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Thought i would post parts of something i found on a dallas message board, a real good analysis of JJ's defensive scheme during the game. You can read the whole thing here: http://cowboys.beloblog.com/archives/2007/12/tale_of_the_tape_9.html
by Albert Breer:
So much for the Eagles being a speed bump on the way to home-field advantage. Should’ve known it, too. The only thing really surprising about the whole thing is that the Eagles didn’t cough it up the end, like they have all season. Here’s what we got:
? Over the course of this year, I’ve lauded Tony Romo for his ability to quickly get rid of the ball in the face of a blitz, by identifying where the rush is coming from and attacking that area. The receivers, too, have been great in finding that hole, sitting down in it, and giving the quarterback a place to go. And that’s why you have to give Jim Johnson, the Eagles DC, all the credit in the world for one thing he did with his blitzing on Sunday. It started with this: Johnson knew that against the Cowboys offensive line, he’d have to play some games to bring heat. So on several occasions, he overloaded one side or another, bringing two extra rushers on that end. He’d then drop the defensive end on the opposite side to cover any checkdown in the flat. Then, things got real interesting. In a lot of these situations, Romo would have a hot read to a receiver in the area vacated by the rush. But Johnson had that covered. He’d rotate his coverage to bring a defender down quickly into the open area, which made Romo hesitate or led to a pass defensed in plenty of spots. It was tougher to do to Jason Witten, who’s so big that he can get body position and catch the ball. But to the slot side, it was effective. And it, at times forced Romo to go deeper into his progressions on what normally is an easy read.
? Another thing Johnson seemed to do well also related to this. Those defensive linemen and linebackers seemed to be schooled to get their hands up in these blitz situations. So if Romo was going to throw into the blitz, as he does quite a bit, he was going to have find a lane that – with one side or another overloaded – often wasn’t there. The Cowboys did adjust, taking more shots down field against the Eagles. And, in fact, Patrick Crayton’s big 41-yarder in the third quarter was against a five-man rush. But with the secondary they have, the Eagles seemed comfortable taking their chances in not allowing Romo to nickel and dime them to death. Thing is, you have to wonder if Romo fell in love with the deep ball too much here. At least twice, I saw the quarterback tossing to T.O., with guys on him, with a singled Jason Witten underneath. Most costly, was a second-and-4 from the Philly 4 in the second quarter. Romo tried to get a ball between to two defenders to Owens in the back of the end zone, while Witten had position on his man just shy of the goal line. The Cowboys got the ball back after the pick-and-Eagle-fumble on the next play. But the field goal only mean they blew four points, and not seven.
? Criticism on the team’s lack of commitment to running the ball is raining down right now, and I do think there’s reason to worry. Grinding out yards and wearing a defense down because an attitude and, eventually, a part of a team’s identity. Earlier in the season, the physical-beating-down of an offense was part of the offense’s ethos. No more. And part of it is pretty simple. When you’re not running the ball a lot, you may not forget how to do it, but you don’t get better at it. And execution suffers. Two examples come from the second quarter. On a first-and-10 on their own 44, the Cowboys went “power” right on the defense. Marc Colombo, the play-side tackle, and fullback Oliver Hoyte pulled. Both of them went to seal off Chris Gocong. Gocong had his path to the ball taken away, sure, but his occupying two blockers allowed Trent Cole to get in the hole off a block and bury Julius Jones for no gain. Two plays later, Omar Gaither, Philly’s Mike linebacker, came on a run blitz and went right past right guard Kyle Kosier, who was helping on one of the defensive linemen. Gaither wound up stringing Jones out by flattening out and playing the line, then buried him on the edge f. Point is, you can practice these plays until you’re blue in the face. But a line and its accompanying fullbacks and tight ends, won’t build confidence in a play-call and an understanding of assignments and areas to block without actually running the plays in question. You’d hope, with the playoffs a couple weeks away, the Cowboys will This all was also true when Philly ran safety blitzes. It was like no one knew how to block that.
? Marion Barber killed the Eagles blitz in the last game, and the Eagles weren’t going to let that happen again. When Barber was in on pass pro, Philly stationed a linebacker over him, and had that person spy to prevent the bruising back from slipping out into the flat or the middle to add another checkdown to Romo’s progression. This, in fact, led to a sack on a beautifully performed delay in the fourth quarter. On the Cowboys second-to-last offensive play, Barber was kept into block. He then saw a linebacker step up into an A gap, stepped up and ran at him, then broke to sideline. But just as he crossed the line of scrimmage, defensive tackle Broderick Bunkley looped inside, and came clean at Romo, with Barber having already left the backfield. The key was timing. Bunkley came around just as Barber was releasing, giving the Cowboys little chance. This is an adjustment to the way the Cowboys played Eagle “hug” blitzes in November, when Barber would run a delayed route to draw in linebackers.
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