Things didn’t go great in the debut of Dallas Cowboys’ new defense. Their run defense allowed 0.059 EPA per play, ranking 26th of all teams in Week 1. Their pass defense allowed 0.667 EPA/play, ranking 31st. Their pass rush managed to produce two sacks but on only five pressures, indicating their success was somewhat unlikely to be repeated. When they weren’t blitzing, they weren’t pressuring, and even when they were blitzing the results were not coming at a rate one would expect.
Overall, the Dallas defense ranks as the NFL’s worst, allowing 0.363 EPA/play.
Fixing this mess has become Priority No. 1 for Christian Parker, but identifying which area to put focus isn’t quite so clear. With issues across the board, there’s no obvious corner one might
hang their hat. Focusing on everything all at once is actually the opposite of focus, so a few critical questions must be answered before they can charge forward at full steam.
Why wasn’t the offense more aggressive in Week 1? Why didn’t the Cowboys do more over the offseason to bring in defensive talent? Why are there so many Spiderman movies? These may never be answered in a satisfactory way, but three questions, no matter how difficult to answer they may be, deserve the Cowboys' attention as they head into Week 2.
Is the run defense a scheme or personnel problem?
On more than one occasion the Cowboys lined up with extremely problematic spacing which made covering all run gaps nearly impossible. Was this a schematic error or was it failure to execute as designed?
The Cowboys have a history of botching their gap discipline, so it very well could be on the players and not the coach. That said, Christian Parker is a first-time defensive coordinator, so maybe he was asking the impossible of his newly constructed defense.
Can the defense afford to blitz more?
The Cowboys got next to nothing from rushing the standard four pass rushers but saw success when they blitzed. Maybe the front four just had bad game or maybe the Cowboys need to amp up their blitz rate going forward.
Blitzing comes at a cost of coverage but if teams can’t generate pressure with the standard four, even seven in coverage are easy pickings for a competent quarterback. The Cowboys may need to lean on the blitz throughout the season and live with the potential consequences.
Is the coverage too difficult?
Speaking of the coverage, Dallas had numerous coverage breakdowns in New York. Soft spots in zone are unavoidable but the size of some of those soft spots can certainly be improved upon. The cure for this is practice and attention to detail, making it an easy diagnosis in this exercise. The breakdowns aren’t quite so clear and obvious.
The Cowboys had massive miscues leading to big plays, leading one to wonder if the system itself is too complicated to execute. The Cowboys defense has a history of confusion. Just last year Matt Eberflus had to slip into a remedial version of his ideal system and even then, players struggled.
Dumbing things down isn’t advisable since many of their issues last year stemmed from their predictably and pre-snap transparency. Parker was brought in because of his system, so it’s on him to stick with it and it’s on the players to figure it out.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: 3 important questions Cowboys must answer ASAP to save season
