Lately the entire footballing world has been saying how huge a blow it is to lose Terrell Owens. Saying that the cowboys need him to succeed, that letting him go was a mistake, how without his amazing production the cowboys will be as stagnant an offense as there can be, and that their hopes of reaching that holy grail (ONE playoff win) can’t happen now. I beg to differ. I have performed a numerical study to determine just how important T.O. Owens was to this team, and have come to the conclusion that with a few basic…BASIC improvements to the cowboys overall game, TO’s production can be negated as an offensive yard gainer. So here we go, or should I say, “Getcha popcorn ready.”
--In this study it should be noted, before I begin, that I am counting yards as the greatest asset TO brought to this team. Sure you can argue he drew double coverage, which is fine, but he also caused a riff in the locker room, so one might say he made our team a double team, so we’re not going to take that into a consideration. Also you might argue he was a prolific scorer. I answer this by asking if you can score touchdowns without yards? The answer is no, you cannot, yards are a statistical necessity for the ever important touchdown, so yards will be the basis of this and his most desirable asset he brought to the Cowboys.
--Determining T.O.’s yards per game—
T.O. played three years with the cowboys, playing in 47 games, with 3,587 total receiving yards.
This means that T.O. averaged 76.319 yards per game.
People argue these are yards the cowboys cannot replace, or can they?
Roy E. Williams, or the biggest disappointment of last year second only to getting crushed by they that shall not be named in the final game of the season, only averaged 19.8 yards per game for the ‘boys last season. When he played for Detroit (4 years) he averaged a much more respectable 66.4 yards per game. If he can reproduce his average production from Detroit (which he better, being the number one receiver in a better offense now) he will put up 46.4 ypg (66.4-19.8) better than he originally did. This takes quite a bit of yardage the cowboys need to cover the loss of Owens.
T.O.’s totals = 76.319-46.4 = 29.919 ypg
T.O. just got much more ordinary, if Roy can produce at a high level
A huge problem that the cowboys had last season were all the penalties they had to deal with. Negating a loss of yards is just like gaining them, and that’s what this section is attempting to discuss. The cowboys had the most penalties called on them in the NFC, with the 2nd most yards assessed against them at 952 yds in total penalties. Divide this by 16, the number of games, and you are given 59.5 ypg in penalties. Try not to puke. That’s more than half the field we gifted the other team that we lost, and I’m not even taking into account long yardage situations call for more passing yards, which would inflate Terrell’s numbers slightly. Now lets say the Cowboys can become an average penalized team, to be in the dead center of the league in penalties, to be EXTREMELY mediocre in this category. Doable? I would hope so. The avg. NFL team is given 44.5275 yards in penalties per game. If we subtract the average team’s penalty yards from the cowboy’s average penalty yards, we find that they gain back 14.9725 yards; this is if they become the AVERAGE total in the NFL. This is a very doable goal, and one step closer to covering for the loss of Terrell Owens.
T.O.’s totals = 29.919-14.9725 = 14.9465 ypg.
T.O. is wildly ordinary at this point, but why stop here?
Two more things for the cowboys to do, first is get Sam Hurd back. He didn’t play last year, but if he plays next year and averages his subpar ypg from his two previous years with the cowboys, he’ll have added 12.15625 ypg, not to mention I actually expect much more from him next season. Anyway, after this deduction from the T.O. total, you get…
T.O.’s totals = 14.9725 -12.15625 = 2.79025 ypg.
Now T.O.’s production equals to a really poor receiver, one of the worst in the NFL, and this might be a fine place to stop, but I have one more request from the cowboys.
The Cowboys threw 20 interceptions last year. Set aside the thought that it was because Tony had to force passes to the dastardly Owens to keep him happy, resulting in picks, this is an unacceptable total of interceptions. I will again ask the Cowboys to reach just the AVERAGE level of interceptions thrown in the league per year (13.625 ints). Set aside the worst part of an interception, the fact that you LOSE the FOOTBALL, lets just take into account yards lost per each interception. The average yards lost when an interception is thrown across the league is about 15.4195 yards, this means I am asking the cowboys to throw 6.0625 interceptions less to be extremely mediocre next season, which will regain them 93.48071875 yards over the year, divided by the number of games, which would gain them 5.8425 yards, moving T.O.s totals into negative numbers.
T.O.’s totals = 2.79025 – 5.8425 = -3.05225 ypg.
This, as some of you might point out, puts us where we were last year, which is a decent season with no playoff birth. Need I remind you though, we will have an excellent, and I mean EXCELLENT running game barring the meltdown we experienced last year. A QB with 1 more year under his belt who is just getting better, a defense that I will write about next post to tell you just how great they’ll be, and a team without trouble makers like T.O.
All I ask of the cowboys are 4 simple things, Roy and Hurd needs to produce and we need to become average on penalties and interceptions. This will completely cover the loss of T.O., and will make our team much better in the process. Please comment to tell me what you think, BLAKE OUT!
Wednesday
P-P-P-PREVIEW!!!
So before I fly into my next posts, allow me to set up a sort of schedule, as it were, so that you can know what to expect and when to check back for posts (you should check every day with bated breath for we bring truth (or subscribe in your RSS reader, link to your right)). During the coming weeks, Sam and I will be previewing the team; discussing position skill, depth, and problems; and giving you our view of the boys and what we think you should expect from next season. Training camp is in a week, and Sam and I might be taking a trip to San Antonio to watch some of that (we’re hardcore, we know), which will give the first true hints of what the season will bring us and will give us more than just our opinions to blog about.
Then preseason will come along, and we’ll keep our eyes on those games and let you know which one of us looks like they were correct with their predictions, and we’ll be blogging after those games to let you know what you missed, who played well, and who looks promising (let’s face it, you won’t be watching preseason games, that’s where we come in).
Then it’s time for the real deal, the regular season will roll around, and our blogging will come fast and furious. Blogging pregame for predictions, during the game to mock the incorrect predictor, and after the game to discuss what went right, or god forbid, wrong. Then we’ll be bringing you cowboys’ news and news from around the NFL during the week if we deem it blog worthy, essentially doing all the work for you, reading all the articles and summarizing them for you so you don’t have to.
Essentially we offer you the "holy grail" of sports news, which is to get someone else to do all the work for you and then take their opinions and use them as your own. Anyway, subscribe! Give us a chance. If we don’t fit what you want, then leave us, but give us a chance for awhile, and see what we’re all about. Thanks ol’ buddy and I hope to see you back soon.
What to expect from coming posts:
1.) We’ll be bringing you our overall views of the team, what we expect from this year, and what we’ve seen this offseason and last season to give us these views
2.) We’ll break down each position, telling you where there are weaknesses, and where we see strengths, and pinpointing key players throughout the roster for you to watch, basically giving you names to drop in case you should need quick sports knowledge
3.) We’ll be previewing the other teams in the division, who looks good, who looks bad (none of them?) and what you can expect from one of the best divisions in football
By this point it should be time for training camp, bringing us a whole batch of new stuff to write about, so we’ll give you a new schedule then.
All of these posts should be arriving over the next week, so check back, thanks for reading, we’ll see ya around, Blake OUT!
Hey Baby, how you doin?
So as Sam said, this is a new blog, and like a newborn child, it needs to learn to crawl before it can walk, but let me see if I can cause a small bit of intrigue into this, our baby, with this first post concerning the blog itself and many posts to come. This post, as it were, is to be a preview, a summary, and a peak at what this blog might actually form into, so I hope you like what you read. So before I go for the gold, where I’ll be tossing out all my wild sports opinions about the cowboys next season, allow me to plug why this blog will be worth returning to.
Sam and I can see the future for one, so if you’re a betting man, this is where you should visit. Also Sam and I might be giving away 4 tickets to a cowboy’s game if you subscribe to this blog today, so if that sounds like your cup of tea we might oblige. Fine, you want more? Well there will be no money (as Sam pointed out, we’re college gentlemen aka broke), but what we can promise, is that if you continue following this blog, you will receive total consciousness…so you’ve got that going for you. Alright alright, so what can we actually bring to the table?
Well for one we’re more than a bit obsessive about football, and wildly opinionated on how the game should be played. Even more so than that though, is the true intrigue of the blog, which is that Sam and I disagree about the sports we love almost all the time. Meaning that not only will you get the view you probably agree with, you will almost assuredly get the opposing views as well. This is important to get a full view of your team and a view of fans, and to arm yourself with the opinions we bring to the table for you to battle with during the weeks to come whilst debating football. This alone is worth reading our posts, because one of us will always be right, together we form a set. We are the yin and yang of the sporting world if you will, two halves to form a whole. Anyway, enough of that, lest I get drawn into crazy word shenanigans like my boy Sam, let’s just say this blog is worth a try, and I hope you’ll give it one.
Monday
Welcome to Dallas Football Guys No. 1
Like a fine perfume, we only get better with age, which, of course, mean that this will be the worst, least spell-checked edition of FBG, which, let's face it, sort of is arrising to fill a need that the Ticket, television news, ESPN, Deadspin, etc. etc., has already attempted to fill completley.
But just like in that story where you can put lots of things in a jar, from big rocks, to gravel, to smaller gravel, to sand, well, in that story, we are water. Hear us roar. And the roar shall be loud, and, lo, long.
But lets just get one thing straight- we are here to fill a void. Because, let us face it, like men, there needs to be more opinions on proffessional sports from college students. So we shall give them. Come forth, my yearning masses, my unwashed friends, my increasingly wild prose, and be bathed, be cleansed in the fountain of eternal football. In short, welcome again to Football Guys 24/7.
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