bbgun

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ARLINGTON -- The opener went so easy for the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon. Dallas knocked off Washington, 35-7, in the season opener at AT&T Stadium. There were a few questions about just what this Cowboys offense was going to be about. Well, Cooper Rush was the quarterback with about three minutes left and the fans were filing out into the hot sun.
With that, we have five observations of the Cowboys-Giants game:

Kellen Moore's offense is...: So how do you like Kellen Moore? It's only one game, just one game, but Sunday afternoon, the new offensive coordinator called a solid game where the Cowboys used three- and four-receiver sets, deep passes to Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, motion with two or three receivers and setting things up with the play action. Yes, all the things fans wanted to see with Scott Linehan last year, but didn't for whatever reason, are happening now. It was just for one game, but it was good to see Dak Prescott find open receivers, including Randall Cobb, Blake Jarwin and Jason Witten, for scores. Prescott used his legs in the run-pass option game, including getting a first down while running behind fullback Jamize Olawale. Prescott finished 25 for 32 for 405 yards with four touchdowns. It was that kind of day for Prescott. He connected with seven different receivers and even threw a fade to Olawale that went incomplete. He made it look easy. Or, was it Moore who made it look easy? The Cowboys had two receivers (Gallup and Cooper) with over 100 yards receiving, a run game that moved well and pass protection that was strong. Dallas gained 496 yards of total offense with a 8.3 average.

Ezekiel Elliott with a quiet day: It was as if Ezekiel Elliott never left. He's normally a slow starter and his longest run in the game was for 8 yards. You could say he had a quiet day until his 10-yard touchdown run with 1:14 left in the third quarter to give the Cowboys a 35-10 lead. It was uncertain how the Cowboys would use Elliott given his 40-day holdout, but those workouts in Cabo San Lucas seemed to work. He didn't share the backfield with Tony Pollard but came out for stretches to give the rookie some snaps. And after Elliott's touchdown, it was Pollard who finished the final 16 minutes of the game. Elliott finished with 13 carries for 53 yards and looked in good shape during the contest.

Slowing down Saquon Barkley: Coming into Sunday's game, Giants running back Saquon Barkley had 12 rushing plays of 25 or more yards and six of 50 or more. He also had five plays of 20 or more yards. The Cowboys were aware of the big play potential of Barkley. On the second offensive play for the Giants, Barkley had a 59-yard run, mainly due to a poor angle taken by safety Jeff Heath. After that play, Barkley didn't have a gain of more than 11 yards that made you worry about him and the Giants stayed away from him for the most part until the game got out of reach. He finished the day with 11 carries for 120 yards and four catches for 19 yards. After that 59-yard run, the Cowboys got hats to the ball carrier which is something defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli wants to see.

The defense makes some plays: With the offense being so explosive, you kind of forget about the defense. On Sunday DeMarcus Lawrence and Leighton Vander Esch had half-a-sack each, there were four quarterback hits and five pass breakups. There was even a strip sack on a fourth down by Lawrence on Eli Manning and Vander Esch forced a fumble on Giants backup quarterback Daniel Jones. Most of the afternoon, the Cowboys defense stayed in a zone, especially on third and long to keep the Giants in front of them and in man coverage did a nice job of staying close when it was necessary.

The Cowboys sit their second-round pick: We could talked about the return of Jason Witten (three catches for 15 yards and one touchdown) but the we’ve decided to focus on someone who didn’t play. Defensive tackle Tyrsten Hill was inactive for the game. He was a healthy scratch which isn’t a surprise, considering Marinelli has been critical of his work at times. Hill, the second-round pick, has made some splash plays, but it’s telling not to see him on the field. So the Cowboys, instead went with Maliek Collins, Kerry Hyder and Tyrone Crawford. It will be interesting to see if Hill uses this sit down as motivation to become active for the Week 2 game at Washington.
 

theoneandonly

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ARLINGTON -- The opener went so easy for the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon. Dallas knocked off Washington, 35-7, in the season opener at AT&T Stadium. There were a few questions about just what this Cowboys offense was going to be about. Well, Cooper Rush was the quarterback with about three minutes left and the fans were filing out into the hot sun.
With that, we have five observations of the Cowboys-Giants game:

Kellen Moore's offense is...: So how do you like Kellen Moore? It's only one game, just one game, but Sunday afternoon, the new offensive coordinator called a solid game where the Cowboys used three- and four-receiver sets, deep passes to Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, motion with two or three receivers and setting things up with the play action. Yes, all the things fans wanted to see with Scott Linehan last year, but didn't for whatever reason, are happening now. It was just for one game, but it was good to see Dak Prescott find open receivers, including Randall Cobb, Blake Jarwin and Jason Witten, for scores. Prescott used his legs in the run-pass option game, including getting a first down while running behind fullback Jamize Olawale. Prescott finished 25 for 32 for 405 yards with four touchdowns. It was that kind of day for Prescott. He connected with seven different receivers and even threw a fade to Olawale that went incomplete. He made it look easy. Or, was it Moore who made it look easy? The Cowboys had two receivers (Gallup and Cooper) with over 100 yards receiving, a run game that moved well and pass protection that was strong. Dallas gained 496 yards of total offense with a 8.3 average.

Ezekiel Elliott with a quiet day: It was as if Ezekiel Elliott never left. He's normally a slow starter and his longest run in the game was for 8 yards. You could say he had a quiet day until his 10-yard touchdown run with 1:14 left in the third quarter to give the Cowboys a 35-10 lead. It was uncertain how the Cowboys would use Elliott given his 40-day holdout, but those workouts in Cabo San Lucas seemed to work. He didn't share the backfield with Tony Pollard but came out for stretches to give the rookie some snaps. And after Elliott's touchdown, it was Pollard who finished the final 16 minutes of the game. Elliott finished with 13 carries for 53 yards and looked in good shape during the contest.

Slowing down Saquon Barkley: Coming into Sunday's game, Giants running back Saquon Barkley had 12 rushing plays of 25 or more yards and six of 50 or more. He also had five plays of 20 or more yards. The Cowboys were aware of the big play potential of Barkley. On the second offensive play for the Giants, Barkley had a 59-yard run, mainly due to a poor angle taken by safety Jeff Heath. After that play, Barkley didn't have a gain of more than 11 yards that made you worry about him and the Giants stayed away from him for the most part until the game got out of reach. He finished the day with 11 carries for 120 yards and four catches for 19 yards. After that 59-yard run, the Cowboys got hats to the ball carrier which is something defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli wants to see.

The defense makes some plays: With the offense being so explosive, you kind of forget about the defense. On Sunday DeMarcus Lawrence and Leighton Vander Esch had half-a-sack each, there were four quarterback hits and five pass breakups. There was even a strip sack on a fourth down by Lawrence on Eli Manning and Vander Esch forced a fumble on Giants backup quarterback Daniel Jones. Most of the afternoon, the Cowboys defense stayed in a zone, especially on third and long to keep the Giants in front of them and in man coverage did a nice job of staying close when it was necessary.

The Cowboys sit their second-round pick: We could talked about the return of Jason Witten (three catches for 15 yards and one touchdown) but the we’ve decided to focus on someone who didn’t play. Defensive tackle Tyrsten Hill was inactive for the game. He was a healthy scratch which isn’t a surprise, considering Marinelli has been critical of his work at times. Hill, the second-round pick, has made some splash plays, but it’s telling not to see him on the field. So the Cowboys, instead went with Maliek Collins, Kerry Hyder and Tyrone Crawford. It will be interesting to see if Hill uses this sit down as motivation to become active for the Week 2 game at Washington.
Welp at least Trysten Hill had Taco to keep him company.
 

Doomsday

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Before we ballyhoo the boy genius Helen Keller Moore too much, let's realize most of Dallas' biggest plays came without any sort of motion or disguise or fancy formations; they were a result of great throws from Prescott and absolutely dismal defense from the Giants.

As Prescott posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating, the Giants pressured him on only 9.4% of his dropbacks, the lowest pressure rate for any quarterback so far in Week 1. You have to give some credit for the low pressure rate to Dallas' offensive line, but the Giants did more than leave Prescott alone - he had time to grill burgers for the guys back there.

The Giants made awful, naive mistakes to extend drives. They bailed the Cowboys out of a second-and-20 situation with a holding call and went offside on a third-and-9. After Randall Cobb caught a pass on third-and-10 in the red zone and appeared to be pinned to the sideline, cornerback Antonio Hamilton -- a special-teamer who was disastrous in his first career start at corner -- failed to tackle Cobb and was waylaid by a stiff-arm from the 192-pound receiver, who pulled forward for a first down. The Cowboys scored on the next play.

It wasn't just the veterans, either. Take the 62-yard catch-and-run from Michael Gallup in the third quarter. There's no motion before the snap or anything special here. Gallup runs a post route on third-and-8 and gets inside first-round pick Deandre Baker. Antoine Bethea, a 35-year-old safety signed in the offseason, is deep and needs to either make the tackle or redirect Gallup to a place where there's tackling help. Watch the replay and you'll see he does neither; the 13-year vet takes a poor angle to the route and Gallup runs right by him and heads upfield. It cost the Giants 45 yards.

My favorite pair of new plays Moore showed on Sunday were run-pass options (RPOs) built around the pin-and-pull sweep. On the first, Prescott reads the linebackers flowing to the sweep and hits Cooper for an easy first down (animation courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats):

dak-quick.gif

Then, later in the game, Moore plays off that previous RPO by adding a third element. Cobb comes in motion at the snap and takes a swing pass (The old Dorsett play you might remember) from Prescott. Cooper and Gallup can theoretically be receivers here on stick routes or blockers on what amounts to a screen for Cobb, who is a mismatch in space against Hamilton. The result is 18 yards and a first down:

cobb-motion.gif

Dak showed excellent touch on his TD pass in the back corner of the end zone, showed zip and power where it was needed on other passes, and kept his head on straight when things broke down. He suckered them on a keeper and fooled them on the half-hitch pump fake a couple of times.

All looked good and promising, but like I said before - not every defense we see is going to be this horrid Giants D they fielded Sunday. Most encouraging to me was they let Dak throw downfield, seemingly taking the chains off him. We'll see if this continues to bear fruit when we line up against teams who can actually play defense.
 

theoneandonly

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Before we ballyhoo the boy genius Helen Keller Moore too much, let's realize most of Dallas' biggest plays came without any sort of motion or disguise or fancy formations; they were a result of great throws from Prescott and absolutely dismal defense from the Giants.

As Prescott posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating, the Giants pressured him on only 9.4% of his dropbacks, the lowest pressure rate for any quarterback so far in Week 1. You have to give some credit for the low pressure rate to Dallas' offensive line, but the Giants did more than leave Prescott alone - he had time to grill burgers for the guys back there.

The Giants made awful, naive mistakes to extend drives. They bailed the Cowboys out of a second-and-20 situation with a holding call and went offside on a third-and-9. After Randall Cobb caught a pass on third-and-10 in the red zone and appeared to be pinned to the sideline, cornerback Antonio Hamilton -- a special-teamer who was disastrous in his first career start at corner -- failed to tackle Cobb and was waylaid by a stiff-arm from the 192-pound receiver, who pulled forward for a first down. The Cowboys scored on the next play.

It wasn't just the veterans, either. Take the 62-yard catch-and-run from Michael Gallup in the third quarter. There's no motion before the snap or anything special here. Gallup runs a post route on third-and-8 and gets inside first-round pick Deandre Baker. Antoine Bethea, a 35-year-old safety signed in the offseason, is deep and needs to either make the tackle or redirect Gallup to a place where there's tackling help. Watch the replay and you'll see he does neither; the 13-year vet takes a poor angle to the route and Gallup runs right by him and heads upfield. It cost the Giants 45 yards.

My favorite pair of new plays Moore showed on Sunday were run-pass options (RPOs) built around the pin-and-pull sweep. On the first, Prescott reads the linebackers flowing to the sweep and hits Cooper for an easy first down (animation courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats):

View attachment 4745

Then, later in the game, Moore plays off that previous RPO by adding a third element. Cobb comes in motion at the snap and takes a swing pass (The old Dorsett play you might remember) from Prescott. Cooper and Gallup can theoretically be receivers here on stick routes or blockers on what amounts to a screen for Cobb, who is a mismatch in space against Hamilton. The result is 18 yards and a first down:

View attachment 4746

Dak showed excellent touch on his TD pass in the back corner of the end zone, showed zip and power where it was needed on other passes, and kept his head on straight when things broke down. He suckered them on a keeper and fooled them on the half-hitch pump fake a couple of times.

All looked good and promising, but like I said before - not every defense we see is going to be this horrid Giants D they fielded Sunday. Most encouraging to me was they let Dak throw downfield, seemingly taking the chains off him. We'll see if this continues to bear fruit when we line up against teams who can actually play defense.
Nice job Dooms. Can't argue any of it.

Sent from my SM-J337P using Tapatalk
 

kwcoolk619

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Before we ballyhoo the boy genius Helen Keller Moore too much, let's realize most of Dallas' biggest plays came without any sort of motion or disguise or fancy formations; they were a result of great throws from Prescott and absolutely dismal defense from the Giants.

As Prescott posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating, the Giants pressured him on only 9.4% of his dropbacks, the lowest pressure rate for any quarterback so far in Week 1. You have to give some credit for the low pressure rate to Dallas' offensive line, but the Giants did more than leave Prescott alone - he had time to grill burgers for the guys back there.

The Giants made awful, naive mistakes to extend drives. They bailed the Cowboys out of a second-and-20 situation with a holding call and went offside on a third-and-9. After Randall Cobb caught a pass on third-and-10 in the red zone and appeared to be pinned to the sideline, cornerback Antonio Hamilton -- a special-teamer who was disastrous in his first career start at corner -- failed to tackle Cobb and was waylaid by a stiff-arm from the 192-pound receiver, who pulled forward for a first down. The Cowboys scored on the next play.

It wasn't just the veterans, either. Take the 62-yard catch-and-run from Michael Gallup in the third quarter. There's no motion before the snap or anything special here. Gallup runs a post route on third-and-8 and gets inside first-round pick Deandre Baker. Antoine Bethea, a 35-year-old safety signed in the offseason, is deep and needs to either make the tackle or redirect Gallup to a place where there's tackling help. Watch the replay and you'll see he does neither; the 13-year vet takes a poor angle to the route and Gallup runs right by him and heads upfield. It cost the Giants 45 yards.

My favorite pair of new plays Moore showed on Sunday were run-pass options (RPOs) built around the pin-and-pull sweep. On the first, Prescott reads the linebackers flowing to the sweep and hits Cooper for an easy first down (animation courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats):

View attachment 4745

Then, later in the game, Moore plays off that previous RPO by adding a third element. Cobb comes in motion at the snap and takes a swing pass (The old Dorsett play you might remember) from Prescott. Cooper and Gallup can theoretically be receivers here on stick routes or blockers on what amounts to a screen for Cobb, who is a mismatch in space against Hamilton. The result is 18 yards and a first down:

View attachment 4746

Dak showed excellent touch on his TD pass in the back corner of the end zone, showed zip and power where it was needed on other passes, and kept his head on straight when things broke down. He suckered them on a keeper and fooled them on the half-hitch pump fake a couple of times.

All looked good and promising, but like I said before - not every defense we see is going to be this horrid Giants D they fielded Sunday. Most encouraging to me was they let Dak throw downfield, seemingly taking the chains off him. We'll see if this continues to bear fruit when we line up against teams who can actually play defense.

Excellent post. And us Cowboys fans need to remember that we play the Saints, Rams, Patriots, Vikings, Packers, Bears (in December at Soldier Field) and an improved Eagles team. Let's enjoy this victory.
 

SixisBetter

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Before we ballyhoo the boy genius Helen Keller Moore too much, let's realize most of Dallas' biggest plays came without any sort of motion or disguise or fancy formations; they were a result of great throws from Prescott and absolutely dismal defense from the Giants.

As Prescott posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating, the Giants pressured him on only 9.4% of his dropbacks, the lowest pressure rate for any quarterback so far in Week 1. You have to give some credit for the low pressure rate to Dallas' offensive line, but the Giants did more than leave Prescott alone - he had time to grill burgers for the guys back there.

The Giants made awful, naive mistakes to extend drives. They bailed the Cowboys out of a second-and-20 situation with a holding call and went offside on a third-and-9. After Randall Cobb caught a pass on third-and-10 in the red zone and appeared to be pinned to the sideline, cornerback Antonio Hamilton -- a special-teamer who was disastrous in his first career start at corner -- failed to tackle Cobb and was waylaid by a stiff-arm from the 192-pound receiver, who pulled forward for a first down. The Cowboys scored on the next play.

It wasn't just the veterans, either. Take the 62-yard catch-and-run from Michael Gallup in the third quarter. There's no motion before the snap or anything special here. Gallup runs a post route on third-and-8 and gets inside first-round pick Deandre Baker. Antoine Bethea, a 35-year-old safety signed in the offseason, is deep and needs to either make the tackle or redirect Gallup to a place where there's tackling help. Watch the replay and you'll see he does neither; the 13-year vet takes a poor angle to the route and Gallup runs right by him and heads upfield. It cost the Giants 45 yards.

My favorite pair of new plays Moore showed on Sunday were run-pass options (RPOs) built around the pin-and-pull sweep. On the first, Prescott reads the linebackers flowing to the sweep and hits Cooper for an easy first down (animation courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats):

View attachment 4745

Then, later in the game, Moore plays off that previous RPO by adding a third element. Cobb comes in motion at the snap and takes a swing pass (The old Dorsett play you might remember) from Prescott. Cooper and Gallup can theoretically be receivers here on stick routes or blockers on what amounts to a screen for Cobb, who is a mismatch in space against Hamilton. The result is 18 yards and a first down:

View attachment 4746

Dak showed excellent touch on his TD pass in the back corner of the end zone, showed zip and power where it was needed on other passes, and kept his head on straight when things broke down. He suckered them on a keeper and fooled them on the half-hitch pump fake a couple of times.

All looked good and promising, but like I said before - not every defense we see is going to be this horrid Giants D they fielded Sunday. Most encouraging to me was they let Dak throw downfield, seemingly taking the chains off him. We'll see if this continues to bear fruit when we line up against teams who can actually play defense.

Nice post.
The Boys looked great against a mediocre team. I'm happy about that, much better than playing down to their level. Here's hoping Moore's bag of tricks is deep, I'd guess our future opponents already have film on us from yesterday, even if they just DVR'd it.
Enjoyed the win.
 

Doomsday

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I'm screaming for more PA since the days of Romo
How many times during game day threads did we scream for more fake handoffs and not just what Brad Sham calls "showing him the ball?" Typical Sham play-by-play call would go, "Romo takes the snap, shows Murray the ball and throws over the middle INTERCEPTED at the 15, he runs to the 20, 25 and is run out of bounds there by Murray!"

We would never truly run play-action, we would just half-assedly act like we were. Now we actually make the PA look like it's a running play and yes it does fool people. ANNNND yesterday we were doing it quite often, not just every now and then for no real reason.

It really does you little good to have a RB in there on a tossup play, if you don't fake a handoff to him. It does you little good to have a threat like Zeke in there if you don't use him to actually threaten people.

First drive I was pissed off we were taking Zeke out on 3rd down and going 5-wide, but quickly I figured out that now with actual weaponized passing game with receivers who know how to run crisp routes, get separation and understand the timing of plays, we can be quite dangerous without Zeke on the field.

Cobb, Cooper, Gallup, Austin... Pick your poison! All can kill you on any given play. Plus you got Witten and the upstart Jarwin... Look at our receiver room compared to years past! Now I'm with you if you want to sit Zeke on 3rd down occasionally.

Gimme some more PA on 1st and ten, with Zeke in there as a decoy for the run fake, then blocking and acting as a safety valve, and we're that much more deadly.
 

Scot

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So apparently Chido clocked in at 22.81 miles per hour on that breakaway play where he caught Sequan Barclay from behind to save the TD. Which was the fastest recorded player in the entire NFL since 2017. This in turn caused the NFL to reward the young player with a free drug test for PED’s

LOL
 
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