***Official Dallas Cowboys VS NY Giants Thread***

[Franchise 60]

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Ya true giving credit to Tuna. This team has his stamp all over it.

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Parcells left a great roster behind. That's about it. He was horrible as a coach the past two seasons.

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In addition to my last post, remember that Tuna never had a seasoned Romo. Romo is coming into his own now, and we haven't had that luxury since Troy...

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Parcells deserves a lot of gratitude from Dallas fans. He did an insane job of building that team.

I agree that he would have greatly benefited from Garrett, but he also wasn't a great fit personality wise for that team.

[rafiki]

This isn't the same team as last year though. Romo was just learning to be a great player last year. There's a reason he's so good now: He's not doing as many bonehead plays. And Parcells got him to stop those. Remember how reckless Romo was at first ? He still is now, but it's decreasing. Then add to that our offensive line: IT'S HEALTHY. We haven't had a healthy o-line in years, touch wood. Anyone who feels this team is anything like the Bledsoe lead ones clearly forgets how badly our pass protection was. This is the evolution of Romo learning to be Romo, and a coordinator really using the weapons. But if Parcells was back tomorrow, you wouldn't feel a drastic difference. If anything Wade's defensive genius hasn't really paid dividends yet when it counts...

[tdarko]

rafiki,

That line was fine w/ Bledsoe he just can't move. He has the same sack per attempt numbers everywhere he has been (about 11 being the magic #). For instance when Romo took over the numbers jumped from 11 to 17. The line wasn't the problem it was Drew having his feet in cement.

[Jay Riall]

When you consider how proflific the Giants pass rush has been recently, Cowboys O-line played amazingly. T'was a good game, Cowboys outclassed the Giants, but the Giants played well for much of the game and have definitely shown themselves to be the 3rd best team in the NFC imo.

Edit: also nice to see the skins go down.

[rafiki]

It's party Drew having no mobility, and partly our O-line being god awful in those days. But all this to say that Tuna never had the team we have today. Healthy with so many weapons on both sides of the ball, and with the new school of offense that only these young new guys are coming with. Let's face it, the Garetts and Paytons are offensive super studs. The stuff they're pulling is light years ahead of the offenses of the 90's.

[Gary Stevenson]

nothing like a downer game like this to derail what was looking to be a very promising season after our last few weeks...please let me be wrong

[ClassicBob]

rafiki,

Our offensive line last year was insanely healthy. It's possible (i'm not looking it up) that we started the same line all 16 games.

I was driving back from Dallas to Austin, so I haven't been around to address your points, but darko pretty much covered all of them.

If you think that Parcells would have just gone with "forward thinking" JG's playcalling, you're nuts. Remember, Parcells had Sean Payton as his offensive coordinator, and we saw very little of Payton's genius as a playcaller. Parcells was stuck in 80's conservative mode his entire tenure here, and refused to let loose with what we had. Even when Bledsoe was starting, we had a ton of weapons to throw to, but still didn't open it up enough.

[VarlosZ]

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It's party Drew having no mobility, and partly our O-line being god awful in those days.

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Damnit, tdarko, stop stealing my material. I mean, so much of it is stolen from FO in the first place, and having it re-stolen just feels dirty, for some reason.

A post of mine from this thread, about 4/5 of the way through:

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An example of this principle, courtesy of PFP 2007. Last year, the Dallas Cowboys started the same five offensive lineman for all 16 games. Drew Bledsoe was sacked once ever 11.6 dropbacks (attempts + sacks), while Tony Romo, behind the same exact line, was sacked just once every 17 dropbacks. The league-wide average was one sack per 15.1 dropbacks. So, did the Cowboys O-line go from attrocious to somewhat above average halfway through the season, or did the team just insert a QB who was much less prone to being sacked?

Note that Bledsoe had a similar sack rate at Buffalo (11.9 att/sack), as well as at New England during his final three years (11.8 att/sack), which is roughly when he turned into The Human Monolith.

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In my defense, I will point out that I did the research about Bledsoe in Buffalo and New England myself.


Anyway, my guess is that the Dallas O-line was (and probably still is) about average at pass protection, so their sack rate was basically going to be a reflection of their QBs' sack avoidance skills. Bledsoe was terrible, Romo is pretty damn good.

[yjbrewer]

Go cowboys. NFC East Champs

[tdarko]

VarlosZ,

Did I really have to link that thread?

1. I couldn't remember where I read it but I remembered the general numbers.
2. Most stuff posted on this site is taken from some previous website but not linked.
3. Did you want a pat on your back for those numbers?
4. FWIW, I already knew the sack differences between Romo and Drew from last year--but thanks for doing the work on Drew's years in Buf and NE b/c I didn't know those #'s!