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Fraley: Here's how the Cowboys can be rescued after 1-4 start
11:07 PM CDT on Sunday, October 24, 2010
COLUMN By GERRY FRALEY / The Dallas Morning News
gfraley@dallasnews.com
Gerry Fraley
Archive | Bio | E-mail
ARLINGTON – Would Cowboys coach Wade Phillips ever angrily flip over a table laden with sports drinks and loudly chew out his team?
Bobby Ross did, and he gained a spot in NFL coaching history.
The Cowboys enter tonight's game against the New York Giants clinging to the most slender of chances of reaching the playoffs, as was the plan when this season began. The Cowboys are 1-4. Of the 120 playoffs teams since the postseason format changed in 1990, only five had a 1-4 start.
The first was Ross' San Diego team, in 1992. The turnaround began, one of that team's key players said, in the bowels of the Astrodome.
Trailing Houston at halftime, the Chargers were on their way to an 0-4 record in Ross' first season as an NFL head coach. Veterans snickered at Ross' rah-rah collegiate ways and dreaded his demanding practices.
On this day, Ross snapped.
"He knocked over that table and let us have it," said Gary Plummer, a starting linebacker on that team. "He told us, 'I've been coaching football my entire adult life, and I only know one way to do it. We're going to play good, solid fundamental football. If you don't like it, you can leave.'
"That got the attention of some people."
The Chargers lost that game but won a week later to start a 10-1 run that got them into the playoffs. Since, Houston in 1993, Tennessee and the New York Jets in 2002 and Green Bay in 2004 have pulled off the difficult 1-4-to-the-playoffs flip. Not every coach upended a table, but each team did get better performances from quarterback and more big plays from the defense.
Let their performances serve as a blueprint for the Cowboys. These areas served as the underpinnings to the comebacks:
Quarterback
For desperate teams, the quarterback is the single player who can make the biggest difference. It happened with all five of these teams.
Each club received poor play from quarterback at the outset. Only one, Green Bay's Brett Favre , had more touchdown throws than interceptions in the first five games, and Favre had a pedestrian nine touchdowns and six interceptions. Houston's Warren Moon, a future Hall of Famer, had the non-Canton totals of five touchdowns and 11 interceptions.
Tennessee's Steve McNair , Favre, Stan Humphries and Moon all played better after the slow starts and became major figures on their clubs. The Jets, coached by Herman Edwards, made the boldest move of all.
With the Jets at 1-3 and having been outscored, 102-13, in a three-game losing streak, Edwards benched sore-shouldered local hero Vinny Testaverde and went with the untested Chad Pennington at quarterback. The transformation was startling.
After losing Pennington's first start, the Jets went 8-3. As a starter, Pennington threw for 22 touchdowns with only four interceptions. Testaverde had three touchdowns and three interceptions.
"Sometimes, you have to do something to get that spark back," said Edwards, now an analyst with ESPN. "When you do something at quarterback, it gets everyone's attention."
The Cowboys will change at quarterback only in the case of injury. They could use a Pennington-like jump-start from starter Tony Romo, though. He is a routine plus-3, with 10 touchdown passes and seven interceptions. A total of 12 quarterbacks have a better score, with Indianapolis' Peyton Manning leading at plus-11 (13 touchdowns-two interceptions).
As it is, the Cowboys have only a tiny chance. If Romo remains out of the top 12 at his position, the Cowboys have no chance.
Defense
Throughout the regrouping of the Jets, Edwards emphasized the need for the defense to "make a play." Jets' defenders heard Edwards' mantra in their sleep.
And they made plays. The Jets went from allowing 32.4 points per game in the 1-4 start to 15 points per game in the 9-2 finish. They picked up the pace for their rates of interceptions and sacks, game-changing plays.
Of these five teams, Houston showed the biggest increase in interceptions and sacks. With nothing to lose, coordinator Buddy Ryan turned the defense loose on nearly every play. The Oilers produced 23 interceptions and 43 sacks in the final 11 games. The Oilers had three interceptions and nine sacks in the first five games. With its defense in a full fury, the Oilers went from minus-13 in turnovers during the first five games to plus-11 for the duration.
Ryan's approach does not fit every team. According to Plummer, the Chargers improved on defense through focus on individual responsibilities rather than turning into wild-eyed banshees.
"You get two kinds of players on these teams," Plummer said. "Some guys think the coach is a lame duck, so why bother? I'd say to them, if you can't play for a 1-4 team, what makes you think the next coach would want you?
"Most guys really care about what's happening, and they start trying too hard to make plays to get the team out of it. That's when you start making big mistakes. You have to take care of your position and eliminate mistakes."
It worked for the Chargers' defense. It had 18 interceptions and 41 sacks in the final 11 games, an increase over the seven interceptions and 10 sacks of the 1-4 start.
The Cowboys' defense has made precious few plays. It ranks in the middle of the pack for sacks with 12 and is last in takeaways with four. The Cowboys have only two interceptions and two recovered fumbles.
More than one
One victory alone will not change the Cowboys' course. Their win at Houston proves that.
The Cowboys are not alone in this. These five rags-to-riches teams also went through periods of doubt even as they began winning. Climbing out of the rubble of a 1-4 start is not an overnight process.
Consider the Jets. A week after the first Pennington-engineered victory, the Jets lost at home to drop again to three games under .500. They were in the same spot with fewer games remaining.
After that loss, Edwards launched the "you play the game to win" tirade. His rant has been turned into the burlesque of a beer commercial, which is unfortunate. It became a rallying point for the Jets.
"What you have to guard against is the perception of outsiders becoming the reality within your team," Edwards said. "The Cowboys had a good team last year. They didn't get bad overnight. You have to keep pushing, and just one game won't do it."
Or two. San Diego had wins by one and three points as it made it back to .500 through 10 games.
"We won a couple of close ones, and guys started believing," Plummer said. "But not everyone. It took a while, and that's going to happen with the Cowboys. If they beat the Giants, they can't say everything is fixed."
It will be a start. The long journey back from 1-4 starts with a single win, or a toppled table.The full text of Herm Edwards' "you play to win the game" post-game tirade as the New York Jets coach in 2002:
"This is what's great about sports. This is what the greatest thing about sports is. You play to win the game. Hello? You play to win the game. You don't play it to just play it. That's the great thing about sports: you play to win, and I don't care if you don't have any wins. You go play to win. When you start tellin' me it doesn't matter, then retire. Get out. 'Cause it matters."
TURNING IT AROUND
A before-and-after look at performances by the quarterbacks of 1-4 teams that made the playoffs:
1992 SAN DIEGO
(Stan Humphries)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 1 8 9.2
10-1 15 10 26.3
1993 HOUSTON (Warren Moon)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 5 11 17.6
11-0 16 10 25.3
2002 NY JETS
(Chad Pennington)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4* 5 6 15.0
8-3 22 4 25.8
2002 TENNESSEE
(Steve McNair)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 8 9 21.4
10-1 14 6 23.6
2004 GREEN BAY (Brett Favre)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 9 6 19.8
9-2 21 11 29.5
*Totals for Vinny Testaverde and Pennington
• • •
11:07 PM CDT on Sunday, October 24, 2010
COLUMN By GERRY FRALEY / The Dallas Morning News
gfraley@dallasnews.com
Gerry Fraley
Archive | Bio | E-mail
ARLINGTON – Would Cowboys coach Wade Phillips ever angrily flip over a table laden with sports drinks and loudly chew out his team?
Bobby Ross did, and he gained a spot in NFL coaching history.
The Cowboys enter tonight's game against the New York Giants clinging to the most slender of chances of reaching the playoffs, as was the plan when this season began. The Cowboys are 1-4. Of the 120 playoffs teams since the postseason format changed in 1990, only five had a 1-4 start.
The first was Ross' San Diego team, in 1992. The turnaround began, one of that team's key players said, in the bowels of the Astrodome.
Trailing Houston at halftime, the Chargers were on their way to an 0-4 record in Ross' first season as an NFL head coach. Veterans snickered at Ross' rah-rah collegiate ways and dreaded his demanding practices.
On this day, Ross snapped.
"He knocked over that table and let us have it," said Gary Plummer, a starting linebacker on that team. "He told us, 'I've been coaching football my entire adult life, and I only know one way to do it. We're going to play good, solid fundamental football. If you don't like it, you can leave.'
"That got the attention of some people."
The Chargers lost that game but won a week later to start a 10-1 run that got them into the playoffs. Since, Houston in 1993, Tennessee and the New York Jets in 2002 and Green Bay in 2004 have pulled off the difficult 1-4-to-the-playoffs flip. Not every coach upended a table, but each team did get better performances from quarterback and more big plays from the defense.
Let their performances serve as a blueprint for the Cowboys. These areas served as the underpinnings to the comebacks:
Quarterback
For desperate teams, the quarterback is the single player who can make the biggest difference. It happened with all five of these teams.
Each club received poor play from quarterback at the outset. Only one, Green Bay's Brett Favre , had more touchdown throws than interceptions in the first five games, and Favre had a pedestrian nine touchdowns and six interceptions. Houston's Warren Moon, a future Hall of Famer, had the non-Canton totals of five touchdowns and 11 interceptions.
Tennessee's Steve McNair , Favre, Stan Humphries and Moon all played better after the slow starts and became major figures on their clubs. The Jets, coached by Herman Edwards, made the boldest move of all.
With the Jets at 1-3 and having been outscored, 102-13, in a three-game losing streak, Edwards benched sore-shouldered local hero Vinny Testaverde and went with the untested Chad Pennington at quarterback. The transformation was startling.
After losing Pennington's first start, the Jets went 8-3. As a starter, Pennington threw for 22 touchdowns with only four interceptions. Testaverde had three touchdowns and three interceptions.
"Sometimes, you have to do something to get that spark back," said Edwards, now an analyst with ESPN. "When you do something at quarterback, it gets everyone's attention."
The Cowboys will change at quarterback only in the case of injury. They could use a Pennington-like jump-start from starter Tony Romo, though. He is a routine plus-3, with 10 touchdown passes and seven interceptions. A total of 12 quarterbacks have a better score, with Indianapolis' Peyton Manning leading at plus-11 (13 touchdowns-two interceptions).
As it is, the Cowboys have only a tiny chance. If Romo remains out of the top 12 at his position, the Cowboys have no chance.
Defense
Throughout the regrouping of the Jets, Edwards emphasized the need for the defense to "make a play." Jets' defenders heard Edwards' mantra in their sleep.
And they made plays. The Jets went from allowing 32.4 points per game in the 1-4 start to 15 points per game in the 9-2 finish. They picked up the pace for their rates of interceptions and sacks, game-changing plays.
Of these five teams, Houston showed the biggest increase in interceptions and sacks. With nothing to lose, coordinator Buddy Ryan turned the defense loose on nearly every play. The Oilers produced 23 interceptions and 43 sacks in the final 11 games. The Oilers had three interceptions and nine sacks in the first five games. With its defense in a full fury, the Oilers went from minus-13 in turnovers during the first five games to plus-11 for the duration.
Ryan's approach does not fit every team. According to Plummer, the Chargers improved on defense through focus on individual responsibilities rather than turning into wild-eyed banshees.
"You get two kinds of players on these teams," Plummer said. "Some guys think the coach is a lame duck, so why bother? I'd say to them, if you can't play for a 1-4 team, what makes you think the next coach would want you?
"Most guys really care about what's happening, and they start trying too hard to make plays to get the team out of it. That's when you start making big mistakes. You have to take care of your position and eliminate mistakes."
It worked for the Chargers' defense. It had 18 interceptions and 41 sacks in the final 11 games, an increase over the seven interceptions and 10 sacks of the 1-4 start.
The Cowboys' defense has made precious few plays. It ranks in the middle of the pack for sacks with 12 and is last in takeaways with four. The Cowboys have only two interceptions and two recovered fumbles.
More than one
One victory alone will not change the Cowboys' course. Their win at Houston proves that.
The Cowboys are not alone in this. These five rags-to-riches teams also went through periods of doubt even as they began winning. Climbing out of the rubble of a 1-4 start is not an overnight process.
Consider the Jets. A week after the first Pennington-engineered victory, the Jets lost at home to drop again to three games under .500. They were in the same spot with fewer games remaining.
After that loss, Edwards launched the "you play the game to win" tirade. His rant has been turned into the burlesque of a beer commercial, which is unfortunate. It became a rallying point for the Jets.
"What you have to guard against is the perception of outsiders becoming the reality within your team," Edwards said. "The Cowboys had a good team last year. They didn't get bad overnight. You have to keep pushing, and just one game won't do it."
Or two. San Diego had wins by one and three points as it made it back to .500 through 10 games.
"We won a couple of close ones, and guys started believing," Plummer said. "But not everyone. It took a while, and that's going to happen with the Cowboys. If they beat the Giants, they can't say everything is fixed."
It will be a start. The long journey back from 1-4 starts with a single win, or a toppled table.The full text of Herm Edwards' "you play to win the game" post-game tirade as the New York Jets coach in 2002:
"This is what's great about sports. This is what the greatest thing about sports is. You play to win the game. Hello? You play to win the game. You don't play it to just play it. That's the great thing about sports: you play to win, and I don't care if you don't have any wins. You go play to win. When you start tellin' me it doesn't matter, then retire. Get out. 'Cause it matters."
TURNING IT AROUND
A before-and-after look at performances by the quarterbacks of 1-4 teams that made the playoffs:
1992 SAN DIEGO
(Stan Humphries)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 1 8 9.2
10-1 15 10 26.3
1993 HOUSTON (Warren Moon)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 5 11 17.6
11-0 16 10 25.3
2002 NY JETS
(Chad Pennington)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4* 5 6 15.0
8-3 22 4 25.8
2002 TENNESSEE
(Steve McNair)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 8 9 21.4
10-1 14 6 23.6
2004 GREEN BAY (Brett Favre)
Record TD Int. Pts.
1-4 9 6 19.8
9-2 21 11 29.5
*Totals for Vinny Testaverde and Pennington
• • •
