00:00the great bobby belt bobby knows ball hey let's talk ball where the ball knows and we just talk
00:06ball is christian parker getting better or is it time to throw analytics in the trash let's talk
00:11about it here in below the belt which is sponsored by dnm leasing you know how occasionally before
00:17we get to christian parker i do got a note uh cowboys eagles watch party tonight with uh lucius
00:23alec and fred they'll be hanging out at twin peaks in plano 3312 north central expressway
00:29they got custom tolo hoodies that they're i believe raffling off so go on out say hey to them i
00:34think
00:34i'll be out there for a little bit too so if you want to come by and say hey first
00:37you said you were
00:38now you're saying i think i'm going to be out there i don't know if i'll be out there the
00:42whole time
00:42that's what i said i think i'll be out there for at least a little bit i don't know how
00:45long i'll be
00:45there but it'll uh it'll be a good time so go on out there get your drinks party it up
00:49with uh the
00:50boys have a good time get you a custom tolo hoodie uh all right you know how we talk about
00:54pff in the
00:56terms of like there are always these litmus tests where you look at like a caleb williams grade or
01:02oh caleb williams was graded behind cam ward this clearly means that this is dumb or oh there's this
01:09this outcome over here shows that this is dumb well does that prove this with analytics right here when
01:14we talk about christian parker now you would say sean that you feel like some improvements with the
01:19dallas defense particularly the game this most recent game against the packers where you felt
01:25like it looked different like the eye test alone just kind of said that looks different yeah the
01:29first series even though it ended up negatively i i felt more energy i saw more action i saw more
01:38aggressiveness i felt like they were trying to come after the quarterback the game plan felt
01:42different so i felt really good about that and then of course one of their achilles heels how many
01:48you have two two achilles heels yep you do have two yeah one of their seven achilles heels bit them
01:53with third down but then i felt like throughout the game and maybe this is just speaking to how
01:57embarrassing the offense was with dak and schottenheimer i had more faith in christian
02:03parker in the defense than i did the offense that was that was the most legitimate i felt about the
02:09cowboys defense after the green bay game and it led me to say they will not give up over 25
02:15points
02:15and the next three and that for me is a uh that's a that's a victory that's improvement
02:20that's it that is improvement so that's improvement chop you feel better about them lately
02:26um just done an eye test yeah yes and i'm just saying briefly i'm not saying anything major here
02:31yeah um yeah i mean look i mean a little bit a little bit like but that's that's all i
02:38can ask for
02:38i'm not asking for them to you move the tides here yeah well i mean you weren't early in the
02:43season
02:44now you might be if the offense keeps playing terrible now you're like well the defense has
02:47to win us games because the offense has been bad uh but no this is you're starting to look a
02:51little
02:52more i think like the version of the defense that everybody said that's all we need if the offense
02:58is as good as we think it is like you're starting to get closer to just be a little better
03:02like get an
03:02extra few stops that's all we need uh so over on the adrenaline podcast which is sean lee and zach
03:09martin uh for sean lee's company adrenaline which does uh a bunch of advanced analytics we've played
03:16some of the audio from his discussions and things like that um but over at that podcast which he
03:20co-hosts with an analytics guru named judah fort gang they had talked about the improvements that
03:27the dallas defense has shown specifically since the porter trade what you got is this real i'm reading
03:33i'm looking at it let's look at it save it for nine um we've got a cowboys player with a
03:39gun being
03:39pointed at him while on the ground cuffed nine o'clock oh well that doesn't sound too good uh all
03:46right so judah fort gang who is the analytics guy within their podcast that they do sean lee had just
03:52gotten done breaking down why he thought joey porter was incredible in this game against the packers and
03:57what he thinks that joey porter can do for their defense jones trying to crap on joey porter
04:03with a keep to leave being like you don't like joey port you don't think he's like he's good for
04:06a
04:06flag you two flags a game and and and the keeps like yeah but he doesn't give up he's been
04:11good for
04:11two touchdowns his whole career he don't give up touchdowns a pac-man was kind of crapping on him
04:15speaking of guns being pointed at people jones yeah uh all right so this is judah fort gang right
04:20after the breakdown of joey porter talking with sean lee about the improvements that this defense is
04:25showing even just to put some data out to it it's like not just in isolation like obviously you can
04:30erase that number one player but as you said you blitz more you take more risk you play more single
04:34high cowboys like perfect coverage rates these are plays in which everyone does their job week one
04:3923 week two 26 week three 13 week four 30 quarter 51 60 massive increases right that completely
04:48transforms the nature of your defense yeah and you saw it as a game went on i mean like you
04:52said you
04:52were able to pressure there's still improvement to be made how boys lose i think we knew that was going
04:57to be a tough game yeah and so how can you build off that to me you do it with
05:01porter and then you
05:02do it with some of the young guys defensively now they're all very excited about what porter's done
05:06this i should point out and i don't know if judah realizes this uh that 50 one that increase that
05:13was joey porter out for that game that was he was he was sick in that one but it still
05:18improved up
05:18from the first three weeks the first week that he was here and joey porter to be fair they're talking
05:24a
05:24lot about hey you're seeing dallas do these things now they're able to blitz more they're able to take
05:28away this guy more they're able to do this or that and those that's in line with what christian
05:34parker and brian schottenheimer said they thought porter could do for them that they felt like if he
05:38can take some stuff away it opens up more things for us to do in the front seven or the
05:43front six or
05:44however you look at that if we're just able to get some more stable coverage and so it could be
05:49that
05:49porter really is sort of the key to unlock what they wanted to do coverage wise at least now you've
05:55got to have the other guys playing at just even a average level for that to make a damn bit
06:00of
06:00difference if you're still giving up big like busts down the field like when you know caleb downs got
06:07beat recently or when you had savon revel getting beat down the field or deron bland slipping bland was
06:13much better in this last game but when you have those sort of things happen it sort of neutralizes
06:17neutralizes whatever benefit there is but is that a coincidence are we starting to see all right
06:22the joey porter effect maybe that is the effect that has boosted rashawn gary for instance gary's
06:28rates in terms of being able to pressure the quarterback have gone up since the acquisition
06:32of porter and is that because there's just more time to be able to play free and to bring the
06:37blitz
06:37and bring a little bit more pressure those are the things that are at least starting to show up a
06:41little bit for the cowboys defensively and encouraging notes right there but is that
06:47a case where perfect coverage rates and things like that is that just to you a silly analytic
06:53that all right that maybe shouldn't be measured as to whether or not the parker defense is playing
06:58better because that doesn't look like a 60 perfect coverage rate unit at the moment well it's hard
07:04for me to figure out the weight of porter's impact i'm i'm through the roof excited about joey porter
07:10right now like it's not like this is how i wanted to feel about caleb downs to start off the
07:16year
07:17um and again bobby said it christian parker said it the other day caleb downs is not going to do
07:22a
07:22ton of things that show up in the stat sheet but i'm glued to i'm glued to joey porter when
07:28he got
07:28deactivated on thursday night and richard sherman accused him of faking uh i was it was gut punch not
07:36because i was necessarily worried about the game i still thought they were going to win wrong wrong
07:40wrong wrong i wanted to watch him play that's why i'm right now i want to watch this daggone guy
07:45play
07:46yeah to see how freaking because i was not paying attention to him in pittsburgh and but but deron
07:51bland like he almost had his interception against green bay but you know stepping out of bounds um
07:57you got a mere speed yeah ready steward but i'm really hoping it has an impact on bland i really
08:03do i i like
08:04porter um this is exactly the kind of corner i've always liked i like that byron jones one i don't
08:09want to hear people we all like him but i want to hear people like a year now hey where's
08:13the
08:13interceptions because he's not a pick guy it's like one a year he's not a big time interception guy but
08:18he's coverage you know and there's value in there's value not letting somebody catch the ball against you
08:22yeah i see i remember richard sherman used to push back against the idea of great cornerbacks don't get
08:30interceptions because you don't throw it over there he's like no he goes the best cornerbacks get
08:34interceptions because you make it look a certain way and then you bait a quarterback into doing
08:38something where you make them think that they're comfortable he's like just because you get a bunch
08:42of interceptions doesn't mean you're great but the greatest quarterbacks or cornerbacks will bait
08:46a quarterback into throwing something they don't want to and that's easy for richard sherman to
08:50say because he got eight interceptions one year and so he's probably going to say that makes me
08:53great i'm awesome doing that great cornerbacks uh travel that's right richard they travel
08:57he doesn't uh over at the athletic by the way they uh this is something that we had i travels
09:02people's front doorstep yes he does uh we had mentioned this uh that'll get forgotten blown
09:07over i don't know because that was a like was that a second incident it was a pretty disturbing
09:11video too of how hard he was just smashing and worried about biden and fort worth richard started
09:16that yeah that's i mean there wasn't even a follow-up to that like nothing no that just kind of
09:20disappeared and he was able to keep going uh okay over at the athletic they had done this research
09:25last week i thought this was interesting austin mock ted winn jordan rodrigue mike sando a bunch of their
09:29like league trends people had decided to look at trends that are changing across the league because
09:34they say every year you got a new thing last year it was 13 personnel was a big thing we've
09:38obviously
09:38seen motion in recent years or something that oh wow this jumped so what's changing about the nfl so
09:43far and you tell me if you've noticed any of this uh quarterbacks are back under center at a much
09:48higher
09:48rate than they've been in the nfl in recent years they say offenses are aligning under center 47 of the
09:53time on early downs which was the highest rate in 10 years so that would be pretty high why would
09:59they
09:59be uh it's probably just trying to counter some stuff with run looks i would imagine um they
10:05didn't have a big answer for that they were just saying it's one of the trends that they're seeing
10:08but it's a action up huh is play action up i they don't have that note in here of if
10:13play actions
10:13up or not i haven't looked at the numbers league wide i know dallas's play action is down because that
10:16would make sense if play actions up because obviously it's much easier to do it out of the i want
10:20i run
10:21rates i would wonder if they're up and if you're trying to do that more out of under center looks
10:24you
10:24could do that uh defenses are countering with linebacker blitzes they said it says defenses
10:29are using an old school tactic to counter that rise in under center alignments they're blitzing
10:32their linebackers much more frequently uh linebacker blitzes are being used on 20 21 of dropbacks when
10:39quarterbacks are under center and that's up from 10 last year uh one of the other things we're seeing
10:43coverages behind blitzers are also changing uh they said about three percent increase in the rate of
10:49five man blitzes and so because of that you're starting to see they're playing different sort of
10:53coverages in the back end you're starting to see a little bit more cover four uh and the golden age
10:57of tight end experimentation rolls on they say tight end usage is on the rise again 22 tight ends were
11:02selected in the draft that's the most in 20 years and so far this season tight end scoring is way
11:07up
11:07and the ways in which tight ends are being used is very different and you're starting to see on average
11:12depth target you know air yards per target things like that are much higher for tight ends this season
11:17than they have been and finally coaches other than dan campbell are significantly dialing back the
11:23fourth down play calling they're punting and kicking way more often oh really you're starting
11:28to see that as a downturn they said that they're seeing a 22 percent drop this year below the bell
