaps this season, we are hard-pressed to think of anyone since 2016 David Irving making this sort of impact in this small a workload. Look where he now ranks in the season numbers:
Season Totals - 2020 Splash Plays
| PLAYER | TOTAL SPLASHES | SNAPS |
|---|---|---|
 DeMarcus Lawrence | 31 | 631 |
 Aldon Smith | 27 | 764 |
 Randy Gregory | 20 | 250 |
 Trevon Diggs | 18.5 | 702 |
 Jaylon Smith | 16.5 | 1025 |
 Jourdan Lewis | 12.5 | 778 |
 Neville Gallimore | 11 | 374 |
 Leighton Vander Esch | 10.5 | 460 |
 Donovan Wilson | 9.5 | 615 |
 Everson Griffen | 8 | 282 |
 Joe Thomas | 7.5 | 408 |
 Xavier Woods | 7 | 932 |
 Anthony Brown | 6 | 497 |
 Dorance Armstrong | 5.5 | 346 |
 Antwaun Woods | 5.5 | 457 |
 Trysten Hill | 5 | 212 |
 Chido Awuzie | 4.5 | 428 |
 Justin Hamilton | 4.5 | 236 |
 Darian Thompson | 3 | 479 |
 Tyrone Crawford | 3 | 425 |
 Sean Lee | 3 | 130 |
 Rashard Robinson | 2 | 187 |
 Daryl Worley | 1 | 262 |
 Brandon Carr | 1 | 21 |
 CJ Goodwin | 1 | 18 |
 Dontari Poe | 0.5 | 267 |
 Eli Ankou | 0.5 | 141 |
And this leads us to today’s mini-essay: What do we make of Randy Gregory’s last two months?
On draft day 2015, the Cowboys took a guy at pick No. 60 who was once projected to be a top-five selection. This was clearly not something Jason Garrett was happy about, as he was told live on a camera that he likely didn’t know he was on. Garrett’s shoulders seemed to slump, and he seemed annoyed that his team was grabbing another player with “issues” — not the RKG (right kind of guy) that he was looking for.
It would be difficult to fully rehash every one of Gregory’s suspensions for marijuana, and I am not here to get into his personal baggage nor the NFL’s legislation on this issue that will surely be a big part of the comments below. In many ways, it no longer matters.
In fact, neither does the discussion about whether he was a draft pick worth taking. Or whether his problems led to them picking Taco Charlton in 2017 and the subsequent discussion about nabbing T.J. Watt instead. Or whether Robert Quinn or Aldon Smith have been nice fill-ins because Gregory has rarely been here. The fact is, since we have no means of time travel, we can’t go back. Oasis tells us not to look back in anger, so I am listening today. This is a question of the here, the now and the future.
As it stands, Randy Gregory just celebrated his 28th birthday. As it stands, he is under contract for 2021 at about $2 million and then an unrestricted free agent after that.
And, as it stands, he is a monster. He has 15 splash plays over his last six games, which is basically DeMarcus Lawrence production playing opposite Lawrence. He has been every bit the player Quinn or Aldon Smith have been in the advantageous situations that Lawrence presents them because teams are constantly helping against Tank. Gregory has destroyed many plays and gotten to the quarterback repeatedly. He has been excellent against the run and probably been the team’s best pass-rusher in the second half of the season.
And, best of all, it appears he has figured out his situation off the field (and the league agrees that the future is different on this issue than the past). Imagine what you would pay a Yannick Ngakoue, Shaq Barrett, Matt Judon or a healthy Bud Dupree to come help this defense for 2021. Imagine the impact you would expect from that player.
What if I told you Gregory has been doing that for almost two months now?
I know that there is a large part of the fanbase that has no patience for anything positive said about Randy Gregory, but I am here to tell you that this is a huge development. And while I am annoyed he has only played in 37 of 95 games so far in his career, that is the past. Gregory’s future has shown that the Cowboys have a star player at a key position — one of the most key spots on any defense — and nobody is talking about it because of his baggage.
I think there is every reason to believe that is the past, and while Gregory will never be praised much by the public, that doesn’t mean teams can block him and deal with him for three hours every Sunday. It took a long time to get here, but I believe that you can now believe in the future of Randy Gregory — one which could be very bright.
