Free Friday Mailbag – On a bye-week Sunday!

Mostly Cowboys, some replay coping, and even a bit on Zach Bryan....

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I come to you this morning on the road in Bryan-College Station where we visited the daughter yesterday and went to go see Zach Bryan in concert. If I had nothing else going on, I would offer you a full review like I did when I saw Pearl Jam last month, but I think the baseball playoffs and the travel of the U17 Dallas Texans Soccer club is taking up my free time.

Let’s give you an idea of what to expect this week at #SturmStack:

Sunday Night/Monday Morning: Our Game 6 Three Thoughts, Rangers-Astros

Tuesday: The Cowboys run game study – why is it so bad right now?

Also, Monday Night, we remain ready for a Game 7 Three Thoughts.

Wednesday: Our Mavericks season opener column.

Thursday: Probably our standard day of rest or a Mavericks Three Thoughts on the opener in San Antonio.

Friday: We are thinking a mailbag (probably) and Cowboys-Rams preview.

As you can see, no shortage of time together, so let’s go with today’s mailbag and see how far we can go in 60 minutes.

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From Chris: Hey Bob, do you think that Will McClay notices the stale play calling and outdated systems they’ve run for years? The Jones’ don’t but Will being an evaluator has to notice it.

This is interesting. I think it most cases – not all, but most – football coaches and executives do not boil everything down to “stale” or “outdated” because football is far more complex than it seems when we summarize things on twitter or in conversations.

Overviews that try to articulate why an offense isn’t working are often too simplistic and offer no solutions or explanations. For instance, I am working on a run game study with film work on Tuesday here and I want to show people what isn’t working. But, I will also tell you that every time I do this, it isn’t as easy as I want it to be.

I want it to be that it is one person’s problem and if we just get him to be better, well, then, everything will work better. Instead, if I show you 10-12 plays, there is a real chance it will be a different finding each time. That is football. You want your 11 guys to work in perfect concert and precision to make a play work. One time it is the left guard, but the next time he is perfect and now it is the inline tight end. Wait, this third play, the running back didn’t show the vision we need. And here, we wonder about the play-call into a loaded box.

So, the solution is way broader and less simplistic than we want.

That is football. So, I bet Will McClay knows Mike McCarthy’s offense and believes it is sound and smart. But, I also be he knows schemes are not solutions, they are parts of solutions. Run the same scheme with 11 different players and the outcome improves or worsens. That is football. That is why these guys look at film when the rest of us sleep to try to get good evaluations and better players. The whole time, there are coaches and executives in 31 other buildings trying to throw wrenches into every advancement.

It is the world’s best chess game and I love it, but I have seen Mike McCarthy win a Super Bowl with his beliefs (and a record high number of players on injured reserve), but then people counter that the game has passed him by. Maybe. Or maybe, winning Super Bowls is really hard if you don’t have Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes. Again, this sport is wonderful and wonderfully maddening.

From Tommy: Hey Bob. Do you think the Cowboys offensive struggles are more scheme based or execution? Bottom line: why is this offense struggling and do you think MM can make the necessary adjustments?

Both. I think that the scheme is lacking aggression too often. The concepts are not bad – although the details are always worth cleaning up – but, in my opinion through just six games is that the Cowboys have fallen victim to fear-based game planning.

Some weeks, it seems they are just trying to avoid turnovers. Other weeks, it seems they are scared of their offensive line. Other weeks, they don’t want their QB touched.

But, doggone it, your offense has to have intent to go wreck stuff and I will concede this point, there have been times before this year that the Cowboys offense seemed cocky and confident. This year, it seems timid and risk-averse again, almost to the peak of Jason Garrett’s notable risk aversion.

I don’t know where this comes from, but Jerry Jones has always been noticeably shaken by QB1 injuries and Mike McCarthy may have been a Monday Night loss away from being fired this week, so there are your two biggest candidates for risk aversion right now.

I want the attacking offense back and I want to see more attacking on early downs, too. Don’t just allow Dak Prescott to get things going when it is 3rd and long. Give better opportunities to attack when the odds are in your favor on 1st down.

From Lyndon Tilson": Is part of issue with the running game Pollard? Has he not fully recovered? Any chance you have data comparing his in game speed to last year? Asante Samuel had an angle but sure closed fast on the 60 yard reception last week.

I am not saying he is blameless, but I really think we will find on Tuesday that it is mostly not on him. This offensive line has to be better and they have not been impressive at all.

I don’t want to spoil my own piece and like I said, it is different every time. But, overall, I think we are going to have to come to grips with the idea that this offensive line is not very good right now, regardless of their reputation.

Some guys might be getting old. Some guys might not be right health wise. And some guys might just not be that good. But, to spend this much and to talk this much about the offensive line like this is their 2016 version, is probably a big issue here overall.

But, Pollard? I think overall he has been fine. That said, Rico Dowdle does seem to offer some things that Pollard does not, so I would not be against moving the slider of the workload a little bit more in his favor from game to game.

From Josh Branson: Hey Bob, do you think it’s time for the coaching staff to bench Gallup, or at least give Tolbert some of his snaps? He still looks awful out there, and yet Dak keeps targeting him. It’s hard to know if he’s ever going to return to his pre-injury form. Time to pull the plug?

We are getting closer and closer. As I said in the Decoding piece, I actually felt a little better about Gallup having those close calls on Monday. Now, I know that sounds silly, because he didn’t make any of the plays, but the plays were there.

That is in stark contrast to the San Francisco game where he just never wins on a route. I left the Chargers game thinking that I would throw fewer targets at him, but if he can get vertical a few times a game on the posts or verticals, he might help unlock more for Brandin Cooks and CeeDee Lamb because verticals occupy safeties more than anything. Before long, those route combinations will see the safety take the most dangerous one and the DIG uncovers over the middle with more regularity.

Basically, Josh, you are right. Tolbert deserves more looks, but with the finances and urgency levels as they are, we should know that GM, Coach, and QB all believe more in the Gallup direction right now and will give him every opportunity to prove them right. It is just the way it is right now.

From Michael Hicks: First of all, thanks for the ‘bag. We all need to take a deep breath and realize how special it is for it to be late October and all of our teams are playing. Question: Cowboys are about to get into the meat of their schedule and the OL - to my untrained eye - seems to be the team’s weakest link. What, if anything, do you see that can help this team get to at least average OL play (esp in the running game).

Michael, I don’t mean to cop-out on this answer, but I better move this answer to the ones above and also promote Tuesday’s project a bit more. I promise, we will evaluate each player up front and give you a mid-term letter grade on all components in that piece.

But, I will also say that you are probably in the right general area with your thoughts.

From C Ryan Johnson: Have the proponents for Sky Judge in the NFL seen how maddening VAR is in the EPL? What league has the worst replay system? What league has the worst replay reviewers? Can you just fix it all for all of us?

If I ruled the world – shout out to Nas – it would still have replay. But, we would also have to remind people that a 80% solution is better than no solution at all. We are trying to get incrementally better, knowing we cannot find perfection.

But, holy heck, we still butcher these sports.

My first thought is the disingenuous arguments people submit about games taking too long. Guys, we allow 24 minute halftimes in college football so both bands can play. We allow 20 minutes of commercials an hour in our sports. We allow stop down after stop down, so don’t tell me watching replays is holding up anyone’s day.

Time is not a restraint that is offered about too many commercials so don’t tell me getting it right is something we don’t have time for.

But, as I watch these baseball playoffs, I am still not close to accepting the humans calling the strike zones when they are off so often. You have to be able to challenge balls and strikes when we see guys getting squeezed because they are rookies or nobodies against legends. It is so ridiculous that guys get four strikes in these moments where the entire season hinges on getting a defined strike zone correct.

Also, the NBA and NFL remain frustrating in that you can only challenge these calls over here. But these other ones? Those can stand on the old merits because we said so. WHAT? No, sir. If a call is butchered and verified to everyone at home with simple replays, then a coach should be allowed to use his three timeouts per half any way he wants. You can challenge a bad pass interference, provided the ref using the common sense bar rule – does everyone in a bar see how bad this call is? Yes? then fix it.

Yes, English Soccer just had a catastrophic moment in replay, but I still submit that the intent is correct to have VAR. Just not the execution of the protocol.

Who has the worst system? Wow, that is close. I think the NBA that tells you that they are fine with bad calls all game long except the one challenge you get on a set of rules that do not include “non-called fouls.” So you can challenge fouls that are wrong, but not missed fouls? Why? Because you said so?

Ryan, you just got me fired up. In my opinion, if you have a timeout, you should be able to convert it to a review. And you should be able to review anything that is verifiable by a replay. Try it and if games double in length, then we will immediately review my review policy.

From Longstreet: Bob, there was discussion in the off-season about receivers syncing their routes to the steps of Dak’s of dropbacks? Can you see any difference from last year? I would love to see film breakdown. Also, why don’t the cowboys, as you have beeb advocating for years, use more pre-snap motion?

The findings so far are not compelling. The intentions are reasonable, but it is tough to see a whole lot on the tape that suggests everything has been adapted and works great. As for motion, I do think it is worth noting that the Cowboys are not particularly low in motion. But, they are also not particularly high. They are right at league average which is consistent with how their offense has been for years. They do not innovate in either direction. They always hit about league average in all of these ideas.

The reason that is notable is that the best offenses in this league lean way in to their beliefs. Sean McVay, Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, and Mike McDaniel all go to the extremes on things like motions and shifts to gain an advantage. Heck Nick Sirianni has gone the other way and is a league-low in motion. I respect that, because he is not a follower. The Cowboys – and this is long before McCarthy, but should also include him – are almost always ranked between 12th and 18th in many of these concepts. Right there stuck in the middle with you.

From Shazbot Vexed: Maybe it’s too early in the season to make too much of this (small sample size) but it seems one of the things the Cowboys are struggling with in addition to the much-talked-about red-zone issues is their performance on opening drives.

To wit: Cowboys through 6 games: 1 touchdown, 2 field goals, 3 punts The 3 games with punts they gained a total of -1 yards (yes, they have averaged-0.3 yards per opening drive in half their games this season).

Compare this to three excellent offenses (Philly, SF, and Miami):

Eagles through 6 games: 4 touchdowns, 1 field goal, and a turnover on downs.

49ers through 6 games: 5 touchdowns, 1 field goal.

Dolphins through 6 games: 3 touchdowns, 1 field goal, 1 fumble, 1 punt.

Bob, to what do you attribute the Cowboys’ struggles on opening drives in the first six games of the 2023 season?

I need to look into this more, but my first response is that is where they seem extra determined to show you their game plan is to establish the run and get those runs they game-planned all week around and start pounding the rock and showing you they have fixed it. Instead, the punt team seems to run on and we are already chasing the game.

You would love to know your script is your best stuff, but fast starts have not been on the menu much recently.

Let’s keep an eye on that.

One or two more…

From David Wolf: What are you gonna dress up as for Halloween? Favorite candy? Favorite Halloween movie?

I usually go as “me” on Halloween, but over the years, I do enjoy handling the door at my house more and more. It is fun to see the kids roll through and make small talk with them as the terrifying 6’4 bald guy opens the door. I don’t need much of costume.

Candy? Anything peanut-butter based with chocolate involved is probably my weakness, but my sweet tooth issue is pretty formidable. I have my issues with saying no to things that are not terribly healthy. YOLO, right?

Movie? I hate them all. But, my wife loves scary movies, so as long as it isn’t too terribly based on demons, I am ok. Give me a good serial killer movie, I guess, over one that employs the dark forces in my life. I can’t handle that stuff and I have no interest in your remake of the Exorcist. OUT.

Ok, my time is up. I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I enjoyed Zach Bryan last night. It was quite a scene outside of Snook, Texas in an open field with 30,000 or so music enthusiasts. I did tweet about it last night, but since there is no other place to post a video or two, here are a few #SturmStack exclusives to end on here:

Here is Godspeed:

And here is my personal favorite, East Side of Sorrow:

This is probably as close as I have ever come to attending a country concert (since I am literally attending one, haha), but it was awesome and I think he is really a talented song writer.

Great times.