Our coaching sucks

[Midswat]

Was listening to Sportscenter this AM and they were breaking down the game.

Said Mike McCarthy had a brilliant gameplan. Had success early with Lacy but took him out and put Cobb in the backfield, and would put Cobb in motion before the snap and he's line up as a receiver. Said we never adjusted. Made it real easy to figure our defense out and created an easy mismatches.


My question is, why didn't we adjust on defense?

My second question is, where was our creativity on offense?

We have a stud QB, WR, and TE. But we also have versatile role players in Dunbar (horribly underutilized), Randle, Escobar, and most of all Beasley.

What creative things did we do with these guys?

Just another prime example of Garrett bringing nothing to the table on game days.

His coaching consists simply of saying cliches, clapping, and expecting the players to execute simple game plans flawlessly.

We have zero tactical advantage with the guy.

 

[dbair1967]

What adjustments could be made with the defensive players we have that would have made any difference?

They had success because of two things we've had problems with all year. We simply don't have a good enough pass rush and ultimately don't have enough guys with range/play making ability in the secondary.

Offensively its hard to complain about a team that had the leagues leading passer (in 4 major areas), the leagues leading rusher, one of the best WR's and TE's and an OL that was considered one of the top-3 in the league all year. Oh, and we averaged what, 27-28 pts a game?

 

[Rynie]

That's always been my BIGGEST complaint about Garrett. There is absolutely ZERO creativity on offense. Even the great Billichek had a trick play when they played the ravens. GB beat Miami because of a fake kneel down. I don't think we confuse any defenses at all. I don't hate Demarco, but he's NEVER been a home run hitter. He's too slow. While he gets the tough yards, Dunbar and Randle get MORE yards because they actually make people miss.

 

[Midswat]

What adjustments could be made with the defensive players we have that would have made any difference?

They had success because of two things we've had problems with all year. We simply don't have a good enough pass rush and ultimately don't have enough guys with range/play making ability in the secondary.

Offensively its hard to complain about a team that had the leagues leading passer (in 4 major areas), the leagues leading rusher, one of the best WR's and TE's and an OL that was considered one of the top-3 in the league all year. Oh, and we averaged what, 27-28 pts a game?

I realize the liabilities there on defense.

That said, they only surrendered 26 points.

One of Rodgers greatest skills is throwing on the run and his underrated threat to run the ball. He didn't have that yesterday. With that in mind, McCarthy generated a game plan to protect Rodgers with quick throws and pre snap movement that allowed him to easily read our defense.

We did nothing creative yesterday. We just play straight up conventional schemes instead of keeping our opponents guessing, creating mismatches, etc.

 

[Midswat]

Jason Garrett is essentially a free agent at this point.

And there are what, 5 or 6 teams looking for a head coach.

I bet no one even tried to interview him.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

Like Sheik said last night, both coordinators did great jobs this year.

If they leave, it's snip, snip on Garrett's Weekend at Bernie's strings.

 

[bbgun]

They averaged like 40 points per game in December and Dez broke the TD record, so they probably think they're "inventive" enough. But no, you will not see anything as creative as the Pats' "ineligible receiver" formation or Dez throwing a pass, that's for sure.

 

[Midswat]

I'm not even talking about trick plays. But then again, when was the last time we've seen one?

Hell, even old ass conservative as fuck Parcells would occasionally call a flea flicker or a Crayton WR reverse/pass.


I'm talking about versatility in alignments. Finding and exploiting mismatches. Creative defensive blitzs.


Shit like that.

 

[Midswat]

Also, our high december scoring had a lot to do with our opponents turning the ball over with regularity and overall sloppy play.

That opening kickoff at Philly or that missed fake punt pass by Colts = prime examples.

 

[peplaw06]

You don't have to have innovative or creative packages if you can just beat teams straight up... The problem is when the offense bogs down because a defense is blitzing us or is stopping the run, we can't get out of the mud.

Luckily, it didn't happen much this season... and maybe with another offseason with mostly the same personnel, we can get better at imposing our will. But yeah, you need to have contingency plans, and we don't do that well. Assuming Lineman sticks around, maybe he works on it.

 

[UVAwahoos]

Ginger has never played to strengths and weaknesses. Prior to this year, his only strategy was to let Romo do everything. Linehan and Callahan established us as a running team.

It would be nice to have a truly good coach here who can utilize players like Escobar, Randle and Dunbar. Hell, even Harris and Beasley cold have been used more. Beasley in particular seems to always present himself as a mismatch and I don't think we exploited that at all yesterday. There should be no excuse to lose when they have a turnover and put up 26 points with a gimpy QB. Garrett certainly should be canned.

 

[bbgun]

You don't have to have innovative or creative packages if you can just beat teams straight up...

yeah, the Jimmy teams didn't rely on much razzle dazzle or deception. I remember Irvin throwing an incomplete pass to Harper vs the Giants, and that's about it.

 

[dbair1967]

Somebody asked Jimmy one time "why dont you have a play where Emmitt takes that toss sweep and then stops and throws downfield"

And he replied "none of you has ever witnessed how bad he is at that"

 

[Midswat]

Comparing to Jimmy's dynasty team doesn't apply because yeah, when you're significantly better than everyone else, you don't necessarily need creative coaching.

But in a parity driven league that we have now, more emphasis is placed on coaching.

And we have shortcomings there.

 

[ZeroClub]

Overall, the Cowboys offense was among the best in the league. The defense wasn't great, but it could be argued that they overachieved given their generally underwhelming level of talent.

The Cowboys lost a game they could have won yesterday and that's pretty disappointing, particularly given how the key 4th down play to Dez was overruled.

One of the largely unrecognized key problems of having a parity driven league is that when you have very closely matched teams playing each other, games are often decided by factors that are not really in the control of the teams (such as lucky bounces of the ball, how a given official will interpret a key play, etc.). As teams become more and more closely matched, the game as it is played and officiated today, isn't such a precise measure of which team is better.

 

[LAZARUS_LOGAN]

Was listening to Sportscenter this AM and they were breaking down the game.

Said Mike McCarthy had a brilliant gameplan. Had success early with Lacy but took him out and put Cobb in the backfield, and would put Cobb in motion before the snap and he's line up as a receiver. Said we never adjusted. Made it real easy to figure our defense out and created an easy mismatches.

It wasn't brilliant. Just good ol' fashion COMMON SENSE. We think it's brilliant, because Garrett lacks common sense.

That reversal of the 1st down... shows a lack of awareness on both Garrett and Romo. Romo should have recognized that they didn't get the first down legitimately, and should have rushed up and ran a play, then the review would have been void, because the Packers didn't call the timeout . But even if Romo tried, he would have been overruled by Garrett calling a time out, which I don't understand as to why a timeout was needed, basically Garrett calling a timeout in that situation is equivalent to freezing our own kicker in the Cards' game a few years back. He did the review for the Packers.


The frustrating thing about all of this, is that with better coaching we would have mopped the floor up with the Packers. I'm not impressed by them.

 

[Doomsday]

The frustrating thing about all of this, is that with better coaching we would have mopped the floor up with the Packers. I'm not impressed by them.

I think Seattle just stomps the crap out of them.

 

[dbair1967]

I think Seattle just stomps the crap out of them.

Yeah I do too. Their defense is gonna squash that offense. The sacks we missed, the chances at the ball in the air that we missed. They wont miss.

 

[LAZARUS_LOGAN]

What adjustments could be made with the defensive players we have that would have made any difference?

They had success because of two things we've had problems with all year. We simply don't have a good enough pass rush and ultimately don't have enough guys with range/play making ability in the secondary.

Offensively its hard to complain about a team that had the leagues leading passer (in 4 major areas), the leagues leading rusher, one of the best WR's and TE's and an OL that was considered one of the top-3 in the league all year. Oh, and we averaged what, 27-28 pts a game?

You're right about the defensive aspect --- Marinelli can only do so much, and when you lack a pass rush and decent cover guys... it's amazing as to what he was able to get out f them.

The offensive part... all that was accomplished in spite of Garrett -- not because of him. He had to be forced to integrate the run game more into the offense. If he had his way, he'd pass every down --- I think he's more suited to being an Arena League coach, because that's all they do is just pass.

And we can complain, because the offense could be so much more. Even something simple like having Dez line up in different formations or go in motion seems to be beyond Garrett.

Why not have both Randle and Murray in the backfield together?

There are many OCs out there that would have so much fun with the players we have. And let's be real. Linehan is not that great of an OC. He's average, to decent on some days. He's a BTG (better than Garrett) guy, which sadly is setting the bar real low.

 

[LAZARUS_LOGAN]

I think Seattle just stomps the crap out of them.

There some Seattle fans that would tell you out loud that they wanted to face Dallas again to make up for that earlier loss in the season, but you corner them by themselves... they were cheering for Green Bay to win. They would rather face the Packers in Seattle than the Cowboys.