2026 Random Cowboys Stuff Thread...

Irving Cowboy said:
Ed Werder brought up a good point as to why Jerry wouldn't actually pull the trigger and bring in Troy, no matter how much he keeps it alive... what if Troy comes in and they do in fact win the Super Bowl in 2-3 years? Then he's right back to where he was when he cut Jimmy loose... having to share credit.
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we've known this for years
 


Much was made of Brian Schottenheimer's short-answer press conference Monday night. Was he upset with that was written/said prior to the game?

"No, I'll be honest I really do a good job of blocking you guys out. It was a big game for us. We're motivated as a football team, I'm motivated as a head coach to get our guys playing to the standard that I know they're capable of playing. Intense game against a real rival. But no, at the end of the day, in this business you get paid to deal with the criticism and things that come with the job ... I mean, remember you're talking to a guy that grew up for 25 years in a household with a head coach in the NFL. So, no, it was more just my focus was getting the team to be focused and motivated. And I think you saw that last night, so I'm proud of our group."
 
Cotton said:


Much was made of Brian Schottenheimer's short-answer press conference Monday night. Was he upset with that was written/said prior to the game?

"No, I'll be honest I really do a good job of blocking you guys out. It was a big game for us. We're motivated as a football team, I'm motivated as a head coach to get our guys playing to the standard that I know they're capable of playing. Intense game against a real rival. But no, at the end of the day, in this business you get paid to deal with the criticism and things that come with the job ... I mean, remember you're talking to a guy that grew up for 25 years in a household with a head coach in the NFL. So, no, it was more just my focus was getting the team to be focused and motivated. And I think you saw that last night, so I'm proud of our group."
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Cotton said:


Much was made of Brian Schottenheimer's short-answer press conference Monday night. Was he upset with that was written/said prior to the game?

"No, I'll be honest I really do a good job of blocking you guys out. It was a big game for us. We're motivated as a football team, I'm motivated as a head coach to get our guys playing to the standard that I know they're capable of playing. Intense game against a real rival. But no, at the end of the day, in this business you get paid to deal with the criticism and things that come with the job ... I mean, remember you're talking to a guy that grew up for 25 years in a household with a head coach in the NFL. So, no, it was more just my focus was getting the team to be focused and motivated. And I think you saw that last night, so I'm proud of our group."
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Thin-skinned.

Can’t believe I’m going to do this, but Switzer handled it better. That’s real heat in comparison
 
bbgun said:
Dunno. He wasn't exactly a difference maker before the injury.
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You mean the entire 2 games he got to play?

And was anybody on the defense a difference maker that early in the season?

The guy will definitely help so his return can't come soon enough.
 
Chocolate Lab said:
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Playing these sorts of coverages takes a huge amount of communication and connectivity from the players, and a huge amount of attention to detail and nuance from the coaches.

It's what makes Seattle's defense so strong, but it's also very complex and nuanced to where it can look like shit if there are breakdowns from the players or you have average coaching/a lack of drilling the details from the coaches.

I'm not sure which to blame, maybe both, but it feels like Parker is trying to do PhD level shit while not fully grasping how to teach it/run it, plus having a few weak links personnel wise.
 
I mean, for the most part it looks simple: Whoever is on the slot is playing man, so all the offense has to do is run that receiver deep to clear out, and underneath it you have too few defenders for too big a space. That explains why our guys are so far away from the ball and why it's so easy to get these 12, 15 play drives.

Warner doesn't talk about percentages, but I'd guess Parker is going with this coverage way too often without switching things up to trick the offense, and it's like taking candy from a baby.
 
Chocolate Lab said:
I mean, for the most part it looks simple: Whoever is on the slot is playing man, so all the offense has to do is run that receiver deep to clear out, and underneath it you have too few defenders for too big a space. That explains why our guys are so far away from the ball and why it's so easy to get these 12, 15 play drives.

Warner doesn't talk about percentages, but I'd guess Parker is going with this coverage way too often without switching things up to trick the offense, and it's like taking candy from a baby.
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That specific coverage is simple to some extent, but I'm saying that in general mixing and matching zone/man coverage as a defensive philosophy is a complex, nuanced thing that relies heavily on the details of the formation you're going against, tendencies and such.

You're trying to muddy up the coverage by blending techniques and to do that the coaches need to make sure everybody knows what they're doing, and more importantly that they're able to adjust what they're doing based on the formations/tendencies.

It's much more complex than saying "we're running cover-3 on this play, we're running cover-2 on this play, we're going man on this play", but if the coaches aren't on their shit, and by extension the players aren't on their shit, it can look really dysfunctional because it ends up looking overcomplicated and confused because you're basically trying to do too much.
 
I don't disagree, but on these plays it doesn't look like confusion or blown coverages as much as the offense knew from film on past weeks that this was coming and ran plays they knew would be effective against it. Or at the very least that the QB knew it was coming so it was easy to know what to look for against it. Maybe we aren't breaking tendencies enough or maybe Parker is just calling it too often overall.
 
I really hope Pettine convinces Parker to start sending more heat after the QB, and not only because we're not getting anywhere near enough pressure with our 4 man rush, but also because this sort of defense is starting to get figured out around the league.

The best example of this are the Houston Texans.

That defense was incredible last year and that was Demeco Ryans' philosophy -- rush 4 and drop everybody else into coverage. And for the 2025 season, they gave everybody hell. And if CJ Stroud had played halfway decent in the playoffs as opposed to completely shitting the bed, the Texans would have been in the Super Bowl.

But this season? That defense is like night and day from what it was last year and honestly it isn't much better than ours outside of the fact that they actually can apply pressure consistently. But that's also another example of why we need to change things up. The Texans have the personnel to run that style of defense better than anybody in the league and yet even with pressure it's just not holding up.

I think the simplicity of that system is now working against it and we're going to have to be more aggressive with blitzes to counteract what offenses are doing to us, especially because our Edge rushers aren't getting much pressure at all.
 
Chocolate Lab said:
I don't disagree, but on these plays it doesn't look like confusion or blown coverages as much as the offense knew from film on past weeks that this was coming and ran plays they knew would be effective against it. Or at the very least that the QB knew it was coming so it was easy to know what to look for against it. Maybe we aren't breaking tendencies enough or maybe Parker is just calling it too often overall.
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I'm talking at a macro-level, not whether or not players are confused on a few plays. And "confusion" can come on the part of the coaches or the players, if Parker doesn't know exactly why he's calling certain coverages against certain formations/personnel groupings, that's going to lead to breakdowns as well.

Playing these mixed coverages also relies a lot on feigning your techniques/alignments to make it look like you're going all zone, man, you're pressing but bailing, etc., and it's all interconnected when you're basically trying to trick offenses into thinking you're playing one coverage but really playing another.

Being able to do all of that requires a high level understanding of what the other team is doing, what their formations tell you, what their leverages tell you and so forth, it's all part of the deception. My point is that I don't see that level of nuance or detail, it just looks like our DB's are lining up and running what they're told to run.
 
Just saw that Josh Downs requested a trade, I wouldn't trade for him but he's a UFA after this season and I think he might be a decent mid-tier guy to go after if they let Pickens walk so that we aren't left with a bunch of slop behind Lamb.

Might even take a bit of a discount to play with his brother.

Of course that'd require our FO signing a mildly expensive FA, so...you know.
 
Simpleton said:
Just saw that Josh Downs requested a trade, I wouldn't trade for him but he's a UFA after this season and I think he might be a decent mid-tier guy to go after if they let Pickens walk so that we aren't left with a bunch of slop behind Lamb.

Might even take a bit of a discount to play with his brother.

Of course that'd require our FO signing a mildly expensive FA, so...you know.
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Yeah I mean I like Flournoy. But you'd definitely want a strong third receiver if you're going to rock with Flournoy in a #2 type role.
 
Cowboysrock55 said:
Yeah I mean I like Flournoy. But you'd definitely want a strong third receiver if you're going to rock with Flournoy in a #2 type role.
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I'm not even convinced Fluornoy is ready to be a #2, so if we're not re-signing GP, we need to prioritize that position.
 
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