We’ve Got [expletive, expletive, ... sigh] Answers
By Matt Cordon (kh). Filed in Questions Waiting for Answers |
Sunday’s loss still stings, and it is hard not to play the blame game. And there is enough of that blame to go around. How the Cowboys prepared for the Eagles blitz is what perplexes us the most. We went back and reread a piece by Nick Eatman on DallasCowboys.com last week about how Dallas will handle the blitz. Here are the quotes that now leave us scratching our heads:
Jerry Jones: “There’s no question that we’re backing them off with Terry Glenn, Terrell Owens and what we’re doing in our passing game,” Jones said on his weekly radio show. “We’ve got them backed off. We’ve got them playing pass defense. That always helps your blocking. We’ve got a lot of balance.”
Drew Bledsoe: “Well, I would imagine they’re going to come after us a few times,” said Bledsoe, who has been sacked only three times this year, but just once in the last two games. “They have an aggressive defense over there and you can always expect them to blitz a lot. So I would bet they’ll do some of that against us.”
Bill Parcells: “We work very diligently on the blitz like every team in the league does now because you are seeing so much of it,” Parcells said. “We have blitz periods every day of the week, plus numerous walk-throughs to cover the blitz assignments.”
Hmmm…
Anyway, on to the answers from last week’s Questions Waiting for Answers:
(1) Will we continue to see Julius Jones run off the edge as effectively as he did last week? Hard to imagine that he will be as effective, but he is really starting to look like the primary back compared with Marion Barber.
Jones looked pretty good all day, gaining 100 yards on 26 carries. Dallas successfully used Marion Barber on draw plays on a couple of third downs. The first was on third and goal from the two, which went for a touchdown in the first quarter. The second was on a third-and-6 from the Philadelphia 17. The latter run helped to set up Drew Bledsoe’s seven-yard score in the second quarter that gave Dallas a 21-17 halftime lead. However, Barber was stuffed on two third-and-short plays, one in the second quarter and the other in the third.
(2) Will the Eagles try to blitz, and what happens when they do? We aren’t sure whether two questions are permissible but will be sure to have the moderator sort it out later.
Anyway, Philadelphia dominated the Cowboys for five years, and during that time, Dallas regularly struggled with the Eagles’ blitz packages. Then again, Dallas did not have Terrell Owens catching hitch passes during those years either. If the line can hold the blitz for just a moment, we like the thought of Owens and Glenn running in the open field.
Holy cow, how the Eagles blitzed. The line fell apart in many instances, giving up seven sacks. Darwin Walker had three of those sacks, but the player who really wreaked havoc was Darren Howard, who seemed to push through anyone pretending to block him. Flozell Adams had a terrible game, with only a few exceptions. Kyle Kosier and Marco Rivera had their problems as well.
According to Parcells:
“A lot of the pressure we got was due to some mental errors on protection. They’ve run the same blitzes for year years and we had prepared for it. We had communication problems and several mental errors where the guy just ran through and tackled the QB and the inside player on the rush should never be allowed to do that.”
That doesn’t make us feel better.
(3) Should any of the Eagles’ receivers scare us? Donte Stallworth? Sure, but he was often more scary than effective in New Orleans. Reggie Brown? Not too much. Greg Lewis? He was impressive against the high school corners that Green Bay now employs. We like Aaron Glenn, though.
They probably should have scared us more. Four players– Hank Baskett, Reggie Brown, L.J. Smith, and Brian Westbrook– each had more receiving yards than Terrell Owens, with most of those yards coming on long plays. The Eagles’ offense was not consistent, but when they needed a big play, they got one.
(4) Can Dallas get any pressure this week? We can’t help but think that McNabb will destroy the Dallas secondary if he has the time that Vince Young had last week.
The pressure wasn’t bad throughout the game, and a sack by Ellis led to DeMarcus Ware’s 69-yard fumble return in the second quarter. The most damaging play of the game– the 87-yard reception from Donovan McNabb to Baskett– resulted from the Eagles picking up a blitz effectively. Mickey Spagnola explains:
Maybe the biggest play in the game? Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb turning a Cowboys corner blitz into an 87-yard touchdown pass to Hank Baskett. And while McNabb was able to shrug off the hard-charging Greg Ellis to throw the ball and Baskett was able to shrug off rookie safety Pat Watkins at the 20, the biggest part of the play was provided by left tackle William “Don’t Call Me Tra Anymore” Thomas. He was blocking Ellis, but at the last second saw Anthony Henry streaking in from the outside, and stepped out to his left to nick Henry, giving McNabb just enough time to throw deep.
Pat Watkins is going to be a good player for this team, we think, but he looked like a rookie on a number of occasions on Sunday.
(5) Is Eddie Murray available? Morten Anderson, now 46, was named as Special Teams Player of the Week after he kicked five field goals in Atlanta’s win over Arizona last week. Think about this. The last time we saw Morten Anderson, he was participating in Pros vs. Joes along with Rebecca Lobo and John Rocker. So is it too much to ask for Eddie Murray, who turned 50 earlier this season, to save us from this kicking mess?
Yeah, we know that anyone could miss a 26 yarder. Billy Cundiff and Jose Cortez=Anyone for at least a week.
Mike Vanderjagt hit a 39-yarder with 11:18 left in the game to tie the game 24-24. He wasn’t an issue, though the cameras caught him counseling Owens on the sidelines in the fourth quarter, which was somewhere between funny and puzzling. We were too mad after the game to decide which.
(6) Prediction: Dallas 17, Philadelphia 16. Dallas takes an early 7-0 lead. The Eagles close the gap to 7-6 by halftime. They take the lead in the third quarter on a touchdown and head into the fourth quarter leading 13-7. Dallas kicks a field goal to make it 13-10. The Eagles kick another field goal to increase the lead to 16-10. But a Cowboys touchdown with 5:00 to play give the Cowboys a 17-16 lead, and they hold on to take the win.
No, we weren’t close. Philadelphia led 10-0 five minutes into the game, and it was 21-17 at halftime. But what was even worse about the prediction was that it assumed that Dallas would drive to score the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter. Dallas could have indeed had an important fourth quarter drive, but it eventually moved 102 yards in the opposite direction.
Technorati Tags: Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles
Friday, October 20th 2006 at 1:00 am
The Eagles are a better team than I gave them credit for. However, I still believe we are a better team. Home field advantage carried them through. Wait till they get to Texas Stadium. They can have this game if the following scenario plays out: Cowboys fans get the sweetest Christmas gift of all, clinching the NFC East while simultaneously knocking the Eagles out of playoff contention. We’ll get our revenge, believe it!