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By Bob Sturm Jun 8, 2021
There is no question that the Dallas Cowboys and their many machinations of defense over the last decade-plus have had a takeaway problem. Every coach has told us that in order to understand the secrets of football, we must simply understand the importance of winning the turnover battle. Then, for years and years, we have seen the Cowboys almost never end up too strong in that department, mostly because the defense cannot make a single play.
Now, we know this is the general reason that the Cowboys have gone searching for better defense over the years. Yes, the madness of Cowboys fandom has some waxing nostalgic for Rod Marinelli and Kris Richard after the 2020 Mike Nolan debacle, but don’t fall for it. There were a few teams that took the ball away less than Cowboys defenses from 2015-2019 (which necessitated the full overhaul of that side of the ball), but the list is very short. They were 31st in the NFL over those four years and just about any sample you use, the Cowboys were in the bottom 20 percent of the league.
So imagine our surprise when Dallas suddenly started turning the ball over and taking it away more in 2020 — especially in the last few months! Maybe Nolan couldn’t figure out how to stop the run, but did he actually discover the brilliance of taking away the ball? And if he did, is that actually more important than most of the other defensive metrics?
Dallas finished in the top 10 in takeaways for the first time since 2014. That is actually quite insane that the Cowboys generally played lots of winning football and had quarterbacks who took care of the football most of the time and yet never built a defense that could take the football. But, it is true.
In 2014, they were second in the NFL (everyone credits the offense with that season, but 31 takeaways were enormous).
Here are the last 11 seasons to show you how productive (or not) Cowboys defenses have been.
The other thing to point out is that turnovers are down considerably across the league. They have gone from 860 in the NFL in 2010 to 665 in 2020. If the entire league has dropped almost 25 percent of all takeaways in just a decade, you can explain the massive drops in yields in the second half of this decade a bit easier than you can the massive jump in 2020 from nearly last in the league to near the top in two months.
Remarkable. Obviously, just a decade ago, seeing top quarterbacks navigate a full season of starts without even 10 interceptions would stop traffic. But, this year Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Ryan Tannehill, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Derek Carr and even Baker Mayfield all had a full season with single-digit picks.
OK, but now we must investigate 2020 a bit closer and with a more cynical approach. Why did Dallas suddenly show up as a takeaway power starting around Halloween and is it in any way sustainable for 2021?
That led to this on Twitter:
“The massive influx in takeaways during the latter part of the 2020 season. What was the cause of this and how the 2021 team can continue this moving forward?”
Dallas 2020 - Turnovers For/Against
| DALLAS '20 | GIVEAWAYS | TAKEAWAYS | TO DIFF | RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-7 | 16 | 3 | -13 | 32nd |
| Weeks 8-17 | 10 | 20 | 10 | 1st |
| Total | 26 | 23 | -3 | 21st |
This chart says a ton. First, it says the Cowboys were horrendous to start the season on giveaways — 16 of them in the first seven games is absurd. It was a very odd time because on one hand they were ultra-productive, but also ultra-sloppy when Dak Prescott was around. Was he bad? Well, he had four interceptions in five starts so he wasn’t perfect, but 16 giveaways in seven games is insane. It was him, tons of fumbles from all, and then Andy Dalton and even his backups were also giving away the ball way too much.
Then, to assist, the defense had nothing going. And I mean nothing.
One takeaway in Los Angeles in Week 1, one more in Seattle (Trevon Diggs knocked the ball out of DK Metcalf’s arms near the goal line), and one against the Giants. Three in seven games.
The team started minus-13 through seven weeks and everyone thought Mike McCarthy must be the worst hire in Cowboys history. His timing and that of his quarterback’s ankle could have been better. Dallas was dead last as a “-13” turnover differential.
But somehow the scene flipped on Nov. 1 in Philadelphia. From that day, Dallas had 20 takeaways and just 10 giveaways the rest of the year. That plus-10 was first in the NFL.
You don’t often split a season in half (almost) and go from 32nd to No. 1 in any stats that dramatically. As our Twitter question points out, if nothing else, that is extremely curious and not easy to explain.
I would like to try by taking a look at these takeaways.
The more we follow the league trends, the more we find that this is closely correlated with one simple concept over the large sample: Quality of quarterback. This is not defined as foolproof or everlasting, but it is simple when you look at it through that lens.
I am tipping my hand at where I am going here by saying that. The 2020 season did not include Mahomes or Rodgers on the schedule. Mayfield was on there and so was Jackson. In those two games, the Cowboys found a total of one takeaway. They also did not play Tannehill, Carr or Watson in 2020. But, when they found all their takeaways, they were playing plenty of bad quarterbacks.
Let’s take a look:
• Week 8 at Philadelphia: This game tipped the scales as the Cowboys had more takeaways in three hours than they did in the previous two months. Carson Wentz was playing himself right out of a job and obliged for two sack-fumbles in the Donovan Wilson breakout night and then two interceptions as Diggs was showing his upside.
• Week 11 at Minnesota: Here was another Wilson sack-fumble against Kirk Cousins and a fumble by Dalvin Cook.
• Week 12 vs Washington: Alex Smith tipped pass to Jaylon Smith.
• Week 13 vs Baltimore: Lamar Jackson intercepted by Darian Thompson.
And looking back, that was four in Philadelphia and a pair in Minnesota. But, the Pittsburgh game had none and now we are in December.
• Week 14 vs Cincinnati and a QB named Brandon Allen: The Bengals fumbled three different times and Dallas got them all.
• Week 15 vs San Francisco: The 49ers turned the ball over four times and QB Nick Mullens was responsible for three of them. This was a wildly sloppy game, but like the game before and the game after, it was all downhill and short fields which in a way annoyed Cowboys fans who wanted a better pick on draft day — these wins were fool’s gold to some extent.
• Week 16 vs Philadelphia: This was Jalen Hurts and his three-giveaway day. I think it is fair to say that he has some real potential, but odds are also that he will continue to risk the ball and also decent odds that he is not the Eagles long-term solution.
• Week 17 was the Giants and there, Daniel Jones had two more.
By month, the 23 takeaways went like this:
September (3 games): 2
October (4 games): 1
November (4 games): 7
December (5 games including Jan 3): 12
It definitely looks like they “figured it out” late in the season, but as I was watching it I had the sneaky suspicion that the string of Brandon Allen to Nick Mullens to Jalen Hurts to Daniel Jones was the common denominator that should have told us that all that glitters is not gold, but the opportunity to play backup quarterbacks and young prospects who in no case resemble top 25 NFL QBs.
When asked was I convinced that the Cowboys have actually turned into a “high turnover” team and whether that should impact the future of Nolan, my skepticism was unconvinced.
Does that mean that there were no positive signs? Not at all. Wilson gets the ball. Diggs gets the ball. Even Anthony Brown found it a few times. These are good signs because takeaways indicate future takeaways based on stylistic traits that lend to repeatable events.
But, the general summary of 2020 was that the defense was poor and needed to inject new talent and new coaching to attempt to find a more modern solution to getting stops and getting the ball.
The defense keeps adding playmakers and with Dan Quinn, there is no reason they shouldn’t be top half of the league soon in many metrics, but the ability to turn over Nick Mullens and Jalen Hurts should not suggest that Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes will respond in kind in 2021.
The bar must be raised and the uptick of 2020 is more likely to have very little correlation with success or failure in the following season.
As we found out last season, if you want a shortcut to more takeaways, you should play more backup quarterbacks.
