Mackeyser
Supernovas are where gold forms; the only place.
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What Cowboys Fans Are Saying
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1maGoh
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Evidence that we played poorly on purpose in our losses to protect our playoff play book! He's REALLY saying we lost those 3 games on purpose!
Karate61
There can be no excellence without effort.
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They also ignore the Oline, that was on the field opening holes for C.J., and that Oline will also be on the field today!
LARAMSinFeb.
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Cowboys fans probably think they're going to win the superbowl again, like they did last year.
Robert
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The east had 2 as well the cowboys and eagles but we get what your saying. It’s funny I only recall one sack on Wilson last week from the cowboys d line. If the seahawks o line is such slouches how come the cowboys line didn’t rack up the sacks?
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https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/201...an-mcvay-jared-goff-todd-gurley-brandin-cooks
Cowboys vs. Rams: Previewing the Los Angeles offense
Sean McVay’s high-flying offense can be hard to slow down.
By David Howman
If you look around the NFL right now, you can see all the ways in which Sean McVay has drastically altered the landscape of the league. Not only has he taken the Rams from non-contenders to one of the league’s top teams, but now other teams are hiring the closest they can get to McVay - Matt LaFleur, Kliff Kingsbury, and Adam Gase, for example - to try and share in the success.
A big part of the apparent McVay model is the fact that he’s young and highly innovative on offense. Paired with some truly great talent on that side of the ball, McVay has created terrific offenses in his first two years in Los Angeles. In fact, the Rams offense ranks second in the NFL in total yards and points per game, fifth in passing offense, and third in rushing offense.
These ratings hold up against advanced metrics such as DVOA as well. Per Football Outsiders, the Rams offense ranks second in overall DVOA and weighted DVOA, fifth in passing efficiency, and first in rushing efficiency. Not surprisingly, a lot of this revolves around the two stars, Jared Goff and Todd Gurley.
Goff powers the passing attack, and he’s had yet another successful year in McVay’s offense. The former first overall draft pick has completed 64.9% of his passes for 4,688 yards with 32 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions. He has also taken only 33 sacks this year, sixth fewest among quarterbacks who started all 16 games this year. Furthermore, Goff’s 8.4 yards per attempt were the third highest in the NFL, which reflects the big play inclination of this passing attack.
However, the Rams’ philosophy regarding big plays is very different than Dallas’ last matchup against Seattle. McVay, whose offensive philosophy has been cut from the cloth of both Gruden’s and both Shanahan’s, is a West Coast offense that uses the short, quick passing game to set up deep shots later on. McVay has also peppered in a heavy amount of pre-snap motion to misdirect defenses and give Goff an easier time reading the coverage.
Play-action is also a big part of this offense, and it works exceptionally well because of Gurley. While Ezekiel Elliott led the league in rushing, Gurley led the league in both DVOA and DYAR among running backs, according to Football Outsiders.
And Gurley has been no slouch, as he’s put up 1,251 rushing yards despite sitting out the last two games of the regular season due to injury. Gurley is averaging 4.9 yards per carry and his 17 rushing touchdowns is the most for any running back this year.
But Gurley is also a threat in the receiving game, as he’s caught 59 passes for 580 yards - averaging an absurd 9.8 yards per catch - and four touchdowns. And while the Rams possess plenty of talent in their receiving corps (more on that in a moment), the offense is very much based around getting Gurley going.
In fact, the Rams are 3-3 in games where Gurley had under 100 total yards of offense and are 1-3 in games where Gurley had less than 15 carries. The one win was the Monday night thriller against the Chiefs, in which Goff had over 400 yards passing and four touchdowns.
Yet, as much as Gurley gets involved as a receiver, the Rams have their own playmakers down the field aside from the All Pro running back. Los Angeles uses 11 personnel most frequently, meaning they utilize three receivers on the field at the same time, and the trio of Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods, and Cooper Kupp was dominating until Kupp tore his ACL. Josh Reynolds has filled Kupp’s role, but has largely been ineffective, leaving Cooks and Woods as the two primary receiving threats.
Not surprisingly, both receivers have 80 or more catches on the year and over 1,200 receiving yards; Woods has caught six touchdown passes compared to Cooks’ five. The third leading receiver is Gurley and the fourth is Kupp, which shows how little depth there is in that receiving corps considering Kupp only played half the season.
From that perspective, the Cowboys face a similar situation as they did with Seattle where the defense can focus most of their energy on limiting the top two receivers to try and throw this pass offense off.
But the most important part of derailing this attack is pressuring Goff. The Rams have a really good offensive line, but in the Rams’ three losses this year Goff was thrown off his rhythm as a result of defenders getting in his face quickly. The most notable example was the game against the Bears, wherein Goff was sacked three times, threw four interceptions, zero touchdowns, and completed just 45% of his passes. Even worse in that game is that Goff’s adjusted yards per attempt sat at 0.00.
And from that Bears game comes the blueprint for stopping this Rams offense. Chicago limited Gurley’s effectiveness on early downs and pressured Goff into bad decisions. And it may seem elementary, but if the Cowboys can force Goff to turn it over more than he scores, it’ll be a good day for Dallas.
Goff had four games with a passer rating under 80, and all of those games saw Goff throw as many or more interceptions as touchdowns. The Rams were 2-2 in those games, 0-2 against playoff teams, and three of those games for Goff came all in a row in December.
At its best, this Dallas defense has thrived on generating pressure, especially as of late, and forcing the opposing quarterback to get rid of it before they’re ready. If they can do that against the Rams, as well as limiting the involvement of Gurley, then the Cowboys can do something that’s very hard to do: shut down McVay’s offense.
https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/201...ense-aaron-donald-wade-phillips-marcus-peters
Cowboys vs. Rams: Previewing the Los Angeles defense
The Rams have the best defensive player in the entire NFL on their team.
By David Howman
The offense is a big part of what people focus on with these Los Angeles Rams, but last year the defense was pretty great too and kept the team in a lot of games. A lot of it was due to the man running the show, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. Widely regarded as one of the best defensive minds in the NFL, Phillips was once the head coach in Dallas before being fired midseason and replaced by Jason Garrett. Of course, Phillips went on to win a Super Bowl running an impressive defense with Denver, and now he’s in Los Angeles.
But in 2018, the Rams defense has taken a significant step back. Giving up 358.6 yards per game has them ranked 19th in the NFL - only three other playoff teams have worse ranked defenses. The Rams also rank 20th in scoring defense, allowing 24 points per game. Their passing defense is their best aspect, ranking 14th in the league, but their run defense is awful; they give up 5.1 rushing yards per carry, which is the most of any defense in the entire NFL.
For what it’s worth, rushing champion Ezekiel Elliott has averaged 4.7 yards per carry in the regular season and last week, against the Seattle Seahawks, Elliott picked up an average of 5.3 yards per carry. The Cowboys already make it a point to give their star running back a lot of carries, but don’t be surprised to see him get even more Saturday night.
But while the Rams are one of the worst at stopping the run, it’s just not that easy. This is mostly because the Rams have a guy named Aaron Donald on their team, who is not only the best defensive player in the NFL but one of the best overall players right now.
In Phillips’ 3-4 scheme, Donald has put up a lot of eye-popping stats. He leads the league in sacks with 20.5, and he’s forced four fumbles and recovered two fumbles. He’s also fifth on the team in tackles with 59, as well as having 25 tackles for loss and 41 (!) QB hits. Then there’s this:
View: https://twitter.com/JB_Long/status/1057731895918641153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1057731895918641153&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloggingtheboys.com%2F2019%2F1%2F12%2F18178898%2Fcowboys-vs-rams-previewing-the-los-angeles-defense-aaron-donald-wade-phillips-marcus-peters
In their base defense, Donald will sometimes line up against Zack Martin, but Phillips will undoubtedly move his star defender all over the line of scrimmage and try to give him opportunities to go up against the Dallas offensive line’s weaker points, most notably rookie Connor Williams and backup Joe Looney. And while double-teaming Donald clearly doesn’t neutralize him, it may be the most effective way to contain him.
Aside from Donald, though, Los Angeles has other pieces in the front seven to worry about, though not as much. Nose tackle Ndamukong Suh has been a dominant force for a while, but age and a new scheme have seemingly slowed him somewhat, as he’s only posted 4.5 sacks and 19 QB hits.
Cory Littleton, Samson Ebukam, and Dante Fowler have all pitched in as edge rushing linebackers as well, with nine sacks combined, but overall it’s been a disappointing year for the Rams’ pass rush outside of Donald. And there’s Michael Brockers, a big space-eating defensive tackle who’s been good against the run, but his one sack leaves a lot to be desired on passing downs.
Littleton and Mark Barron man the middle of the defense, and while Littleton’s 125 tackles lead the team, Barron has only chipped in 60 total tackles on the year. Furthermore, the former safety has zero interceptions and only one pass defensed, tying him with Donald in that regard.
Safety John Johnson has been utilized more effectively in the run game than Barron, and he has 119 tackles to show for it. But the fact still remains that this defense struggles significantly against the run, and their +1.5% DVOA ranks their run defense efficiency 28th in the NFL.
The bright side for this defense is that their secondary is very good. We already talked about Johnson’s run-stopping ability as a safety, but he also leads the team with four interceptions and is second with 11 passes defensed. Fellow safety Lamarcus Joyner is an athletic presence in coverage who makes it hard for opposing quarterbacks to throw deep against this secondary.
Marcus Peters and Aqib Talin are the Rams’ two top cornerbacks, with Nickell Robey-Coleman providing great production out of the slot. This trio has five interceptions between them and 17 passes defensed.
This secondary as a whole has been hard to beat pretty much all year, as opposing quarterbacks are averaging seven yards per attempt against this unit, tied for sixth best in the NFL. The Rams are also third in the league for interceptions with 18, and their pass defense efficiency rating of +0.2% puts them at ninth overall.
But the one defect of this ball-hawking group is their aggression; they bite on double moves and pump fakes more than most, and Dallas needs to exploit that if they hope to find success in more than just their running game.
Of course, the top priority in both facets of the offensive gameplan must be slowing down Donald, but the Cowboys will need some trickery to be competitive against this defensive backfield. However, against a porous run defense like this, it’ll still be the same rough outline: feed Zeke.
Cowboys vs. Rams: Previewing the Los Angeles offense
Sean McVay’s high-flying offense can be hard to slow down.
By David Howman
If you look around the NFL right now, you can see all the ways in which Sean McVay has drastically altered the landscape of the league. Not only has he taken the Rams from non-contenders to one of the league’s top teams, but now other teams are hiring the closest they can get to McVay - Matt LaFleur, Kliff Kingsbury, and Adam Gase, for example - to try and share in the success.
A big part of the apparent McVay model is the fact that he’s young and highly innovative on offense. Paired with some truly great talent on that side of the ball, McVay has created terrific offenses in his first two years in Los Angeles. In fact, the Rams offense ranks second in the NFL in total yards and points per game, fifth in passing offense, and third in rushing offense.
These ratings hold up against advanced metrics such as DVOA as well. Per Football Outsiders, the Rams offense ranks second in overall DVOA and weighted DVOA, fifth in passing efficiency, and first in rushing efficiency. Not surprisingly, a lot of this revolves around the two stars, Jared Goff and Todd Gurley.
Goff powers the passing attack, and he’s had yet another successful year in McVay’s offense. The former first overall draft pick has completed 64.9% of his passes for 4,688 yards with 32 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions. He has also taken only 33 sacks this year, sixth fewest among quarterbacks who started all 16 games this year. Furthermore, Goff’s 8.4 yards per attempt were the third highest in the NFL, which reflects the big play inclination of this passing attack.
However, the Rams’ philosophy regarding big plays is very different than Dallas’ last matchup against Seattle. McVay, whose offensive philosophy has been cut from the cloth of both Gruden’s and both Shanahan’s, is a West Coast offense that uses the short, quick passing game to set up deep shots later on. McVay has also peppered in a heavy amount of pre-snap motion to misdirect defenses and give Goff an easier time reading the coverage.
Play-action is also a big part of this offense, and it works exceptionally well because of Gurley. While Ezekiel Elliott led the league in rushing, Gurley led the league in both DVOA and DYAR among running backs, according to Football Outsiders.
And Gurley has been no slouch, as he’s put up 1,251 rushing yards despite sitting out the last two games of the regular season due to injury. Gurley is averaging 4.9 yards per carry and his 17 rushing touchdowns is the most for any running back this year.
But Gurley is also a threat in the receiving game, as he’s caught 59 passes for 580 yards - averaging an absurd 9.8 yards per catch - and four touchdowns. And while the Rams possess plenty of talent in their receiving corps (more on that in a moment), the offense is very much based around getting Gurley going.
In fact, the Rams are 3-3 in games where Gurley had under 100 total yards of offense and are 1-3 in games where Gurley had less than 15 carries. The one win was the Monday night thriller against the Chiefs, in which Goff had over 400 yards passing and four touchdowns.
Yet, as much as Gurley gets involved as a receiver, the Rams have their own playmakers down the field aside from the All Pro running back. Los Angeles uses 11 personnel most frequently, meaning they utilize three receivers on the field at the same time, and the trio of Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods, and Cooper Kupp was dominating until Kupp tore his ACL. Josh Reynolds has filled Kupp’s role, but has largely been ineffective, leaving Cooks and Woods as the two primary receiving threats.
Not surprisingly, both receivers have 80 or more catches on the year and over 1,200 receiving yards; Woods has caught six touchdown passes compared to Cooks’ five. The third leading receiver is Gurley and the fourth is Kupp, which shows how little depth there is in that receiving corps considering Kupp only played half the season.
From that perspective, the Cowboys face a similar situation as they did with Seattle where the defense can focus most of their energy on limiting the top two receivers to try and throw this pass offense off.
But the most important part of derailing this attack is pressuring Goff. The Rams have a really good offensive line, but in the Rams’ three losses this year Goff was thrown off his rhythm as a result of defenders getting in his face quickly. The most notable example was the game against the Bears, wherein Goff was sacked three times, threw four interceptions, zero touchdowns, and completed just 45% of his passes. Even worse in that game is that Goff’s adjusted yards per attempt sat at 0.00.
And from that Bears game comes the blueprint for stopping this Rams offense. Chicago limited Gurley’s effectiveness on early downs and pressured Goff into bad decisions. And it may seem elementary, but if the Cowboys can force Goff to turn it over more than he scores, it’ll be a good day for Dallas.
Goff had four games with a passer rating under 80, and all of those games saw Goff throw as many or more interceptions as touchdowns. The Rams were 2-2 in those games, 0-2 against playoff teams, and three of those games for Goff came all in a row in December.
At its best, this Dallas defense has thrived on generating pressure, especially as of late, and forcing the opposing quarterback to get rid of it before they’re ready. If they can do that against the Rams, as well as limiting the involvement of Gurley, then the Cowboys can do something that’s very hard to do: shut down McVay’s offense.
https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/201...ense-aaron-donald-wade-phillips-marcus-peters
Cowboys vs. Rams: Previewing the Los Angeles defense
The Rams have the best defensive player in the entire NFL on their team.
By David Howman
The offense is a big part of what people focus on with these Los Angeles Rams, but last year the defense was pretty great too and kept the team in a lot of games. A lot of it was due to the man running the show, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. Widely regarded as one of the best defensive minds in the NFL, Phillips was once the head coach in Dallas before being fired midseason and replaced by Jason Garrett. Of course, Phillips went on to win a Super Bowl running an impressive defense with Denver, and now he’s in Los Angeles.
But in 2018, the Rams defense has taken a significant step back. Giving up 358.6 yards per game has them ranked 19th in the NFL - only three other playoff teams have worse ranked defenses. The Rams also rank 20th in scoring defense, allowing 24 points per game. Their passing defense is their best aspect, ranking 14th in the league, but their run defense is awful; they give up 5.1 rushing yards per carry, which is the most of any defense in the entire NFL.
For what it’s worth, rushing champion Ezekiel Elliott has averaged 4.7 yards per carry in the regular season and last week, against the Seattle Seahawks, Elliott picked up an average of 5.3 yards per carry. The Cowboys already make it a point to give their star running back a lot of carries, but don’t be surprised to see him get even more Saturday night.
But while the Rams are one of the worst at stopping the run, it’s just not that easy. This is mostly because the Rams have a guy named Aaron Donald on their team, who is not only the best defensive player in the NFL but one of the best overall players right now.
In Phillips’ 3-4 scheme, Donald has put up a lot of eye-popping stats. He leads the league in sacks with 20.5, and he’s forced four fumbles and recovered two fumbles. He’s also fifth on the team in tackles with 59, as well as having 25 tackles for loss and 41 (!) QB hits. Then there’s this:
View: https://twitter.com/JB_Long/status/1057731895918641153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1057731895918641153&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloggingtheboys.com%2F2019%2F1%2F12%2F18178898%2Fcowboys-vs-rams-previewing-the-los-angeles-defense-aaron-donald-wade-phillips-marcus-peters
In their base defense, Donald will sometimes line up against Zack Martin, but Phillips will undoubtedly move his star defender all over the line of scrimmage and try to give him opportunities to go up against the Dallas offensive line’s weaker points, most notably rookie Connor Williams and backup Joe Looney. And while double-teaming Donald clearly doesn’t neutralize him, it may be the most effective way to contain him.
Aside from Donald, though, Los Angeles has other pieces in the front seven to worry about, though not as much. Nose tackle Ndamukong Suh has been a dominant force for a while, but age and a new scheme have seemingly slowed him somewhat, as he’s only posted 4.5 sacks and 19 QB hits.
Cory Littleton, Samson Ebukam, and Dante Fowler have all pitched in as edge rushing linebackers as well, with nine sacks combined, but overall it’s been a disappointing year for the Rams’ pass rush outside of Donald. And there’s Michael Brockers, a big space-eating defensive tackle who’s been good against the run, but his one sack leaves a lot to be desired on passing downs.
Littleton and Mark Barron man the middle of the defense, and while Littleton’s 125 tackles lead the team, Barron has only chipped in 60 total tackles on the year. Furthermore, the former safety has zero interceptions and only one pass defensed, tying him with Donald in that regard.
Safety John Johnson has been utilized more effectively in the run game than Barron, and he has 119 tackles to show for it. But the fact still remains that this defense struggles significantly against the run, and their +1.5% DVOA ranks their run defense efficiency 28th in the NFL.
The bright side for this defense is that their secondary is very good. We already talked about Johnson’s run-stopping ability as a safety, but he also leads the team with four interceptions and is second with 11 passes defensed. Fellow safety Lamarcus Joyner is an athletic presence in coverage who makes it hard for opposing quarterbacks to throw deep against this secondary.
Marcus Peters and Aqib Talin are the Rams’ two top cornerbacks, with Nickell Robey-Coleman providing great production out of the slot. This trio has five interceptions between them and 17 passes defensed.
This secondary as a whole has been hard to beat pretty much all year, as opposing quarterbacks are averaging seven yards per attempt against this unit, tied for sixth best in the NFL. The Rams are also third in the league for interceptions with 18, and their pass defense efficiency rating of +0.2% puts them at ninth overall.
But the one defect of this ball-hawking group is their aggression; they bite on double moves and pump fakes more than most, and Dallas needs to exploit that if they hope to find success in more than just their running game.
Of course, the top priority in both facets of the offensive gameplan must be slowing down Donald, but the Cowboys will need some trickery to be competitive against this defensive backfield. However, against a porous run defense like this, it’ll still be the same rough outline: feed Zeke.
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OC--LeftCoast
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OC--LeftCoast
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This is why I don't talk Rams on other teams' boards. The going back and eating crow when you're wrong is way too painful.
Karate61
There can be no excellence without effort.
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I bet @johneric8 is busy messing with his abacus trying to figure out what the hell went wrong!This is why I don't talk Rams on other teams' boards. The going back and eating crow when you're wrong is way too painful.
hotanez
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he was so sure of his defense. I said it in another thread if I had to choose playing Bears D or Cowboys D it would be Cowboys D all day long. We completely dominated their front 7
Karate61
There can be no excellence without effort.
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hotanez
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those freaking communists