Dallas Cowboys 2011 Record: 8-8 2012 Mean Projection: 7.5 wins Pythagorean Wins: 8.6 (13th) On the Clock (0-4): 10% DVOA: 3.5% (14th) Mediocrity (5-7): 41% Offense: 5.9% (12th) Playoff Contender (8-10): 40% Defense: 0.4% (16th) Super Bowl Contender (11+): 9% Special Teams: -2.1% (25th) Postseason Odds: 26.8% Variance: 11.9% (13th) Projected Average Opponent: 4.0% (2nd) 2011: One more win, and maybe that big playoff run could have been theirs. 2012: In a good division, good may not be good enough. he Dallas Cowboys’ 2011 season ended in a 31-14 the league’s great pass rushers in DeMarcus Ware. It T Week 17 loss to the New York Giants. Both teams can be hard sometimes to separate the performance of entered the game at 8-7, but the loss sent the Cowboys pass rush from coverage, but it Dallas’ case the dis- home to watch the playoffs on TV, while New York en- tinction was about as clear as it could be. On all pass joyed a run to the Super Bowl. The game put a critical plays, including sacks and intentional grounding calls, Cowboys weakness on fine display, as Victor Cruz and they gave up 6.7 yards per play, which ranked 24th. Hakeem Nicks repeatedly burned Dallas cornerbacks Like all teams, they played much better when they got for a series of big plays. Knowing how close they had pressure on the quarterback, cutting that down to 3.5 come to beating the eventual Super Bowl champs, the yards per play, which still ranked 26th. However, on ’Boys went to work patching the enormous holes in those plays where opposing quarterbacks came under their secondary. However, as they fixed that flaw, they pressure but escaped and still managed to get a pass ignored another one, one that hurt them all season. And away, Dallas gave up an average of 7.1 yards, and that since they did little to address the issue, it’s likely to was the highest such figure in the league. hurt them again in 2012. Given the competitive nature This weakness in the backfield killed Dallas on third of the NFC East, it could cost them a playoff spot. downs, where they ranked sixth against the run, but Let’s get the first weakness out of the way: Dallas’ cor- 30th against the pass and 29th overall. Not surprisingly, nerbacks were lousy last season. That’s bad for any de- they played better on short third downs (13th) than they fense, but especially for a defense with a Ryan in charge. did in middle distance (32nd) or long (29th) situations. As our strategic tendencies tables show, Rob Ryan likes At the end of the year, the worst of the bunch (Ter- to blitz, but when he counted on his corners to win one- ence Newman) was released, while the others were on-one matchups last year, they usually lost (Table 1). Four Dallas cornerbacks saw significant action last Table 1: Live By The Blitz, Die By The Blitz year—Alan Ball, Terence Newman, Mike Jenkins, and Orlando Scandrick—and none of them ranked in Rushers Yards/Play Rank the top 30 in yards per pass allowed. In a league where 3 5.69 11 you really need three good cornerbacks to get by, Dal- 4 6.55 15 las had none. 5 7.51 30 That’s especially telling since they play with one of 6+ 7.93 29 68 DALLAS COWBOYS 69 Figure 1. 2011 Dallas DVOA by Week 2012 Cowboys Schedule 100% Week Opp. Week Opp. Week Opp. 80% 60% 1 at NYG (Wed.) 7 at CAR 13 PHI 40% 2 at SEA 8 NYG 14 at CIN 3 TB 9 at ATL 15 PIT 20% 4 CHI (Mon.) 10 at PHI 16 NO 0% 5 BYE 11 CLE 17 at WAS -20% 6 at BAL 12 WAS (Thu.) -40% -60% demoted. Dallas went out and got themselves a shiny -80% new pair of starters, signing Brandon Carr to a five- -100% year, $50.1 million contract in free agency and trading up in the draft to select LSU’s Morris Claiborne. For the past four years, Carr has been the lesser half of one of the league’s top cornerback tandems in Kan- erboards. For the other 19, the average success rate was sas City. However, he has steadily improved through- 49 percent, with an average of 7.9 yards per pass al- out his career, and in 2011 he actually had better met- lowed. Only four finished in the top 30 in yards per pass rics than teammate Brandon Flowers (Table 2). allowed. And that includes many players who only saw Carr is only 26 years old, and may not have peaked nickel action against third and fourth wideouts. If we yet. On the other hand, he’s never been the top cor- limit our list to the nine rookies who made 10 or more ner on his team before. Still, he’s a clear upgrade over starts, those who faced the toughest competition, the what Dallas had last season, and he should provide the average success rate falls to 47 percent, and the average Cowboys with a half-decade of quality starting play. yards per pass climbs to 8.5. Claiborne could have a This was a wise signing. good season for a rookie and still be no better than the Obviously, we have less of a track record for Clai- subpar veterans he is replacing. Claiborne may well be borne. Draft expert Russ Lande, enamored with Clai- a Pro Bowler in 2015, but expectations this year should borne’s coverage ability, ball skills, size (5-foot-11), be much, much lower (Table 3). and speed (4.5-second 40-yard dash), liked him more The Cowboys completely overhauled their corner- than former LSU teammate Patrick Peterson and said back stable, but made few other changes on defense, he would start from Day One for several teams in the because few other changes needed to be made. Their league. While his potential may be mile-high, however, front seven was a particular strength. Dallas played he’s still a rookie, and history has not always been kind excellent run defense, especially after Jason Hatcher to first-year high-profile corners. Between 2005 and returned from a strained calf that cost him three games 2011, 26 cornerbacks were drafted in the first round in October. In the first half of the year, the Cowboys (including guys like Antrel Rolle who started as cor- ranked 18th in run defense DVOA. In the second half, ners before moving to safety later). The best of those, that ranking climbed to sixth. as a rookie, was Cleveland’s Joe Haden, who finished While the Cowboys expect a slew of new defensive 14th in success rate and 13th in yards per pass. After backs to lead a turnaround on defense, they’ve left that, though, the pickings get slim quickly. Seven of the offense mostly alone. And why not? This team is these players failed to qualify for the cornerback lead- stacked at the skill positions. Tony Romo has ranked in the top 10 in passing DVOA in each of his six sea- Table 2: Brandon Carr, Year-By-Year sons as a starter, peaking last year when he finished fourth. DeMarco Murray was among the top 10 run- Year Tgt% Rk Dist Suc% Rk AdjYd Rk PD Int ners in both DVOA and DYAR despite starting only 2008 18.3% 37 11.6 41% 75 8.3 60 6 2 seven games. They have depth at those positions too. 2009 18.9% 22 13.2 53% 38 7.2 36 19 1 New backup quarterback Kyle Orton has ranked in the 2010 20.5% 7 16.0 59% 15 7.4 48 25 1 top 25 in passing DVOA each of the past four years 2011 20.9% 17 15.0 55% 27 6.2 17 13 4 and could start for a handful of teams. Felix Jones had 70 DALLAS COWBOYS some fumble issues (three in 127 runs, the second- Table 3: First-round rookie CBs worst rate of all runners with at least 100 carries), but since 2005 (min. 40 targets) still averaged 4.5 yards per carry and finished in the top 10 in success rate. Fullback Tony Fiammetta was Player Year Tm Suc% AdjYd a crushing blocker, but couldn’t stay healthy, miss- Pacman Jones 2005 TEN 46% 7.2 ing 14 games in the past three seasons. In his place Carlos Rogers 2005 WAS 51% 7.4 the Cowboys signed Lawrence Vickers (two missed Fabian Washington 2005 OAK 53% 8.0 games in the past three seasons), so expect another Tye Hill 2006 STL 48% 9.5 heavy dose of I-formation runs. Johnathan Joseph 2006 CIN 53% 7.5 The top level of the receiver depth chart is just as Kelly Jennings 2006 SEA 46% 6.7 strong, though the depth is lacking. At wide receiver, Darrelle Revis 2007 NYJ 45% 8.3 Miles Austin took a major step backwards in his age Leon Hall 2007 CIN 31% 9.3 27 season, hampered by knee and hamstring issues that Aaron Ross 2007 NYG 47% 8.3 knocked him out of six games and bothered him all year. Leodis McKelvin 2008 BUF 44% 7.5 Dez Bryant progressed in his second season from situ- Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie 2008 ARI 53% 6.7 ational role player to solid starter, but he had a chance Mike Jenkins 2008 DAL 54% 6.6 to establish himself as a dominant top-shelf receiver Antoine Cason 2008 SD 55% 5.8 in Austin’s absence and couldn’t make the jump.