Where Cowboys’ defense has gone wrong
Baltimore Ravens left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. strolled toward the camera, pantomiming as he peeled off imaginary wads of cash.
“Easy money,” Brown exclaimed on national television late Tuesday as Ravens running back J.K. Dobbins slipped easily up the middle of the field, piling 5 more yards and six additional points onto a disheartened Dallas defense.
The Cowboys’ 34-17 loss marked their fourth performance this season allowing at least 200 yards on the ground. Another 6 yards, and they’d have been on the hook for 300.
“Three hundred yards is obviously astronomical,” head coach Mike Mccarthy said after the game.
The Cowboys’ latest sloppy defensive performance was far from an outlier in their 3-9 season. They entered the game with the league’s worst run defense and flew home allowing an average of 167.8 rushing yards per game. The Houston Texans own the NFL’S secondworst unit, yet have allowed 203 fewer rushing yards than Dallas.
The Cowboys’ struggles come after their 2019 run defense allowed 103.5 yards per game (11th) and a 2018 unit ceded just 94.6 (fifth best). The players are mostly the same. The coaching staff and scheme, however, have shifted dramatically.
“We’re pretty far down the road to blame this on scheme,” Mccarthy said. “Our execution clearly wasn’t where it needed to be. That’s reflective of the big plays that come out.
“We knew that was part of the dynamic coming into the game and we didn’t get it done.”
Looking at the lapses
Demarcus Ware, a nine-time Pro Bowl edge defender who spent nine of his 12 NFL seasons in Dallas, watches this Cowboys defense and discerns between their physical and mental preparedness.
“They have a lot of the athleticism that I can see,” Ware told USA TODAY Sports on Monday. “But it’s a challenge when a lot of guys are really not in the right spot.”
Cowboys players don’t deny it.
Sure, the Ravens’ league-best running attack and reigning MVP Lamar Jackson are a force. But the Cowboys had 12 days to prepare for the COVIDdelayed contest and a wealth of film to study. They’d had 11 games to adjust to Mike Nolan’s multiple-front scheme after years spent in Rod Marinelli’s simpler four-man front that emphasized speed.
“When you have Marinelli in there, Marinelli was more like a steak-and-potatoes guy,” said Ware, speaking in conjunction with Wednesday’s launch of his new Driven to Win fitness app that enables users to customize a workout with virtual encouragement from him and a host of current NFL players.
“I’m talking about four guys up front, and we’re going to beat you up front, we’re going to run games and it’s going to be very simple up front. The cornerbacks and linebackers are going to do a lot of the work when it comes to the run. But now when you switch to more of a hybrid-type defense, the linebackers are actually becoming more of interior guys who have to take on those guards, and they’re not used to that. The corners have to now come up and make plays and contain, but also figure out what coverage they’re in at the same time.
“It’s a lot more put on the players instead of a one-track mind.”
Baltimore had no problem getting untracked Tuesday, three different Ravens ripping off runs of at least 30 yards.the most egregious came on fourth-and-2 in the final minute of the first quarter, when Jackson faked a handoff to Dobbins before bursting up the middle untouched to score. Linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, whose eyes had veered right to Dobbins, noticed too late as Jackson sprinted past.
“That’s 100% on me,” Vander Esch said. “I read the play right off the bat and I should have just fit my assignment ... I second-guessed myself and thought he handed it to the running back. But that wasn’t my job. So, I need to do my job. “That one hurts.”
Defensive end Demarcus Lawrence also claimed his share of accountability after Jackson passed for 107 yards, rushed for 94 and accounted for three TDS.
“He’s not just playing the dive,” Lawrence said, sympathizing with Vander Esch’s second guessing.
“Now he has to play the pitch from the quarterback. Now he has to play pass. It’s a lot of keys y’all don’t see on film that we have to recognize. And we have to recognize it in a split second or our play can bust.”
Ware suggests the Cowboys’ COVIDhampered offseason didn’t help coaches install the new defensive assignments. Even so, he wonders about the players’ communication amongst themselves. Are the linebackers identifying tendencies quickly enough to call out keys? Is the defensive line signaling to the linebackers in time for information to be relayed to the secondary?
“Usually there’s one guy out there, the middle linebacker or outside linebacker, that’s telling everyone first of all, run (or) pass, what situation they’re in,” said Ware. “But also saying, ‘This is the play they’re about to run. ... Everybody look at their keys.’
“It’s almost like you do it quietly. But again, I don’t see a lot of that, a lot of that communication of where the defensive line are holding up (signals) right here, and saying, ‘Hey, it’s a run.’ “You have to have that guy out there.” Mental lapses like the fourth-and-2 bust led to Jackson’s 37-yard score, the longest rushing touchdown allowed to a quarterback in Dallas history. The Cowboys are allowing a league-worst 32.8 points per game, a full field goal worse than the 31st-ranked Detroit Lions. The Cowboys haven’t held an opponent below 20 points once this season, the 12game stretch now the longest such in franchise history.
“It’s just self-inflicted wounds,” Lawrence said.
Long way to go
Questions persist as to whether the Cowboys’ personnel, many of whom succeeded in Marinelli’s less complex 4-3 scheme, fit Nolan’s philosophy. Nolan said he rolled back the full implementation significantly in September when it didn’t stick, but still the players agree they’re not on the same page.
In a best-case scenario, Ware says, the offseason will allow players to deepen their understanding of the playbook while the front office weighs options to boost production. Cowboys Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman wonders whether even that will be enough.