DMN Blog: Five Downs With Football Outsiders: Is it too early to worry about Tony Romo's December troubles?
by Tim MacMahon
Bill Barnwell, a contributing editor at footballoutsiders.com and one of the minds behind the must-read Pro Football Prospectus, will answer five Cowboys questions each week of the season using the FO data and methodologies. Here's the Week 14 edition:
1. Tony Romo is 4-6 in December and 22-4 in September through November. His stats are significantly worse in the season's final month. What do you make of these trends?
I think I make of it pretty much what Romo makes of it -- small sample size. Counting much of last year's performance would be pretty fluky - the Cowboys had basically wrapped up the NFC at that point. He played great in the Packers game and he was fine in the playoff game against the Giants; that game comes down to a few missed tackles on a R.W. McQuarters return, the Giants snatching up fumbles at the right times, and the Steve Smith conversion right before halftime that kept a Giants drive going that led to a field goal that turned the momentum around. His worst game of the month was the Eagles game, and that had more to do with suffering an hand injury during the game and Andre Gurode's struggles snapping the ball than anything else.
In general, quarterbacks play worse in the season's final month - the average QB rating in September is 81.0, and it stays close to that figure in October (80.7) and November (80.9), but in December, that falls to 78.8.
Taken as a referendum on Romo's ability to lead the team anywhere, it's a pretty silly argument. There's a Bill James observation from the eighties that bad teams tend to blame their problems on their best players. The Cowboys were awful without Romo. They're certainly playing better with him in the lineup. That would seem to point to the idea that it's not Romo's fault. Their offensive DVOA with Romo as the starting quarterback is 21.6%. Without Romo in the lineup, it's -36.3%.
2. How big a drop-off is there from Plaxico Burress to Domenik Hixon?
I think the bigger dropoff isn't really statistical, it's schematic. Teams are going to be able to totally change their defensive schemes against the Giants now, which is something the Eagles showed off on Sunday. They played a lot of Cover-0 and Cover-1, pushing a safety up into the box. They also didn't bother to double any of the Giants' receivers -- although I haven't watched the game for a second time to break it down, they reportedly didn't double a Giants receiver once the entire game.
The Giants also take advantage of something the Redskins do with Santana Moss -- since teams often double Burress, they have to declare their intentions pre-snap by moving a safety over in his direction. That allows the Giants significant freedom to set up their blocking scheme accordingly, while making Eli Manning's pre-snap reads easier. Now, teams can disguise their coverages and force Manning to guess more before the snap. That's a huge advantage that teams didn't have before.
The huge drop last week notwithstanding, Hixon's been impressive in Burress' stead. He may have better hands than Burress, and he has nearly as many DYAR despite being thrown 20 fewer passes. I think the biggest concern with Hixon would be his frailty -- he's never been a successful wide receiver at the NFL level, and he's been breakable in the past.
3. Which injured running back is more important to their team: Marion Barber or Brandon Jacobs?
Barber. I was impressed by Choice, but the dropoff from Jacobs to Derrick Ward as a full-time back is nowhere near as big as the dropoff from Barber to Choice. Ward's a top-ten back in DVOA and DYAR this year -- obviously, that has a lot to do with his line, but that line is also a huge part of Jacobs' success as well.
4. Is Eli Manning a great quarterback or a quarterback who doesn't screw up
a great team?
He's somewhere in between those two. He's obviously taken a huge leap forward since Week 16 of last year, at which point he was coming off one of the worst five-game stretches a quarterback could have. He'd had a poor season statistically to that point; since Week 17, including the playoffs, he's been excellent. He's become a much more patient thrower and become much more accurate underneath. He's not thought of as having a cannon for an arm, but he can make any throw you want and has an accurate deep ball, the Hixon drop from last week being a perfect example. Manning does a great job of identifying coverages (as mentioned above) and, although he's not at the level of his brother in picking apart defenses before the snap, is sound and gets a lot of the subtle things right.
Especially before the newfound accuracy, the issues with Manning were very obvious. Earlier in his career, he was really fond of the throw-off-your-back-foot play that doesn't work in the NFL. He's toned that down a lot. He's still prone to the real ugly interception -- he's thrown a pass like that each of the last two weeks, but through absolute miracles, they've each been dropped. He struggles some throwing checkdowns -- no one's better at two-hopping a dumpoff than Eli.
All in all, for the first time in his career, Eli's playing at a Pro Bowl level. I would say that the current version is a very good quarterback who has a very good team around him.
5. Jason Garrett obviously needs some help. Where should he attack the Giants' defense?
They're vulnerable in a bunch of places. Obviously, their strength is the athleticism of guys like Mathias Kiwanuka and Justin Tuck. They have a dominant defensive line and build the rest of their defense around confusion and blitzing.
One of the ways to beat athleticism is to fool it. The Giants are very aggressive defensively, and while they have the ability to blow up any play seemingly out of nowhere, they can be caught in overpursuit. The Devin Thomas touchdown from two weeks ago was a good example of how the Giants can be caught -- Thomas had the entire half of the field to himself when he got the ball. If I was Jason Garrett, I'd do whatever I could to exploit that athleticism and overpursuit -- that's a lot of screens, an end-around here and there, a reverse or two -- stuff to slow the Giants down.
If you can slow the Giants' rush down, you can take advantage of their coverage. Their linebackers are better than last year's bunch in coverage, but Antonio Pierce in particular can be worked on down the field. If Garrett can isolate Jason Witten and/or Marcellus Bennett one-on-one against Pierce, the Cowboys will have first downs pretty much whenever they want.
Of course, on the other hand, that leaves one less player in to block, which is part of slowing down the rush. The Giants' starting cornerbacks - Aaron Ross and Corey Webster -- are average. They get exposed when they have to stick in coverage, which is something Cleveland made them do because of the play of their offensive line against the Giants blitz. Playing a lot of max protect against the Giants should allow the Cowboys to get Terrell Owens and Roy Williams matched up against those corners in battles they should win.
Bill Barnwell, a contributing editor at footballoutsiders.com and one of the minds behind the must-read Pro Football Prospectus, will answer five Cowboys questions each week of the season using the FO data and methodologies. Here's the Week 14 edition:
1. Tony Romo is 4-6 in December and 22-4 in September through November. His stats are significantly worse in the season's final month. What do you make of these trends?
I think I make of it pretty much what Romo makes of it -- small sample size. Counting much of last year's performance would be pretty fluky - the Cowboys had basically wrapped up the NFC at that point. He played great in the Packers game and he was fine in the playoff game against the Giants; that game comes down to a few missed tackles on a R.W. McQuarters return, the Giants snatching up fumbles at the right times, and the Steve Smith conversion right before halftime that kept a Giants drive going that led to a field goal that turned the momentum around. His worst game of the month was the Eagles game, and that had more to do with suffering an hand injury during the game and Andre Gurode's struggles snapping the ball than anything else.
In general, quarterbacks play worse in the season's final month - the average QB rating in September is 81.0, and it stays close to that figure in October (80.7) and November (80.9), but in December, that falls to 78.8.
Taken as a referendum on Romo's ability to lead the team anywhere, it's a pretty silly argument. There's a Bill James observation from the eighties that bad teams tend to blame their problems on their best players. The Cowboys were awful without Romo. They're certainly playing better with him in the lineup. That would seem to point to the idea that it's not Romo's fault. Their offensive DVOA with Romo as the starting quarterback is 21.6%. Without Romo in the lineup, it's -36.3%.
2. How big a drop-off is there from Plaxico Burress to Domenik Hixon?
I think the bigger dropoff isn't really statistical, it's schematic. Teams are going to be able to totally change their defensive schemes against the Giants now, which is something the Eagles showed off on Sunday. They played a lot of Cover-0 and Cover-1, pushing a safety up into the box. They also didn't bother to double any of the Giants' receivers -- although I haven't watched the game for a second time to break it down, they reportedly didn't double a Giants receiver once the entire game.
The Giants also take advantage of something the Redskins do with Santana Moss -- since teams often double Burress, they have to declare their intentions pre-snap by moving a safety over in his direction. That allows the Giants significant freedom to set up their blocking scheme accordingly, while making Eli Manning's pre-snap reads easier. Now, teams can disguise their coverages and force Manning to guess more before the snap. That's a huge advantage that teams didn't have before.
The huge drop last week notwithstanding, Hixon's been impressive in Burress' stead. He may have better hands than Burress, and he has nearly as many DYAR despite being thrown 20 fewer passes. I think the biggest concern with Hixon would be his frailty -- he's never been a successful wide receiver at the NFL level, and he's been breakable in the past.
3. Which injured running back is more important to their team: Marion Barber or Brandon Jacobs?
Barber. I was impressed by Choice, but the dropoff from Jacobs to Derrick Ward as a full-time back is nowhere near as big as the dropoff from Barber to Choice. Ward's a top-ten back in DVOA and DYAR this year -- obviously, that has a lot to do with his line, but that line is also a huge part of Jacobs' success as well.
4. Is Eli Manning a great quarterback or a quarterback who doesn't screw up
a great team?
He's somewhere in between those two. He's obviously taken a huge leap forward since Week 16 of last year, at which point he was coming off one of the worst five-game stretches a quarterback could have. He'd had a poor season statistically to that point; since Week 17, including the playoffs, he's been excellent. He's become a much more patient thrower and become much more accurate underneath. He's not thought of as having a cannon for an arm, but he can make any throw you want and has an accurate deep ball, the Hixon drop from last week being a perfect example. Manning does a great job of identifying coverages (as mentioned above) and, although he's not at the level of his brother in picking apart defenses before the snap, is sound and gets a lot of the subtle things right.
Especially before the newfound accuracy, the issues with Manning were very obvious. Earlier in his career, he was really fond of the throw-off-your-back-foot play that doesn't work in the NFL. He's toned that down a lot. He's still prone to the real ugly interception -- he's thrown a pass like that each of the last two weeks, but through absolute miracles, they've each been dropped. He struggles some throwing checkdowns -- no one's better at two-hopping a dumpoff than Eli.
All in all, for the first time in his career, Eli's playing at a Pro Bowl level. I would say that the current version is a very good quarterback who has a very good team around him.
5. Jason Garrett obviously needs some help. Where should he attack the Giants' defense?
They're vulnerable in a bunch of places. Obviously, their strength is the athleticism of guys like Mathias Kiwanuka and Justin Tuck. They have a dominant defensive line and build the rest of their defense around confusion and blitzing.
One of the ways to beat athleticism is to fool it. The Giants are very aggressive defensively, and while they have the ability to blow up any play seemingly out of nowhere, they can be caught in overpursuit. The Devin Thomas touchdown from two weeks ago was a good example of how the Giants can be caught -- Thomas had the entire half of the field to himself when he got the ball. If I was Jason Garrett, I'd do whatever I could to exploit that athleticism and overpursuit -- that's a lot of screens, an end-around here and there, a reverse or two -- stuff to slow the Giants down.
If you can slow the Giants' rush down, you can take advantage of their coverage. Their linebackers are better than last year's bunch in coverage, but Antonio Pierce in particular can be worked on down the field. If Garrett can isolate Jason Witten and/or Marcellus Bennett one-on-one against Pierce, the Cowboys will have first downs pretty much whenever they want.
Of course, on the other hand, that leaves one less player in to block, which is part of slowing down the rush. The Giants' starting cornerbacks - Aaron Ross and Corey Webster -- are average. They get exposed when they have to stick in coverage, which is something Cleveland made them do because of the play of their offensive line against the Giants blitz. Playing a lot of max protect against the Giants should allow the Cowboys to get Terrell Owens and Roy Williams matched up against those corners in battles they should win.
posted by The Gryphon at 5:15 PM
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