00:01Love under center, first and goal, quarterback sneak on the right side, touchdown Green Bay.
00:08Alright, so after further review, I've got two different sequences I would like to go through, and this is one
00:18of them.
00:18Alright, so it's first and ten at the Cowboys 27, with 53 seconds left in the first half.
00:26Porter was just called for pass interference, and that was almost a Packers punt, and so that's frustrating.
00:33And honestly, I thought the flag was going to be on the Packers, because the dude went out of bounds
00:37and everything like that.
00:38But, we move forward. Strong runs for four yards.
00:44And I made a note right there, good Cowboys first half run defense, and it's second and six.
00:50Nice. Golden drops another touchdown pass, though he did beat Speed again, and that part is concerning.
00:58There were three times at least.
01:00But now, you have third and six.
01:02Alright?
01:04So, it goes back to Love and Golden, and here's the thing that was particularly frustrating on this one.
01:11Jordan Love does not throw the ball for seven seconds.
01:17Seven seconds!
01:18It's like that Donovan McNabb pass.
01:19Yeah, man.
01:20What was that, like 15 seconds or something?
01:22It was 11 or something.
01:23I was in the stadium.
01:24So, he has seven seconds to throw the ball, and of course, he connects.
01:29That's another third down conversion, and you didn't really have too much pressure on that play whatsoever.
01:39Maybe a little bit from Ezraku.
01:41I thought eventually Ezraku got some pressure on that play, but the pressure just was pretty non-existent there.
01:49And you throw it right between downs and Bland.
01:51So, you have Bland on the far side, downs on the near side, whoop, hit the connection right between them.
01:5727 seconds left, first and goal.
01:59Dallas uses their final timeout, because obviously our offense was clicking on all cylinders, and we were really about to
02:04go score.
02:05And then, the Packers, look, it's easy after that.
02:08Bland gets a blatant pass interference, then there's the quarterback sneak that we just played.
02:12But it was those two passes to Matthew Golden.
02:15You caught a break with the drop, and then you can do nothing on it.
02:19When your coverage was solid for a while, but then eventually no dice.
02:24And that was the Packers' ninth third down conversion in the first half.
02:28First time they've done that since 1995.
02:31Okay.
02:32Ugh.
02:33I think, Kevin, what Shottie's doing by calling the timeouts, he's trying to get these guys more reps defensively.
02:38Okay.
02:39Well, man, we get a lot of defensive reps, that's for sure.
02:42I think he's like, they just need more opportunities.
02:45Yeah.
02:46I need to look up that stat as long defensive drives allowed.
02:50Like, how many drives have you had that are more than 12 plays against you?
02:54Because I feel like we would lead...
02:55Well, they did two in the first half.
02:56Yeah, I feel like we'd lead the league in that.
02:59All right, I've got one more, but I want to bounce it over to you if you want to go
03:02into anything specific.
03:03When we talk about running the ball effectively, I think you have to find a rhythm, and the Cowboys had
03:10zero offensive rhythm in this game.
03:12Between penalties, trailing, they felt pressure.
03:15Like, that 17-0 insurmountable trailing lead is, like, you just can't overcome it, so you can't run the ball
03:21anymore.
03:21In the first half, they ran a total of 29 plays on five possessions.
03:26That's six plays, less than six plays per possession?
03:30Ooh.
03:31Green Bay ran 40 on four possessions.
03:33So, as you were talking about just there, the...
03:35Wow, 10 plays per possession?
03:39Yeah, one was 15, one was 14, and then you had the mix in between there.
03:43The Cowboys only ran the ball more than three times per possession one time.
03:48On that drive was the touchdown.
03:51Ooh.
03:52Midway through the third quarter.
03:53And they ran the ball five times on the drive.
03:55One was a quarterback scramble.
03:56So, they ran the ball four times on that drive, but scored a touchdown.
03:59One of the things I noticed, Javante, I was kind of locking in on Javante, he only picked the wrong
04:07lane one time.
04:09And I don't think, me and Wolchuk were discussing this, I don't think he has the best vision, but he
04:15is a very tough runner.
04:17I think that's a very good way to describe him, is he knows where he's supposed to go, and when
04:22he gets there, he just barrels through and he does a good job of that.
04:25But he maybe, there was another one, maybe he could have had a bigger gain if he had made a
04:28different cut.
04:28But the other thing I noticed, Kevin, speaks to that rhythm that I was talking about a minute ago.
04:33Steel's struggling here now, too.
04:34For sure.
04:35In the run game, also.
04:36Not just the pass protection, but this, too.
04:39At least two blatantly terrible blocks.
04:42And that was supposed to be his calling card.
04:43And again, we're dealing with limited carries for Javante, and now you have at least two of those.
04:50So that's just brutal.
04:51Booker missed on one, too.
04:53On alignment, they had Tyler Guyton lined up on one play on the side of Steele.
04:59They've only done this a handful of times, where they'll line Tyler Guyton on the right side with Terrence Steele,
05:05and they'll throw Broderick Jones out there on the left side in kind of a big formation.
05:09Unfortunately, Javante ran into the middle of the pack, and there was actually a big gap where Steele and Guyton
05:17were.
05:18He needs that.
05:19Kevin, it's starting to become that repetitive record of Steele just needs help and is not performing even close to
05:28where he needs to be.
05:29That cracked bad.
05:30And that's the thing that I noticed, is running the ball and finding a rhythm, that's where it's not the
05:37running back right now as much as it is there are things missing across that offensive line that aren't providing
05:43more of it.
05:44And I think to get that rhythm, you have to run the ball more.
05:48So I'm glad that you brought that up, because that actually segues into the next thing that I wanted to
05:55talk about, the first drive of the game.
05:57So the Cowboys get the ball first, first drive of the game, first run of the game.
06:02You get eight yards from Javante, and you're like, okay.
06:06And then minus two.
06:07Here we go.
06:08Exactly.
06:08And then, so it's second and two.
06:10You're ahead of the chains.
06:12Advantageous situation.
06:14And then the second run goes for minus two.
06:16Guess who missed the block?
06:18Terrence Steele.
06:19And you wonder, I wondered at that point, I was like, is it going to take one negative play for
06:24them to be like, let's not do this today?
06:25Okay, so look at the rest of the drive.
06:27There's a great play by Dak, and then a terrible play by Dak on this drive.
06:32So it's now third and four.
06:34You get the completion of Flournoy.
06:38Flournoy.
06:39Man, the Stephen Jones pronunciation has really thrown me off about that.
06:42Adrian saw him catch the ball, and she was like, oh, Flournoy.
06:46And I went, ha, ha, ha.
06:48That is really, yeah, that has really thrown me off.
06:51All right, great awareness by Dak with the pressure coming, and it felt like a much-needed completion,
06:56because otherwise you're going to have a three and out, and you're going to be like, well, we ran the
06:58ball two times, three and out.
07:00That's no good.
07:00So you get a new set of downs.
07:01Then the first down play is terrible.
07:04Terrible.
07:04It's a giant, seemingly give-up play that ends with a toss to Lipke for two yards, and you're like,
07:11wow, neat.
07:12So it's second and eight.
07:13Then you run the ball again.
07:15You get four yards.
07:16And you're like, okay, so of our first three carries, obviously one was a disaster, but the other two carries,
07:22you got 12 yards off of it.
07:23I'm feeling pretty okay about that.
07:24Then the third and four, and this play is so irritating to me.
07:29Dak gets jumpy on the ensuing third down, and maybe that's because he had just gotten pressure on the last
07:38third down.
07:38So there is somewhat of a pressure coming, but the Cowboys do a good job of picking it up.
07:44The protection was fine.
07:46He still had time to look, look, look, throw the ball, but instead he just dumps it off to Javante.
07:54Even though there was more time, there was more ability to look across the field and see if one of
07:59your supposedly elite receivers was going to create some separation.
08:04And nothing.
08:05You get a dump off, it's a dud play, and you end up having to punt.
08:09Following the punt, the Green Bay ensuing drive goes 14 plays, and they take the 7-0 lead.
08:15And after that, it felt like we were going to abandon the run game and abandon all kinds of other
08:20things, and eventually abandon hope.
08:23I'm going back and looking, Kevin, at that play specifically.
08:27This goes to kind of what we were discussing a little yesterday.
08:32When Dak expects a blitz coming in a certain direction, he throws to the blitz.
08:36Right.
08:37And these are simple rules.
08:40Like, these are simple quarterback rules.
08:42I see the safety.
08:43I key in on where he's, if there's a single high.
08:45If there's a single high, I should have some coverage somewhere else.
08:48If there's a blitz coming, I'm going to throw to the blitz because the vacated area should provide that for
08:53me.
08:54However, on the other side, with a little extra time, you had two other receivers that were getting open.
08:58Yeah.
08:59But he started to, you're right.
09:01On that play, he had the time.
09:03Yeah.
09:03There were plenty of other plays throughout the day where he did not have the time.
09:06Yeah.
09:06On that play, he had the time.
09:07But yeah, these are the simple, I think this is the thing.
09:11Those are simple rules, and maybe those are simple rules that they're having to go by because Schottenheimer,
09:17the play caller, is having to spend too much time trying to focus on the defense and what's going on
09:22there,
09:23rather than focusing on his offense.
09:25But the other thing is, the teams and opponents are recognizing the simple rules the quarterback has,
09:30and they're designing things to defeat what he does well.
09:34So now what he has to do is they need to work together as an offense to make the adjustments
09:39to throw off their opponents.
