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So Were the Eagles Ready for 5-Down Dallas Fronts, or Not?
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There’s been a lot of chatter this week following postgame comments from Landon Dickerson in Dallas. The Eagles guard suggested that they weren’t totally prepared for 5-man defensive fronts. That raised some eyebrows from the film guys, because it’s something Dallas has been doing much more of since they traded for Quinnen Williams. It was noticeable on tape from the Raiders game and makes a lot of sense based on how their defensive personnel shakes out.
Dickerson clarified what he meant Monday night on WIP:
“I was not insinuating that the coaches did not prepare us for this game. I was just saying that it was something that, you know, when you’re playing that game, you’re kind of playing Vegas odds. And when we look back on it, on all the games they played, I know the week before they switched up, they run a five down front. Did a little bit. But then you look at the ten games before that, you see what they’re doing. I mean, it would be great if somebody would call ahead and tell us, hey, we’re going to run this defense. And then we could just focus on that.”
And here’s what Nick Sirianni had to say about it:
Kevin Patullo more or less echoed Sirianni’s sentiments. He talked about playing percentages and the fact that you don’t know what you’re going to get from the opponent until the game is actually played.
For what it’s worth, the Sportradar data looks like this in terms of how Dallas lined up defensively in Week 12:
They played a good amount of 5-man fronts with three defensive tackles. Snap wise, Kenny Clark played 63%, Osa Odighizuwa played 67%, Solomon Thomas 30%, and Quinnen Williams 73%. Before trading for Williams, Clark and Odighizuwa both played more than 75% of the snaps in Week 9.
But to really answer the question of how much it affected the Eagles, you have to go back and identify how many times they showed 5-man fronts when they were getting hammered, vs. when they were mounting the comeback. On the first two Birds touchdowns, Dallas was playing four down linemen with two linebackers and five defensive backs. Then the tush push is obviously a goal line scrum with everybody on both sides at the line of scrimmage.
Otherwise, scanning the film again, the Cowboys played 5-man fronts once during the first Eagles touchdown drive, four times during the second Eagles touchdown drive, and zero times during the third Eagles touchdown drive. They did run some disguised looks with 5+ guys AT the line, but not necessarily 5-2 with three DTs and two edge rushers. In his initial quote, Dickerson suggested that Dallas started that way, but it doesn’t seem to match up on tape. So unless I’m missing something here, it seems like the main adjustment the Cowboys made was to show more of the 5-down stuff as the game progressed, and then the Eagles offense failed to score from there.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com