The defense for the Cowboys is excellent. Their alignments varied a lot and they tackle very well.
I think excellent is a bit much as their DBs are questionable. I agree they have the talent to play excellent when everything falls together. Seems like you could say that about most teams so I would include them with the top defensive teams.
Look at your summary. It's not that the Patriots were sloppy so much as they ran into a very tough defense that stoned them until they were totally gassed at the end on the road.
The Jets offense was stoned in the first quarter last night. The Pats made it into scoring range 5 of 8 drives before the final one. Only one of those drives was influenced by field position and only one took more than 4 minutes. The Pats were 7-12 on 3rd downs on those drives. Brady has a 97 QB rating in the first half and the RBs averaged 4 ypc.
If I told you the above situations would happen against Dallas in the first 8 drives, you would have taken it in a heartbeat. If I told you the above situation happened to the Pats defense, you would have said they were getting abused. You may have been stoned when you made your evaluation, but I'm not sure I would used "stoned" in my assessment of the Dallas defense.
The turnovers were caused by a tipped ball (good defense), Brady getting hammered as he threw (good defense), and a tremendous strip on Hernandez (good defense).
Here is how I would assess those plays:
- Tipped pick: Good play by Coleman to get his hand up. Poor coverage as Branch was wide open. Tremendous luck as ball flew like a heat-seeking missile directly to Newman.
- Lee pick: Great pressure by Spears (I think). Poor decision by Brady, though Branch (I think) was wide open deep behind the coverage. Again amazing luck that the ball went right to Lee.
- Hernandez fumble: James was lost on the play and Hernandez was lonely for a couple of seconds but Brady didn't see him. The strip by James was a good play as he got a hand on the ball but Hernandez lost ball focus (as he seems to do) just before he hit the ground.
So good defense on all the plays but nothing exceptional. Bad luck and/or bad play caused the situations to become turnovers. Again, not an indictment of the Cowboys but no reason to overplay what actually happened.
Coverage was good all night until the final drive and the sacks were good players beating other good players. There were no dumb mistakes up front, just really tough matchups. It was impressive seeing Mankins get beat in the first half on an overload scheme that got him turned sideways as the rush came. Good coaching and great execution.
Except for the "coverage was good all night until the final drive" statement, I would agree with everything you said. The first sack was understandable as the routes took too long to uncover. The second sack was Ware being the top hombre on the field. Just sick.
The Cowboys are a tough defense and they played well Sunday. The point of the thread is whether or not Ryan has a scheme/plan that is kryptonite against Brady. I saw nothing in what the Cowboys threw at the Pats that they couldn't handle if they didn't make uncharacteristic mistakes.