The Morning After - Cowboys kids play plenty vs 49ers

SANTA CLARA, CA - AUGUST 09: Leighton Vander Esch #55 and Justin March-Lillard #53 of the Dallas Cowboys tackles Marcell Harris #49 of the San Francisco 49ers in the second quarter of their NFL preseason football game at Levi's Stadium on August 9, 2018 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
By Bob Sturm
Aug 10, 2018

The Cowboys opened their preseason schedule as part of the 12-game NFL slate last night, as the league storms into the first full weekend of the exhibition season.  This is a perfect time of year to rely on your Twitter feed to tell you the league’s various stories, because locking in on a specific game is generally going to leave you wanting.

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It will leave you wanting more from the players you know are actually going to be part of the team this season, but therein lies the conflict.  Your feed will inevitably show you that another team lost a key player to a potentially disastrous injury; Washington’s young RB who has all sorts of potential, Derrius Guice, sustained a knee injury last night that will require a MRI today. (Update: Guice tore his ACL and will miss the entire season)

Once that happens, you quickly switch your posture, just wanting to put your team in bubble wrap to get them safely and soundly to September 9th in Charlotte, where the Cowboys open the regular season against the Panthers.

Everyone in the NFL knows that the exhibition season is too long.  The only slight defense of 4-5 preseason games per team is tradition and since it has always been this way, change is scary.  Of course, we don’t need to be too cynical to know that the extremely rich men who own NFL teams are not ever going to cut off revenue streams that preseason games provide.  If you want season tickets, we demand you buy these two worthless home games, too.  It doesn’t even matter if you attend.  “Once we have the money, do whatever you want”, is the general ownership view.

So, since it is the way it is, we have evolved to where coaches and teams now demonstrate to you the priority level of Week 1 in the preseason.  Most the league’s stars don’t play. If they do, they leave the field quickly.  Play 5-10 snaps and get off the field quickly and into your baseball hat.  Let’s get you in full health back to training camp so we can use you in our practices.

But coaches seem to universally agree that the priority in Weeks 1-2 of the preseason is to break the seal on the kids.  Get those draft picks out there and let’s see them play against other players in this league. Take a look at who jumps off the screen in a good or bad way.  The Cowboys are one of the youngest teams in the league.  You may not know that, but let me demonstrate.  According to my friends at Spotrac, a website that tracks salary cap space for all the big sports, the Cowboys have the youngest roster in the NFL when measuring the full 90-man training camp rosters.

Here are the teams sorted by age from their Salary Cap Tracker this morning:

You may find the other information on this list interesting, too, but I ask you to turn your attention to that average age.  If your team is younger than the incredibly young Cleveland Browns – which they are, by the slimmest of margins – you have a team that needs some considerable work in the preseason.  I don’t think the NFL needs more than two preseason games, for sure.  But, if they exist, the Cowboys are the team that could use the most work to bring those young lads along as soon as possible.

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That was mindset as I studied this game.  The Cowboys have the youngest roster in the NFL, so let’s make sure we are focusing on those who this team needs to count upon once camp breaks.  And, honestly, as you know from what I wrote last Friday, I will spend hardly any time on the 4th Quarter, because the players who decided the outcome of last night’s game are generally in those 40 positions or so that have only the most remote chance to make a team that already knows about 45 members of their 53-man roster.  If players on the field late in the game are going to make the 2018 Cowboys, it is generally going to be in a primarily special teams role.  So, here are my initial views on some of those players I was tracking last night – allow me some time to riff on each of the top four picks from this past April’s draft:

First round – LB Leighton Vander Esch: What I saw from Vander Esch last night was a lot of what I saw when watching him at Boise State (before he was selected by the Cowboys).  I see a linebacker with tremendous size and mobility and a player that seems geared for the modern NFL, which has teams playing in nickel or dime coverage on over 70% of scenarios.  Defenses are in these lineups because they know they are likely facing the pass.  This is a passing league and your linebackers must be able to cover or your defense will be on the field all night chasing the ball.  The odd thing is that the league generally finds players that can do these things by converting safeties into LBs, and they usually weigh about 225 to do this job.  Vander Esch weighs almost 260 – thus the comparisons in size to Brian Urlacher.  Yet, the disposition of those two players seems wildly different.  What I saw yesterday was a guy who is good at many things the Cowboys want him to be good at, but for me, I still don’t like his thump and physicality in taking on blockers, shedding them in a sometimes-violent manner, and causing havoc in the middle of the field to a point of intimidation.  If you want to talk about Urlacher or Ray Lewis or even a smaller LB like Sean Lee, you will definitely feel the physical nature of their game.  I am sure Vander Esch can grow into that mold, but in the early going of training camp I have seen a big linebacker whose game resembles a small linebacker — one who must win on speed, elusiveness, and movement skills.

Like I said, the game is evolving and that means the Cowboys scouting staff might be (probably is) way ahead of me.  But, to speak frankly and honestly, I did not value him on the same level as Dallas did simply because of his disposition and the physicality issue that remained readily apparent last night.  I will not offer the dreaded “finesse linebacker” label, because that is incredibly unfair.  But, allow me to say that he looks like the same guy that was on tape at Boise State, one who still has a great chance to develop moving forward.  As presently constituted though, I want to see much more.  He was good at times, but on run plays, he doesn’t look comfortable when guys get their hands on him.  He needs to return that with violence as he develops.  So, we will keep checking on his progress.

Second round – LG Connor Williams:  There is no question the Cowboys upgraded their talent level for years to come when they drafted Coppell’s own Connor Williams. Like Vander Esch, the pick isn’t just about this season.  This is about the many years to come as Williams becomes a full-grown NFL man.  That doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen by August 9th of the Cowboys’ first training camp.  What we have to do with Williams is understand a few things about what is being asked of him.  First, he is being moved inside despite being a bit undersized for a tackle.  In fact, he is extremely undersized by NFL standards and at the combine was between the 4-6 percentile for weight, wingspan, and arm length.  Now, as far as an athlete, he demonstrates speed, quickness, and explosiveness at very high levels, which is a common theme with him and LVE.

Next, consider the players he is now facing on the inside.  When he struggled last night on a play that ended in a sack (and we have seen this in Oxnard on inside rushes, too), he looks like he is hanging on for dear life against big DeForest Buckner.  Don’t be discouraged, as Buckner is awesome and does that to a lot of players.  But we should understand that Williams will not instantly be at the level of Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick, and Zack Martin.  Hopefully, it doesn’t take long, but to ask him to play a new position that requires more ballast than he currently possesses against guys like Fletcher Cox, Aaron Donald, or Buckner is going to be a rough ride.  Those guys are lined up and isolated against guards because almost no guards can hold them off for long.  They destroy game plans and Donald had a really good day against Zack Martin last year.  Imagine blocking edge players in the Big 12 and then looking up and seeing the NFL 3-techniques staring at you play after play.  It is going to take time and in Year 3, you will be happy you made this pick.  But if you expect an All-Pro rookie year from Williams, you need to understand the reality of the NFL.  It will take time and a little sheltering for Williams to grow up fast and strong.  It might take a few years of eating and lifting to give him more of a chance.  He is going to be a nice player, but he will have some battle scars, too.

Here is the snap where Williams was welcomed to the NFL.  Watch Tyron Smith’s agility save his knee from a nasty collision in all of the chaos.  This is why you want your best players to have very limited action in the preseason.  So they don’t get caught up in a mess.

Third round – WR Michael Gallup: On draft day, you may recall my summary of the top 3 picks, “Williams and Gallup are two young and exciting pieces. In fact, they were both higher on my list than Vander Esch. The Cowboys clearly disagree with that, but the larger point is that I feel the Cowboys were able to grab three excellent players without moving from their spots at #19, #50, and #81.  And, they also checked off all three boxes on our checklist in the most logical manner.  Had they tried to go in a different order, they might have had to settle for inferior players.”  Gallup was one of my favorite pass-catchers in this draft and obviously, after saying goodbye to Dez Bryant, I was excited to go find a version of WR that did many things Dez does well.  He isn’t as thick, but he might have a better ability to run by his man in a vertical fashion and did so last night for his first professional catch. Gallup capitalized on a fine throw by Prescott after Dak looked off coverage to make the throw available.  Gallup is a very solid route runner and while his hands occasionally betray him (not abnormal in a first camp), he gets open and should have had another big moment later in the game on a pass that was badly underthrown by Cooper Rush.

Fourth round – DE Dorance Armstrong:  It was certainly interesting to see the Cowboys make a fourth-round selection that seemed completely off the board at the time.  If you look at the team’s defensive end group, it seems like that was not a spot of major need, but if you want them to take the best football prospect available, Armstrong has shown some early signs that they did just that.  He was really impressive last night, wearing his temporary #74 jersey, working the edge in the first half and being as disruptive as possible.  I spent a few days on him earlier in the summer, writing a piece that you may wish to review, but as we said then, the Cowboys were looking at pure athleticism and a huge wingspan that might allow him to grow into that RDE they have been seeking.  Now, as a rookie, he might be in a full rotation with a guy like Tyrone Crawford and we aren’t sure how Randy Gregory is going to fit into all of this.  But keep in mind that the 2019 edge-rusher group could look very different; Tyrone Crawford and DeMarcus Lawrence may both be elsewhere next year.  For Armstrong, I imagine a huge part of this year is finding a role to play on special teams and to keep developing his body, his technique, and his overall knowledge of the defense so that when the Cowboys need to call upon a talented young piece, he is ready.  This is developmental roster building at its finest and the Cowboys put together a nice group with this 2018 draft.  I really liked what Armstrong showed last night on a number of different snaps. He is on his way.

That is all I will look at this morning, but by Monday I will complete some video review of Jaylon Smith, Taco Charlton, Datone Jones, and Antwaun Woods as we continue to piece the front 7 of this defense together.  All in all, most everyone looks healthy and that is goal #1.  One more week of California before returning home to play the Bengals a week from tomorrow.

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