Cowboys pass rush will provide strong test for Commanders OL
After giving up nine sacks last week, the Commanders’ offensive line will be under even more pressure this week.
One of the keys to victory for the Commanders this week is pass protection. Washington gave up nine sacks against the Eagles last week and things aren’t going to get any easier against the Cowboys. Dallas has an aggressive front led by pass rushing pair DeMarcus Lawrence and Micah Parsons, who are backed up by some strong schemes by Defensive Coordinator Dan Quinn.
The Commanders learned last year that the Cowboys love to generate one-on-one rushes for their pass rushers by committing bodies to the rush to prevent the offensive lineman from helping each other pick up the best rushers.
On this play from last season, we can see how Washington works out of an empty formation leaving just five lineman in to block with all eligible receivers split outside. The Cowboys match those five offensive lineman with five rushers, four defensive lineman and Parsons. They know that in this types of situations, it’s hard for every offensive lineman to pick up a block one-on-one, and it’s especially hard for them to pick up stunts. So they run a couple of stunts on top of the five-on-five rush, which leads to Lawrence rushing free up the middle and forcing Taylor Heinicke to hurry his throw and miss his target.
The other lesson learned from the two games against the Cowboys last year would have been the use of Parsons. Parsons is a rare player that plays as an off-the-ball linebacker but is also an incredibly effective edge rusher. This enables the Cowboys to be very creative in moving him around and allowing him to join the rush from different spots.
Here we can see Parsons line up behind the nose tackle, a few yards off the line of scrimmage. From this spot, he’s obviously a threat to rush but he could just as easily drop back into coverage too. This enables Dallas to be creative with who rushes and who drops into coverage, messing with protection schemes and muddying the read for the quarterback.
On this play, we see six potential rushing threats including Parsons, but the Cowboys only end up sending four. They drop the two players on the edge into coverage while Parsons joins the rush up the middle. By doing this, they generate a fantastic matchup, getting Parsons working against a running back in pass protection. Parsons predictably wins that matchup and gets home for the sack after Heinicke’s read was disrupted by the edge rushers dropping into coverage.
This season, the Cowboys have built on those two components of their defense. They can be even more extreme with adding on rushers to ensure one-on-one matchups, checking into rushes based on different looks from the offense.
On this play, the Cowboys show a heavy blitz look from what's known as a double mug front. That simply means that both linebackers are aligned on the line of scrimmage in the A gaps either side of the center. Offenses will sometimes respond to this look by adjusting the running back pre-snap, getting him to step forward in preparation to pass protect and pick up one of the two linebackers. That’s exactly what the Giants do here and as soon as the back steps up, you can see the Cowboys linebackers making a signal to the rest of the defense. This signal is likely a check into a blitz.
They know the back is staying in to pass protect from that spot so they check into a blitz that guarantees both linebackers rush to ensure they can generate those one-on-one matchups across the board. On top of that, the safety over the tight end reads the tight end and as soon as he shows he’s staying in to protect, the safety joins the rush too. With so many one-on-one matchups, the Cowboys are likely to win one or two of them, given their personnel. They indeed win a couple and force the quarterback to scramble and throw the ball away to prevent being sacked.
Dallas has quite a diverse package of plays from this type of look. They can send a lot of rushers, but just as easily drop into coverage and just rush four. As we learned last year, they can move players around and disguise who is rushing and who is dropping into coverage on any given play.
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