Ah, pre-season football. This game began with an injury list for the Cowboys, and boy was it comprehensive, including both starting cornerbacks, their center, nose tackle and several other contributing players, so more than many games this will be one not to read too much into.
Nevertheless, we can glean some interesting stuff from the game, let’s have at it.
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Denver – Things of Note
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● So I wasn’t quite right with my sneaking suspicion that the Broncos were going to be running a 3-4 this season. The Broncos are running a 4-3. Sort of. Denver was lining up in this game with a four-man line, but in 3-4 alignments, and Von Miller, ostensibly a 4-3 OLB, lining up in the same place a 3-4 OLB would be. Dumervil on the opposite side was lining up in a 3-4 OLB spot, but with his hand in the ground. In nickel situations as we suspected, Miller drops to the D-line and rushes from DE in a four-man line.
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● I’m a bad man I know, but I couldn’t resist doing this without talking about Tim Tebow. The Broncos gave him some designed run plays from under center, and he made a few big throws, but let’s talk about the two plays nullified by flags.
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● His INT – It was one ugly pass, but without the flag, that’s probably a completion for a first down despite being hit as he threw on 3rd and 7. David Anderson was tackled to the ground coming out of his break, and the ball is caught by Ball right where Anderson’s comeback would have wound up. Special mention to the Broncos’ O-line for allowing a simple D-line move to result in a lineman clean through on Tebow. People get twitchy when they see INT, but this wasn’t a terrible play.
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● QB draw play, gives a little step to the right and then runs to the left of the formation. Nice run, called back for a hold on the LT. Hold was a fair call, but it wasn’t going to affect the run.
Bottom line for Tebow is he’s still very much a work in progress. For all the good there were too many knuckle balls coming out. Also a big fan of any play where you can rack up three separate penalties on offense in the one play.
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Dallas – Things of Note
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● I know they were down some defensive starters but the Cowboys should really think about covering a slot receiver on 3rd and 6. In the first quarter the Cowboys decided to blitz Orlando Scandrick and Gerald Sensabaugh elected to jump down on a tight end rather than cover the slot receiver, Eric Decker, who went for a big gain. One thing about running a defense with exotic blitz packages – you’ve got to have guys on the back end that know where they have to be to cover it.
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● Not the best start in the world, with rookie Tyron Smith beaten badly inside on the first Cowboys snap on offense. Smith also had to deal with Von Miller coming around the edge from his DE spot in sub-packages which is some serious speed to try and deal with. He does look athletic and capable on some plays, but he needs some work before the regular season. Smith stayed in with the 2nd team O-line and did much better against the Broncos backups.
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● Jason Hatcher showed well with some big plays. The Cowboys shifting pressure schemes will result in lineman coming unblocked at times, and Hatcher should be pushing Olshansky to start at this stage. Olshansky himself was pretty poor, allowing a big run from the Broncos when he was caved in by Ryan Clady.
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● Dwayne Harris. The Cowboys lost some depth at receiver and there is an opening for someone to work their way up the depth chart. Harris made a good start at doing so. The sixth round pick had five catches for 127 yards and two touchdowns, including a 76-yard reception with 74 of them after the catch. He’s way down the depth chart now, but that’s the kind of performance that’ll get you some more reps.
So there you have it. The Broncos don’t appear to be running a vanilla 4-3 D, as I suspected with their off-season moves, and for all the talk of trading Kyle Orton he is still clearly a much better option to win games than Tebow right now. For Dallas you’ve got some early teething problems with Rob Ryan’s new defense, which isn’t surprising given the complexity of the scheme, and the O-line will be a work in progress through the season, but otherwise it’s business as usual for America’s Team.
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Follow Sam on Twitter: @SamMonson … and be sure to follow our main Twitter feed as well: @ProFootbalFocus
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