Decoding Garrett: Week 1- Plenty to build upon for the offense

Published Sep. 7, 2012 3:09 p.m. ET

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The great thing about any sport, but in this case the great game of football, is that it can be consumed on a number of levels.  If a certain segment of the viewing public is just watching the ball or their favorite fantasy league player, that is fine.  In fact, that is how most of the world consumes the NFL, and it seems to be working out great for everyone involved.

Sadly, I do not count myself among that group.  About 10 years ago, I became dissatisfied with my knowledge of the game of football as I knew that my team wasn't having success in certain segments of their performance, and I wanted to know more than the media was telling me.  I refused to believe the idea that so and so was simply "not a winner" or so and so was simply "not a very good coach".  I needed to know why.  I needed more.  I needed reasons that I could actually see.

That put me on a very long journey.  A journey that I hope will never be completed.  But, it has put me in coaching clinics, purchasing coaching DVD's, seeking out scouts and personnel people for advice, and reading as many books and play-books about strategy and philosophy about the game of football that I could find.

That doesn't make me a coach by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make me someone who is as interested in why things happen - good or bad - for the football team that I follow for a living, the Dallas Cowboys.

Since 2008, on this blog, I have catalogued every snap of the Dallas Cowboys offense into a giant database, so that we may understand the offense that they run, what they do well, what they do poorly, and basically, anything we can possibly understand about how Jason Garrett, Tony Romo, and the rest of the crew go about their business in the NFL.

Surely, much of the information from 2008 is now irrelevant, but we can take snapshots of any moment in time from most of Romo and Garrett's relationship - including the last 67 games - and see how things have progressed or regressed.  And that is what we do here in this series that runs 2 days after every game called, "Decoding Garrett".  In fact, if you wish to search the archives for those last 67 games, it should be rather easy to bring up any game you want and see the data from that contest.

What do we look for?  Well, the most important things we do is the same exact things that coaches do when they evaluate the team as Cowboys' coaches or prepare to scout and game-plan against the Cowboys if the coach in question was running the Seattle Seahawks defense.

Coaches are looking for several things when they watch a team play.  What is their biggest strength?  In other words, what do we need to make sure doesn't beat us.  What is their biggest weakness?  Which means, where will we attack them and make them uncomfortable?

What are their tendencies?  What are their go-to moves?  What do they hate doing?  And what can they do all day long?

All of this is important.  But, where do you start?

We will not throw too much information out there today.  If you read any essays from this series from the first 4 seasons, it can only expand your knowledge for upcoming games.  But, those who have been here reading this all along know that we believe what coaches believe:  The game of football is 100% about creating match-ups that we can then take advantage of.  That is done a few different ways, with the one emphasized here most being personnel groupings.  Personnel groupings is another way of explaining the substitutions for an offense from the bench.  11 players are on, but which 11?  That is vital in the NFL.

So, before the huddle, we identify personnel groupings.  The defense has time - not much - to counter with the proper grouping that they have planned all week to best matchup.  Then, after the huddle, the formations are the 2nd way to attempt to create opportunities for an offense.  That is much more difficult to track, but we try to do so.

For this week, I would ask that you review the final report from 2011 to fully explain much of what you will see below.  I certainly don't want this to be too complicated, but it would take 10,000 words to explain everything each time we do this.  And we don't want that.

Below, please find the key code for each of the most popular personnel groups that the Cowboys run.  I think after reading it, you will be able to understand each grouping, and therefore will have a feel for comparing production from group to group.  The Cowboys use a number system that is based on the number of Running Backs and Tight Ends.  Therefore, "21" personnel means 2 RBs and 1 TE (and of course 2 WRs).  This is somewhat universal, although coaching jargon will also use names for each group like Ace, Posse, and Jumbo in some circles.  But, since Garrett uses "21" and "12", so will we.

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2nd Half

This chart is simply the 11 targets to Kevin Ogletree.  Here you can see the slant passes over and over and then the Cowboys punishing Corey Webster for sitting on the slant and falling victim to the double move.

Drive Starters - The 1st play of each drive can often reveal the intent of a coach to establish his game plan.  How committed is he to the run or pass when the team comes off the sideline?  We track it each week here:

Wk 1-At New York:  9 Drives - 5 Run/4 Pass

2011 Total: 181 Drives - 79 Run/102 Pass  44% Run

SHOTGUN SNAPS-

Shotgun snaps are fine on 3rd Down and in the 2 minute drill.  But, we track this stat from week to week to make sure the Cowboys aren't getting too lazy in using it.  They are not efficient enough to run it as their base, and with a 15%/85% run/pass split across the league, there is no way the defense respects your running game.  When shotgun totals are high, the Cowboys are generally behind, scared of their offensive line, or frustrated.  High Shotgun numbers are not this team's calling card for success.

Clearly, chaos at the center position will have us wondering if Ryan Cook made Jason Garrett run more from under center, but this is nothing like the last trip to Giants stadium, where the Cowboys were in shotgun the entire night.  15 snaps out of 54 is beyond perfect.  This keeps your offense balanced and the defense off balance on what is coming.  Perfect.

Wk 1 - NYJ:  15/54  27.7%

2011 Total - 445/1012  43.9%

Here is the breakdown by groupings:

Before you study the data below, I would recommend that if the numbers for the groupings are unfamiliar, that you spend some time reading a more expanded definition of the Personnel Groupings here.

Plenty to look at here.  11 personnel under center is a package that since 2008 has never been used by the Cowboys.  This is interesting, because around the NFL, it is used a ton by many teams.  When the Cowboys are in "11" personnel, it has been about 98% shotgun since I have tracked the data.  But, on this one occasion, the Cowboys ran 11 personnel a whopping 8 times after running it just 17 plays in all of 2011.  Is this a new wrinkle with Bill Callahan?  Is this a more comfortable snap for Ryan Cook?  Is this a loud stadium or DeMarco Murray or a Jason Witten effect?  We don't know for sure, but I wonder if they are planning more of that.

Also, notice in "22" they were 100% run and look at all of the "21" and "22" success.  They have a fullback they love, and they plan on using him plenty this season it appears.  Hold on to your hats, the Cowboys might be trying to become a physical offense again.

Totals by Personnel Groups:

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