If there’s one thing that is certain after the 2019 season, it’s that the Dallas Cowboys’ defense needs a change. Their simplistic defenses just weren’t going to lead to consistent, effective play with the given personnel.

Luckily for them, new head coach Mike McCarthy also believes the defense needs change, saying flat out the system is going to change when asked by reporters last week.

That change is going to be managed by Mike Nolan, who McCarthy hired as the Cowboys’ new defensive coordinator.

Because it’s still January (why does Dallas’ Week 17 win feel like it happened years ago?), most of the changes Nolan will implement are disguised behind vague terms such as having a multiple or “swarming” defense that places a greater emphasis on forcing turnovers. While that’s all well and good, the secret sauce is how the Cowboys plan to accomplish those goals — that will demonstrate real change to the defense.

Nolan did intimate that the Cowboys are going to curtail their scheme around the skill sets of the personnel instead of trying to force square pegs into round holes. While this idea does indicate a change in philosophy, it still doesn’t tell much about the changes that will be apparent on Sundays during the fall.

So without further ado, let’s discuss a few of the changes fans can expect from a Nolan-led Cowboys defense.

More beef at defensive tackle

Vice president of player personnel Will McClay let the cat out of the bag, revealing to ESPN Dallas 103.3 [KESN-FM] recently that the Cowboys “will have the opportunity to get more size inside” with the new staff.

Whereas Rod Marinelli valued undersized but explosive defensive tackles who could penetrate their gap and play in the backfield, Nolan seems to value bigger defensive tackles who are strong at the point of attack and occupy multiple blockers.

In Nolan’s final year as defensive coordinator with the Atlanta Falcons, their defensive tackles’ average weight was 315.8 pounds. The Cowboys defensive tackles’ average weight 305.8 pounds, a notable 10-pound difference. It should be noted that this data is collected at the whim of a player’s listed weight, which can vary greatly from their actual weight, but it’s the best we’ve got.

On top of the size, the application of the defensive tackles should also change.

In Marinelli’s defense, the emphasis on getting upfield and penetrating a gap, interestingly enough, led a ton of poor gap discipline. Here’s an example:

This TD is one Maliek Collins, imo. Aligned in back-side B-gap but gets reached and hooked, leaving that B-gap vacant. Can't let the RT cross your face in this situation.



Puts Xavier Woods 1v1 against Jones with a ton of space, not a winning proposition for the D. pic.twitter.com/kzgk9jx0TG — John Owning (@JohnOwning) October 7, 2019

In the clip above, Maliek Collins is aligned inward and responsible for the B-gap between Green Bay’s right guard and tackle. Once the ball is snapped, instead of reading and reacting to the right guard and tackle’s initial steps to maintain his gap, Collins is more focused on getting upfield to penetrate. This makes it easy for the right tackle to hook Collins, creating a giant lane with a two-way go for the running back that ends in a touchdown.

In Nolan’s defense, expect the defensive tackles to be more mindful in reading their blocks rather than trying to immediately penetrate on every snap. In theory, this would improve the D-line’s ability to maintain gaps, which would then improve the effectiveness of the run defense as a whole.

Nolan replacing Marinelli means the Cowboys should allocate more resources to the defensive tackle position — specifically nose tackles.

Marinelli’s defenses often had issues because for his scheme to operate optimally, the nose tackle had to consistently demand double-teams. But because he didn’t value the position enough in terms of player acquisition (free agency and the draft), the Cowboys didn’t have a nose tackle who actually demanded double-teams, trapping them in a paradox they couldn’t escape.

This doesn’t mean the Cowboys are going to back up the money truck for a nose tackle, but it does mean they’ll be more likely to invest more money in one during free agency or draft one before the seventh round when necessary.

More blitzing

During Marinelli’s tenure as defensive coordinator, the Cowboys were one of the most conservative teams in terms of blitz rate.

Since 2014 (the year Marinelli became the DC), the Cowboys’ blitz rate never finished higher than 24th among NFL teams, blitzing, at most, on 23.7% of snaps in a given season.

Nolan’s teams were the opposite, as their blitz rate consistently stayed above league average (dating back to 2010). In 2013, with Nolan as defensive coordinator, the Falcons finished with the fourth-highest blitz rate in the NFL at 37.9%, which would have ranked sixth in 2019.

It’s important to note that blitzing more often doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, in Nolan’s most blitz-heavy season (2013), his Falcons defense finished 29th in Defensive DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) and 27th in yards allowed (379.4) and points per game allowed (27.7).

It just means the Cowboys are going to be much more aggressive on defense this year, which can have both positive and negative effects. For example, pressure generated by blitzing could lead to opposing quarterbacks throwing more interceptions, but it could also lead to more big plays if the blitzes don’t get home.

It’s a delicate balance, but to be successful in today’s NFL, defenses have to find a way to apply pressure on quarterbacks, which is why blitzing semi-regularly is a common tool of the best defenses.

Of the top five teams in Defensive DVOA in 2019, four (Baltimore, New England, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh) finished among the top seven teams in blitz rate, with Pittsburgh’s 36.9% being the lowest of those four.

San Francisco was the only exception, as its 20.9% blitz rate was among the lowest in the league. But the 49ers can get away with blitzing less because they have the league’s most talented defensive line — three different defensive linemen finished with 55 or more pressures this season and a fourth, Dee Ford, who was hampered by injuries for much of the season, is one of the NFL’s most explosive pass rushers.

While it’s impossible to know exactly the kind of blitzes Nolan will employ in Dallas, a quick look at some of his old playbooks reveals a large library of man pressures and zone blitzes.

Here’s a man-pressure example:

A fun version of Cover 1. Nolan calls it Cover PEEL 1, where the Will and Ted LB blitz while playing a "peel" technique on the RB. DBs and the Mike play Man-Free. pic.twitter.com/mjNTfRjRW2 — John Owning (@JohnOwning) January 15, 2020

Here’s what Nolan refers to as Peel 1, a six-man pressure with man coverage and a safety playing the deep middle zone behind it. The “peel” aspect of the blitz comes from the fact that two of the defenders rush the passer while keying on the running back. Whichever side the running back releases to, that defender will peel off the blitz and cover the back.

Beautiful 3rd Down Pressure from Baylor



🐻 Reduce to Bear Front



↗️ Nose & Weak 3-Tech Rip to A-Gaps



↩️ Strong 3 Tech Wraps to Weak B-Gap



🍌 Edge Defenders Rush/Peel with RB



➕ Mike LB is Man on RB or Add to Blitz with a RB Outside Release (Peel)



☝🏾Cover 1 in the Secondary pic.twitter.com/61P01MuhQH — Coach Dan Casey (@CoachDanCasey) January 20, 2020

This is a great blitz because it not only sends an extra defender at the quarterback, but it also takes away his main check-down. On occasion, quarterbacks will throw an interception to the “peel” blitzer because he wasn’t expecting anyone to be covering his check-down option.

While we don’t know how the Cowboys plan to blitz, we can come to the conclusion that they will call them, in some form, more often than fans have become accustomed to.

More variety in called coverages

While other teams are rolling out exotic coverages in an effort to goad opposing quarterbacks into bad decisions, the Cowboys opted to remain extremely simplistic with their called coverages.

In 2019, the Cowboys played some form of Cover 1 and Cover 3 on nearly 75% of their snaps, which means they were playing a single-high safety defense about three quarters of the time. This made life much too easy for opposing quarterbacks, who were able to easily identify the coverages and readily attack their weaknesses.

Luckily for the Cowboys, Nolan believes a defense needs variety when playing against the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

“The back end is critical to winning football games. I believe you have to have a mix. If you peg yourself in one hole and just do one thing, that’s easy for the best quarterbacks to dissect and take advantage of," Nolan told reporters Monday. "So I do believe you have to have a good mix between man and zone, there are different types of mans (coverages) and different types of zones. You don’t want to create so much volume that you don’t have an identity, but that is the process of getting to know your players, to know what you play more and what you play less of. When you play the best quarterbacks you need to give that quarterback looks and you need to do different things, so you have to have some sort of variety to be successful.”

That should be music to the ears of Cowboys fans everywhere. The days of Dallas pigeonholing itself into a small set of coverages should be a thing of the past.

When defenses can’t apply pressure on quarterbacks, they must create some sort of indecision in the quarterback’s decision-making process. This typically occurs when the quarterback has a hard time identifying coverages, something that rarely was difficult for quarterbacks against Dallas.

In theory, more variety in coverage should make it more difficult for quarterbacks to identify coverages, which doesn’t guarantee success for the defense but does make it more likely.

One example of a coverage Nolan may use more is what he refers to as Cover 9 (to relate this to a 4-3 front, just consider the WILL linebacker a defensive end):

Another quarter-quarter-half coverage Nolan likes to use is Cover 9. This is regarded as a KEY zone coverage instead of a VISION zone coverage. To relate this to DAL's even front, just imagine the WILL backer is actually the RDE. #Cowboys pic.twitter.com/9Z1NBzZmM3 — John Owning (@JohnOwning) January 17, 2020

What Nolan refers to as Cover 9 is a quarter-quarter-half key zone coverage, where one side of the field plays Cover 2 while the other plays Cover 4 (quarters).

These kinds of combination coverages were absent in the Cowboys’ defense during Marinelli’s tenure but should be utilized more often under Nolan - in 2019, the Cowboys used quarter-quarter-half coverages on just a handful of plays; however, in 2014, the Nolan-led Falcons defense used it 12% of the time, per PFF.

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