Shane Taylor
As we know, Dallas has more than just three things they can clean up to make them a better football team, but I wanted to highlight some I took away from last season that could help them improve.
First, the most obvious need for improvement is penalties. Cowboys sat atop of the league last year in total flags.
According to NFL penalties, Dallas was flagged 168 times a season ago.
I am sure many would agree that this was the most frustrating thing to watch last season. The number of times opposing teams had a drive extended because of them became remarkable.
Dallas overcame most of those penalties throughout the regular season, but we saw a few of these that changed the outcome of the playoff matchup with the San Francisco 49ers.
The Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals, the two teams featured in this past Super bowl, were only flagged 218 times combined. Top to bottom, Dallas needs to be more disciplined and stop giving away free yards.
Jon Machota on Twitter: “Mike McCarthy on Cowboys’ top offseason priorities:1. Clean up penalties2. Being better at handling adversity / Twitter”
Mike McCarthy on Cowboys’ top offseason priorities:1. Clean up penalties2. Being better at handling adversity
Secondly, according to team rankings, Dallas finished 20th in rushing defense a season ago. They surrendered 115.9 yards on the ground per game. The NFL is a passing league. Letting teams gash you running the football is not ideal.
If Dallas has one person I trust to make changes going into next year to slow some of these teams down, it is Dan Quinn.
Lastly, find a rhythm that works. The Cowboys are going to have to fill the production of Amari Cooper. By rhythm, I mean having an identity. I am going to point to Kellen Moore for this one.
It felt like Moore went away from certain things that brought success on a game-by-game basis. Maybe because they saw something on film, but everyone knows the makeup of this football team. They have two very productive running backs waiting to open up the playbook. Both need to be involved every week.
Good news: Connor Williams (17), La’el Collins (10), Randy Gregory (7), and Damontae Kazee (4) are all gone.
Bad news: Trevon Diggs (11), Tyler Biadasz (10), Tyron Smith (10), Terence Steele (8), Anthony Brown (5), Nashon Wright (5) and C.J. Goodwin (6) are all still here (for now) and Connor’s replacement has a history of penalties in college. Here’s hoping his former coach is right and most of those flags were because he was too dominant.
Even Micah Parsons was flagged 6 times (4ea offsides/neutral zone infraction, 1ea roughing the passer and 1ea horsecollar).
There were also 6 delay of game penalties, which are on the coaches and/or Dak.
When there are that many players with 5+ penalties, it points towards bad coaching and over matched players.
https://www.nflpenalties.com/team/dallas-cowboys?year=2021&view=log
Called it like it is. Very good post. Doesn’t give a lot to be optimistic about until the players on the field stop with the penalties.
Question, are the overabundance of penalties a byproduct of insufficient coaching OR bad execution by the players on the field?
Vam, these can stem from both.
You have players who get caught in a bad spot and feel like they have to do a little extra to see if they can get away with it, holding, DPI, etc. But things such as jumping the gun for a false start or trying to read the snap count and jump offsides just comes down to discipline that it happens that much.
But at the same time if you sit in film every single week and it continues to happen can that be linked to insufficient coaching? I think so, it still may happen every now and again but the fact that it happened almost every single week has to be addressed.