I agree with that... i didn't watch the entire game but those holes were indeed huge.

49ers are gonna be a problem once again.

SIAP but good article about Aikman.




https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5734926/2024/09/06/troy-aikman-cowboys-espn-mnf/

jr15aggie said:

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The 49ers are using a "never heard of him" RB very effectively.

We could do the exact same thing with Rico and Deuce... unfortunately our team looks hellbent on giving Zeke a majority of the carries.

It's probably my only negative takeaway from week 1... and there is plenty of time to make a change... but we saw the same damn thing 2 years ago when we had peak Tony Pollard and yet we still fed Zeke.

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The Shanahan zone blocking scheme is the best football run scheme devised since the triple option, and because it can be incorporated into a traditional NFL offense it has much, much more utility and staying power. But the 49ers are so successful because of their offensive and defensive passing efficiency. Their run game looks pretty and produces great numbers, but they win lots of games because their opponents usually have lousy QBRs and their intermediate passing scheme is remarkably sophisticated and incredibly efficient. And the wild thing is, it's no less efficient when they are running for 3 YPC as opposed to 6 YPC. How well they (and teams in general) run the ball has little statistical impact on the passing game.

TLDR: Don't worry about the 49ers running game, worry about their passing defense and intermediate passing offense. That's what beats you. They can run for 180 yards but if your QB has a meaningfully higher QBR than Purdy you'll probably win.

A good example is the Cowboys and Dak. Dallas has gone through long stretches of being a below average to bad rushing team over the last 3 seasons since this run of 12 wins each year started, but it has never had reliably predictable impact on outcomes. When Dak plays significantly better than the opposing QB, Dallas wins. And the fact that Dallas has been a terror to opposing QBs over this stretch means that happens a lot.

Dallas gets into so much trouble against SF because they have a better passing defense than Dallas, and their passing scheme is less dependent on the actual ability of their QB and generates open receivers more consistently than ours does. So when Dallas plays SF, it's very hard from a matchup perspective to have Dak be better than their guy.

zgolfz85 said:

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but jfk was killed by the CIA

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See?

I appreciate it guys but I really don't need you offering up proof of concept for my post at midnight

jr15aggie said:

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I think he was the last of the flashy names. Brandon Carr was the last big $ we spent on a free agent I think.

And in fairness to Carr, he was a good player... but like most free agents, just wasn't worth what we paid for. We did the reverse thing with guys like Byron Jones and Schultz... let somebody else overpay them.

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Man, I'll disagree here. Carr didn't miss a game during his time in Dallas and was a pretty nails corner through his entire contract. You never had to worry about him.

Another positive that came out of this game is that both offense and defense had good gameplans. The offense didn't let Myles disrupt their offense too much while on defense our guys completely disrupted their offense.

Very good sign.

BassCowboy33 said:

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jr15aggie said:

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I think he was the last of the flashy names. Brandon Carr was the last big $ we spent on a free agent I think.

And in fairness to Carr, he was a good player... but like most free agents, just wasn't worth what we paid for. We did the reverse thing with guys like Byron Jones and Schultz... let somebody else overpay them.

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Man, I'll disagree here. Carr didn't miss a game during his time in Dallas and was a pretty nails corner through his entire contract. You never had to worry about him.

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That's fair... but in fairness to my point, people expected him to be what we currently have with Diggs. He did play well for us, but he still took heat from fans and the podcasts because he didn't make enough game changing plays.

Edit: I looked it up... he had 3 picks in each of his 1st two years in Dallas. Solid, but not flashy. His next two years he had ZERO picks.

Wow. 3'of the top 6. Short sample but, man.

NFL Week 1 pressure leaders (Next Gen Stats):

#1 Micah Parsons (9)
#2 DeMarcus Lawrence (8)
T-3 Trey Hendrickson (7)
T-3 Dexter Lawrence (7)
T-3 Boye Mafe (7)
T-6 Marcus Davenport (6)
T-6 Chase Young (6)
T-6 Aidan Hutchinson (6)
T-6 Jared Verse (6)
T-6 Marshawn Kneeland (6)

— Tom Downey (@WhatGoingDowney) September 10, 2024

Macarthur said:

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Wow. 3'of the top 6. Short sample but, man.

NFL Week 1 pressure leaders (Next Gen Stats):

#1 Micah Parsons (9)
#2 DeMarcus Lawrence (8)
T-3 Trey Hendrickson (7)
T-3 Dexter Lawrence (7)
T-3 Boye Mafe (7)
T-6 Marcus Davenport (6)
T-6 Chase Young (6)
T-6 Aidan Hutchinson (6)
T-6 Jared Verse (6)
T-6 Marshawn Kneeland (6)

— Tom Downey (@WhatGoingDowney) September 10, 2024

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pretty remarkable. hoping we got a steal in kneeland

It didn't feel like we blitzed much. Is that correct? Generally the front 4 generated pressure and made Watson uncomfortable.

jr15aggie said:

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BassCowboy33 said:

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jr15aggie said:

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I think he was the last of the flashy names. Brandon Carr was the last big $ we spent on a free agent I think.

And in fairness to Carr, he was a good player... but like most free agents, just wasn't worth what we paid for. We did the reverse thing with guys like Byron Jones and Schultz... let somebody else overpay them.

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Man, I'll disagree here. Carr didn't miss a game during his time in Dallas and was a pretty nails corner through his entire contract. You never had to worry about him.

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That's fair... but in fairness to my point, people expected him to be what we currently have with Diggs. He did play well for us, but he still took heat from fans and the podcasts because he didn't make enough game changing plays.

Edit: I looked it up... he had 3 picks in each of his 1st two years in Dallas. Solid, but not flashy. His next two years he had ZERO picks.

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He wasn't a ballhawk, just an above average cover guy. Interceptions are not usually a great measure of a great cornerback.

98Ag99Grad said:

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It didn't feel like we blitzed much. Is that correct? Generally the front 4 generated pressure and made Watson uncomfortable.

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I think I heard we blitzed six 6 times, and each time it created pressure. Then I want to say 13 times we rushed 5, and 42 times we rushed 4. I think that was only for dropbacks.

98Ag99Grad said:

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It didn't feel like we blitzed much. Is that correct? Generally the front 4 generated pressure and made Watson uncomfortable.

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We didn't blitz a ton. We did show a lot of blitz looks, but we usually bailed out into coverage (which we should see all year with Zimmer... he loves trying to mess with QBs pre-snap).

I will say this... yes Cleveland had some O-line issues and had some starters out. But according to the people I listen to, this was true of them most of last year as well. These "back-ups" are the same guys they won 11 games with.

They weren't good, but these are still NFL players. The Cowboys just flat out dominated the LOS!

Cowboys rookie Cooper Beebe ranked 16th among centers in pass block win rate and 2nd in run block win rate.

(ESPN Analytics / NFL Next Gen Stats)

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) September 10, 2024

Seems like if Guyton can develop relatively quickly the OL may yet be a strength again this year. We need to be looking for Martin's replacement tho in this year's draft

EVERYONE GET IN HERE SOUNDS FROM THE SIDELINES IS BACKpic.twitter.com/8ev4ytxING

— Tom Downey (@WhatGoingDowney) September 11, 2024

Cowboys open as 6.5 favorites over the Saints

All I do is Nguyen said:

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Cowboys open as 6.5 favorites over the Saints

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I'll be there yelling as loud as I can. The Saints looked awfully good week 1, but the Panthers looked equally pathetic. Most people expected NO to be a bottom 1/3 team this year... my hope/expectation going in is that Dak and the offense light it up and the defense pins it's ears back.

jteagle said:

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EVERYONE GET IN HERE SOUNDS FROM THE SIDELINES IS BACKpic.twitter.com/8ev4ytxING

— Tom Downey (@WhatGoingDowney) September 11, 2024

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I love the relationship Harris and Diggs have. You can tell they have a genuine respect and love for each other.

Yeah, I watched this last night laying in bed... all I could think of was the Tommy Boy scene, "Brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug!"

Man, that was fantastic. That is one close team and think the fact that McCarthy is a lame duck coach doesn't matter at all.

Danny Vermin said:

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Man, that was fantastic. That is one close team and think the fact that McCarthy is a lame duck coach doesn't matter at all.

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I don't think McCarthy is as lame duck as you think. He is the offensive play caller after all. I do recognize he needs to work on time management but we knew that when we hired him

I only ment contract wise. I really like him and hope we do well enough this season that he stays. He's a players coach and that resonates well with the actual players.

Ah ok, yeah I hope he earns himself an extension as well this year, which I think Jerruh will get done

Interested to see how our run D performs against a real RB this weekend. I honestly don't keep up with the Saints much and I'm sure Kamara is a bit past his prime, but I think he's still got some juice.

I know they like to throw to him as well, so I'm hoping for a repeat of our LBs shutting down those short passes. You want to throw to a guy 3 yards down the field... OK... but we are going to blow him up immediately!

With the schedule coming later, it'd be nice to stack up some wins now

Having 5 total games against the Giants, Redskins and Panthers gives us a pretty big cushion with respect to playoff hopes. That's essentially 5 auto wins, which is a ton in the NFL. And our schedule gets super soft after the Texans game in November, we should go 6-1 or so over the last 7.

Games like this one are very important if you are hoping for the #1 seed, but 10 wins and a playoff berth are pretty much a sure thing barring Dak going down.