We had our plans for this defensive review piece until the news broke Tuesday night that the Cowboys finally decided that the Jaylon Smith era has come to a close.
In the interest of touching both ideas properly, allow me to give you initial thoughts on the release of Smith and then try to review the Carolina game as best we can in our allotted space.
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Cowboys release Jaylon Smith
The timing was a surprise, but if you read my space, you know that I have been thinking he is not on this 2021 roster via merit. We have written piece after piece about this matter and I want to provide you with a paper trail. It was partly a series of unfortunate events that got us here as the contract stipulates a decision made in March to lock in his 2021 cash. Well, that predates the April NFL Draft and the impossible revelation that Micah Parsons would be the first-round pick. Had those two dates been flipped, everything is done in the logical order, but the NFL Players Association will always protect the jobs of veterans first and that is why the NFL is the only sport that has free agency before the college draft. For good reason — make the teams show their cards.
But, once they had Smith and Parsons, then you had the oddity of your ex-wife still living in the house with your new wife and who would have thought that would add complexity to the situation? It was now about the exit strategy. The reason Parsons was the clear choice on draft day over someone like offensive tackle Rashawn Slater is that the Cowboys had an obvious and present need to fix one of their biggest weaknesses in 2020 at Smith’s spot. It doesn’t matter what his image was, his reality is there on tape for anyone interested.
Jerry Jones thought — as he always does — that things will smooth over in time and they probably did. Nobody should paint Smith as a malcontent. Because of the personnel situations with a league-leading COVID list along with other football injuries knocking the depth chart all over the place, Smith’s presence mitigated the idea of Parsons trying to replace DeMarcus Lawrence for a time.
Others in his front office knew what they were risking. If Smith would get injured enough to go to the injured reserve list, his 2022 money would likely become locked in for the $9.2 million in base salary. That was a substantial chance the Cowboys were taking. We are led to believe that they asked Smith to redo his deal to mitigate that potential situation and he wasn’t feeling it. He also was not helping them on special teams and with the return of several players to the active roster for Week 5, you could ask if the risk started to outweigh the reward of keeping him. Dallas probably had hopes of shopping him with reasonable tape at times from September, but that was never going to float with that 2022 contract millstone waiting. The player started thinking of a fresh start and the team had already taken its offramp in April with Parsons and Jabril Cox, not to mention inexpensive veteran free agents Keanu Neal and Jayron Kearse both playing a box safety/LB hybrid.
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It didn’t happen at the cutdowns, but it did happen a month into the season. The contract given in 2019 as an incentive to Dak Prescott to do business with the front office now goes off the books as one of the poorest deals the front office has ever written. I assume the team knew this quickly after it was signed, but Dallas literally paid him a ton of money for the first month of 2021 and then he paid them back a smaller ton of money to change his uniform number for the first month of 2021.
Here is a timeline of my many stories on this since the end of 2020.
Jan. 19: Our “watch the film” challenge with our football coaches panel of review experts
Jan. 21: My conclusions from the “watch the film” challenge
April 30: Cowboys ignore the sunk cost at linebacker and take Parsons
May 6: How will the Cowboys make five linebackers fit into two spots?
Aug. 15: One snap in Arizona says the problems are still very much there
Aug. 17: Cowboys Mailbag on Smith’s future
This one with a reader and my answer:
Jaylon Smith will be on the roster for the upcoming season. But a number of better options at LB are emerging. I don’t think Jaylon will start much and play as much as he did last season. Will Jaylon be on the team in 2023? I have my doubts that they’ll pay him all that $$ to be a backup/special teams player. — Scott C
I think there is a very slight chance he is on the roster in 2022 and a greater-than-zero chance he is not on the roster in 2021. Again, I take no joy in this, but I see some major issues with his ability to do his job and the money has already been spent. He cannot play special teams for the same reasons he cannot play linebacker at a high enough level. He will be given the benefit of the doubt from the team, but I am not very optimistic right now for his long-term spot here.
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And finally:
Sept. 7: This season is no longer about any linebacker but Micah Parsons
Anyone who read all of those pieces (and believed any of them) would probably not be shocked by this outcome in the slightest. The timing of a 3-1 team releasing this player at this moment might seem curious, but the risks of the cap room are a bigger deal than “upsetting a few friends” — so here we are.
Cowboys have a strong defensive showing vs. Carolina
There were certainly some reasons to suggest that the defense wasn’t strong enough against Carolina on Sunday and that red number for “points scored” isn’t ideal, but when this game mattered, I thought Dan Quinn’s defense bossed the Panthers around the turf pretty hard in that memorable third quarter.
The Cowboys were racking up sacks, stops and takeaways in a proper thumping and that is what we need to see plenty of.
DJ Moore is a superstar and he battled Trevon Diggs to about a draw. We will cover that in our film study.
First, the big numbers:
Everything looks great on there but the red zone and that will need to improve quickly.
Here is what Sam Darnold’s day looked like from Next Gen stats:
Lots of short throws with crossers, flats and screens. Get the ball out and make your quarterback’s job as easy as it can get. Also, you protect a mediocre offensive line that should struggle if asked to pass protect for long.
There are so many defenders who showed well in this game and the Splash Plays will reflect that again:
Week 4: Splash Plays vs. Carolina
Imagine Anthony Brown, Chauncey Golston and Jayron Kearse near the top of your splash plays in a win. … This is truly a season where the Cowboys are seeing many defenders step up in big numbers. Randy Gregory is starting to get home for sacks and most everyone is pitching in — not just the stars.
But Dallas is getting performances from its stars and Diggs is just that. He leads the team in season splash plays with 13 and has Parsons right behind him with 11. With Diggs being the player of the game in many respects, he is the topic of our film study.
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Film study
I love football a lot. But, I love the NFL more than college or high school. Why? Because the lower levels of this sport are almost always some manner of a mismatch. There are always more blowouts and mercy killings in those lower levels than you will find in the NFL — even though we claim to have lopsided matchups up here. Why? Because the NFL is a weekly Clash of the Titans. Best vs. best and the best in this sport is always very special.
This leads us to this from Eric who commented on the Morning After piece from Monday.
If you want details on the awesome matchup of Moore and Diggs, you have come to the right sports nerd.
Going into the weekend, we wondered how serious the Cowboys were with matching up Diggs again with the opponent’s top receiver. This is starting to happen more under Quinn and not only are the Cowboys matching up, but they are playing way more man coverage than before and now Diggs is even traveling from side to side to make sure that he is always locked in with Mike Evans or Moore.
On Sunday, there was talk of Diggs being maybe the best Cowboys corner since Deion Sanders following two more interceptions. By Monday, I saw a lot of fans upset at the grade Pro Football Focus gave Diggs. PFF suggested that Diggs finished 60th on Sunday out of 69 NFL cornerbacks who qualified from Week 4 games.
There is quite a gulf between 60th of the week and Deion Sanders in his prime, right?
What gives? Was Diggs actually not very good in this game and it was covered with the incredible deodorant of a few key plays late?
When you have Clash of the Titans, that tells us that both players are excellent. And Moore certainly was on Sunday with eight catches on 12 targets for 113 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for six more yards and all day was an all-around menace. He was great.
Here is his chart from Sunday and wow, that is really impressive stuff:
He is a star in the making in this league and impossible to chase down in the open field. You can see why they are building around him — especially if Christian McCaffrey is unavailable.
How much was against Diggs? According to Next Gen, quite a bit:
This could mean that Diggs is chasing him and it could mean “just lined up” so we need to dig deeper.
We do that here by going through the four biggest plays in the matchup — two big wins for Moore and two big wins for Diggs. Keep in mind that both of Smith’s touchdowns were late in the game and when Diggs was out with back tightness combined with huge fourth quarter lead.
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1Q – 4:45 – first-and-10 – Dallas 38-yard line
This play is not against man coverage, but it is still something Diggs needs to do better. Moore (2) is lined up on his side against a Cover 3 look and when he takes the middle of the field, Diggs goes with him. There is no action to Diggs’ side and therefore he carries Moore to the catch. I think at that point, if he simply gets in on the tackle, everything is fine. Instead, he allows others to make the tackle and looks like an innocent bystander as Moore runs for 20 more yards.
3Q – 14:32 – first-and-13 – Carolina 22-yard line
This is the other one that probably hurt Diggs’ grade — a crossing pattern designed to run him through traffic. Moore gets underneath and once he catches it in stride, he is off for 39 yards. Diggs never really gets too close to the action and you can see how he sort of is taken out of the play. Again, it is a very tough assignment, but I can understand the grading not covering him in glory.
3Q – 3:48 – third-and-5 – Carolina 45-yard line
Diggs gets back on the positive side of the ledger with this great zone defense interception when Darnold panics and guesses where Robby Anderson is going and gets it way wrong. From Monday:
Quinn has been sending blitzes continuously, so you can understand the Panthers’ disposition when they see linebackers “double-mugging the A-gaps.” This, of course, is a disguise, because at the snap, Parsons and Leighton Vander Esch are both going to their zone spot drops and there are only four rushers coming. Darnold is expecting man coverage and gets zone, which explains how he never imagined Diggs standing right where Robby Anderson is headed in what might be an over-route. The pass and the route don’t sync up and the Cowboys intercepted the ball with the guy who is always doing it — Diggs returns it to the Carolina 37 with 3:37 to go.
3Q – 1:28 – third-and-3 – Carolina 32-yard line
And then the dagger play was this amazingly athletic play by Diggs.
The Cowboys again dial up a blitz and again base it on Parsons right over the center. Darnold is guessing and with the pocket closing, he wants the quick three-step drop to Moore again. Diggs is playing off and trying to bait Darnold and at this point, it doesn’t take much coaxing. Darnold wanders right into the trap and Diggs makes a playmaking special interception to grab his second takeaway in two minutes and give Dallas another short field.
So, did Diggs deserve the poor grades? My answer is that I am not too bothered about these subjective grades. I admit that both of these fine players had very good moments on Sunday and won their share. Diggs has now been elevated to the highest level of corners by many (best since Deion!) and that means the bar is absurdly high. Lock down the best in the league and shut them out. Very rare and it is possible the bar is so high that even the best will fall short.
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But, make no mistake, Diggs is special. How special? There are several categories of top corners. We will need to let it play out to see what he ultimately becomes. Is he a splash-play guy who makes a lot of highlight plays, but also gets beat plenty? Is he a consistent player who doesn’t get the splash plays much, but also doesn’t get beat? Or is he that magical hybrid who makes plays and still never gets beaten?
If he is in the last category, we will need to make room for him in Canton. For now, he leads the NFL in interceptions and the Cowboys in splash plays and I believe Quinn will happily take both.
(Top photo of Jaylon Smith: Tom Pennington / Getty Images)