Good read here.

I had to post this breakdown of the Cowboys defense that was posted on a message board by a poster named "ConstantReboot." This guy is "spot-on" with his thoughts on the problems the Cowboys are having on the defensive side of the ball. Enjoy.

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I want to once and for all clarify why I hate Zimmers defense. I don't hate the man. I just hate how he makes this team play defense. Its his stupid scheme called the zone coverage that I really, really hate.

Zimmer's mainstay defense is the zone coverage defense. It seems that its played about 95% of the time. Once in a while he would blitz a linebacker, but our basic defense is zone coverage and rushing 4 men during passing downs. Now think about....why would you play a zone when you have one of the best man to man cover corner in football and a pretty good #2 corner in Henry?

My opinion is that our zone defense is the defenses major weakness. Here is why:

1. It doesn't play up to our players talent and abilities. We all know that Roy is better close to the LOS. We also know that Newman is as close as there is to a shutdown corner. We also have a pretty good #2 corner in Henry.

However, Roy is not really that great in coverage. If so why do we play a zone scheme or even a 2 deep zone with Roy going deep covering the other teams best recievers? Why can't we go man to man coverage with our corners running stride for stride with the receivers downfield? Its harder and seems more complicated to have our corners pass off receivers to the safeties in a zone coverage and it just has hard to figure out who is supposed to be covering who. Lets face it. The zone defense looks good on paper. But it doesn't work.

2. When we play zone, our linebackers play 10 feet back from the LOS. Then when the ball is snap, they backtrack further away from the LOS and go into coverage. Why? Linebackers in a 3-4 are more effective closer to the line than in pass coverage. The zone makes our linebackers play to what the offense is showing. We need to disquise our blitzes and have the possibility of blitzing our linebackers from anywhere.

3. Lastly, this is the same zone defense that Zimmer runs year after year. There has been no changes to this scheme whatsoever. Even when Miami blitzed us with a no name QB in 2003 it was the same defense. This makes this zone defense easier to score against. Easier to gameplan and basically easier to play against.

The only difference is that we now run a 3-4 alignment. But the philosophy of that bend but don't break zone defense is still ingrained into this defense.

We need to dump this foolish zone defense into the trash.

We need to mix up the defense by going to a man to man pressure type of defense.

Make Newman shadow the opponents best reciever. Give Henry safety help deep. This should free up Roy Williams to come closer to the LOS. Use Burnett more into coverage....especially, those runningbacks and TEs that come out into the flat.

Allow Burnett to shadow some of the other teams best runningbacks such as Tiki Barber and Reggie Bush. We are totally under utilizing Burnett's cover skills by having him sit on the bench and he can take over cover duties for Ware.

Move Ware around. Allow him free reign in rushing the passer. The offense will send their best runningback out in the flat to expose Ware's passrushing. We can then counter that by bringing Burnett to cover the runningback.

Alternate Ratliff and Hatcher like we alternate Jones/Barber. At least it makes it harder for teams to gameplan when we have different personnel all the time. And it gives Spears/Canty resting time.

Blitz other linebackers such as Akin rather than just Ware.

With this aggressive man to man defense we stick with the strength of the team and allow them to play their game instinctually. All in all, I think this style of defense that will fit this team and would give opposing teams fits. There won't be anymore easy Zimmer's zone defense to contend with anymore.

I'm not saying I know more about defense than Zimmer. But I know he ain't doing a good job. He is the defensive coordinator and needs to make this team into a championship defense. So far he has been nothing more than a disappointment.

Thats why I'm all for getting a new def. coordinator next year. Zimmer won't change this defense and we will waste another year of teams taking advantage of our weak zone defense.

We have talent on this team. He just doesn't know how to use them.