Up first for the Cowboys' defense? Tom Brady and Joe Burrow (2024)

Funny thing about how we digest our football in the offseason is the constant and eternal fretting of all of the problems, while quietly not discussing that which was great because we would like to think that the great stuff might just keep being great if we don’t scare it off.

For instance, the ink has been spilled on all manner of Kellen Moore, Dak Prescott, Tyron Smith, the offensive line, Mike McCarthy, Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper/Michael Gallup, etc, etc. All offseason it has been one constant bellyache about the offense letting everyone down late in the year and how we can fix that — or will that just be the new coach’s problem in 2023?

But, when it comes to Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs and this Cowboys defense just carrying on where it left off last year? Well, of course, they will! They are just special players doing what they do. Surely, we should worry about something else. This defense has Dan Quinn at the helm and we know that this was a nice change from what Mike Nolan was trying to do and since there is a decent chance Quinn could be the next head coach, he is the genius of the moment. What he has tried to do has been an unqualified success and that will just continue to repeat itself, right?

It is never that easy in the NFL. It is great news that Quinn was not hired away last January as several teams considered him for their head coaching vacancies and he has expressed interest in getting back in the mix for a job like that very soon. But, not yet. It is also great what he has done to this defense. If he can sustain it, he is truly what they say he is — a defensive mastermind. But, can the Cowboys sustain it?

As we do for the offense on Tuesdays, Wednesdays are where we break down the path of the Cowboys’ defense. We look to track its progress or lack thereof with something of a review each week. This week’s edition will serve as a primer as to who and what they are.

Let’s start here with the year-to-year comparison of the Dallas defense. Let’s be very careful to point out that 2020 was a disaster for a defense in many regards, not the least of which they played the season without an offense and the Nolan era seemed pretty confused and lost on its own merit. In other words, comparing anything to 2020 is probably going to be flattering.

As you can see, the 2020 version was awful at stopping the run (31st) and that was fixed quite well. It was awful at stopping third downs and Quinn made the third-down defense one of the best in the league. This led to a major drop-off in points allowed, which is the object of the game. It was all supplemented with Dallas having a historic year of takeaways in which their 34 forced turnovers led the NFL. This doesn’t happen much around here. You would have to go back several decades to find output that high in franchise history.

Given that the Cowboys have added a defender in the middle of the fray that appears to have superpowers in linebacker Micah Parsons, perhaps we should understand that things are going to be different defensively around here for years to come. Take a look at how easily Parsons led the team — and nearly the entire league — in overall splash plays. He reset the mark on what we used to know about this statistical formula of all impactful plays on defense. We have never seen anyone above the 50-mark. We have now. In his rookie season, Parsons changed the math of this defense.

Remember, this was a defense that did not have all of its pieces for much of the year when it came to the defensive line. DeMarcus Lawrence missed 11 consecutive games from opening night until December. Randy Gregory missed a big part of the second half of the season. Dallas had a great pass rush last year by league standards (pressures, not sacks) and a very viable blitz package, but never had their full complement. That should mitigate the loss of Gregory, especially if Sam Williams, Dante Fowler and Anthony Barr bring any real impact.

In other words, there is a real reason for optimism.

What is the Quinn defense and how was it different in tactics? He had this defense playing more man coverage than we have seen in a long time here. In fact, Dallas ran man coverage more than any team in the NFC and the third-most in the NFL in 2021. Straight man coverage is down across the league, but Dallas ran more than most teams — partly because, we assume, the Cowboys had many young QBs on their schedule that might not love high pressure and intensity looks (only Miami and Denver would run a similar amount or slightly more).

Dallas also brought more pressure than a Cowboys defense has in years. They were fifth in NFL blitz rates and third on getting pressure when they blitzed. I would say this is a massive part of the Parsons effect, but we know that defensive backs were also in on the fun.

They also played plenty of single-high defenses (third in the league) and used mostly a mix of Cover 2 and Cover 3 when they played zone. Keep in mind that despite playing more man coverage than any team in the NFC, that still is just more than 40 percent of their snaps. Even the most man coverage-heavy teams play more zone than man.

One other distinctive characteristic of this defense in 2021 was that the Cowboys played more nickel defense than any team other than Buffalo. Nearly 80 percent of all snaps were in nickel and another 18 percent in dime. That means no team in the NFL played fewer snaps with just four DBs than Dallas. This is mostly the “big nickel” with Jayron Kearse basically the third linebacker, despite being a safety. It is the way the NFL is going these days.

OK, let’s offer you some good news/bad news about the 2022 Dallas Cowboys reality.

It will cover two things that are defining stats from 2021 that are extremely unlikely to repeat themselves.

First, the good news:

It is incredibly unlikely that Dallas will lead the NFL in penalties again in 2022. Our friends at Football Outsiders wrote about this in their annual. When it comes to penalties, there appears to be general randomness involved: “There isn’t much precedent for teams to repeat a season like this. The Cowboys are likely going to have fewer penalties in 2022. No team has repeated as the league leader in penalties since the 2013-2014 Seahawks, and the league leaders going back to 2011 were flagged the next season an average of 29 fewer times.”

If that is true — and if the Cowboys can get the league average reduction in penalties of 29 — they will fall from the 32nd team in penalties to the 11th team overnight. By the way, McCarthy’s teams sort of prove this trend as his teams have not had ridiculous penalty numbers over the years. Last season was just one of those years — Tyler Smith’s propensity for holding penalties, not included.

Now, the bad news.

Dallas led the NFL in takeaways. They are unlikely to come close to that again this season. If they don’t, the defense might be compared to a house of cards.

Dallas had 34 last season which ties them for the 10th-highest total in the past decade across the league. I wanted to see what the very next year showed for that list of teams. Here is what we found. It is not good.

Basically, every single team had fewer takeaways the next season and most of them had distinct drop-offs. Just look at this list. On average, the drop-off is 13.7 takeaways from the big year to the next. The NFL average takeaways last year was 22.8 and if Dallas drops by 13.7, it will fall below the league average.

By the way, the other time the Cowboys had a huge total, they had 31 takeaways in 2014. How badly did they drop off the next season? In 2015, they had just 11 takeaways. That is a loss of 20 from a defense that likely followed the exact same recipe.

History tells us that Dallas will not lead the NFL in penalties or takeaways in 2022.

Finally, here is the Ourlads.com depth chart for the defense to start the year. I have never seen 29 players on a defensive depth chart in the regular season, but it appears that is where we currently are.

None of us should be shocked if the team is hoping to make a move or two to try to get some value for a few of these players because 11 defensive linemen and 12 defensive backs are both huge numbers. Surely, there are not enough snaps to go around, but we must remind ourselves with all of the practice-squad movement and changes to how the roster is working, we should let this thing breathe for a bit before we jump to many conclusions.

So, the Quinn objectives we are tracking are the following:

• How well can the Cowboys’ pass rush perform without the blitz?

• How well can this team play defense without so many takeaways?

• Will they alter their coverages to try to cut down the explosive plays?

• How do you slow down offenses with multiple weapons who attack corners not named Diggs?

• Is Lawrence still special?

• Which defensive tackles emerge from the pack?

• How do they distribute snaps to fill the Gregory vacancy?

• Can they still dominate third downs?

Plenty of other things will emerge, but to see Tom Brady and Joe Burrow walk through that door to start the season should be enough to keep everyone busy.

If this team is to get back to the playoffs, the defense will have to lead the way and it will have to do it — history says — with considerably fewer takeaways.

That challenge should test the quality of this defense. Four days away!

(Top photo of Dan Quinn: Jason Parkhurst / USA Today)