Israel Pikholz: The Pittsburgh Steelers broadcasters get all excited whenever Hines Ward scores or makes a first down, saying things like "No one smells the goal line like Hines" or "No one knows the sticks like Hines." How well does Hines really rank?  Is he particularly good at that particular skill or is this just local hype?

Aaron Schatz: This year, at least, the answer is local hype. I went and looked at every wide receiver and tight end this year, with a minimum of 40 passes for wide receivers and 20 for tight ends, to figure out who had the highest percentage of their catches/passes as first downs or touchdowns.

First of all, the league averages:

• 55% of tight end catches and 34% of all passes to tight ends turn into first downs or touchdowns.
• 67% of wide receiver catches and 38% of all passes to wide receivers turn into first downs or touchdowns.

Hines Ward this year has first downs or touchdowns on 67% of his catches and 40% of all passes. Basically average. Of course, these numbers are 2006 only, and Ward, when he was healthy, was having an off year -- mostly because his quarterback is having an off year.  In 2005, Ward had a first down or touchdown on 45% of catches and 75% of passes -- better, but still not the best in the league.

Ironically, while Ward is not at the top of the league this year, both Santonio Holmes and Nate Washington are. For example, here are the leaders in first downs per catch (including touchdowns):

• Devery Henderson, NO: 89%
• Reggie Wayne, IND: 87%
• Santonio Holmes, PIT: 84%
• Eddie Kennison, KC: 83%
• Donte' Stallworth, PHI: 82%
• Nate Washington, PIT: 81%
• Bryant Johnson, ARI: 81%

Bryant Johnson has really had a good year after being god awful his first three seasons.

Now of course, not all passes are caught by the receiver. Here are the leaders in first downs per intended pass:

• Patrick Crayton, DAL: 59%
• Henderson, NO: 58%
• Wayne, IND: 53%
• Eric Parker, SD: 52%
• D.J. Hackett, SEA: 50%
• Marvin Harrison, IND: 50%

Crayton, Henderson, and Hackett are playing very well but they are just over the 40 pass minimum, so Wayne, Harrison, and Eric "The Most Underappreciated Wide Receiver in Football" Parker are the real leaders here. Eric Parker is a catch machine. People don't realize how good he is because he never catches a touchdown, but he never catches a touchdown because San Diego has two of the best red zone weapons in the league, LT and Antonio Gates.

Most of the names at the bottom of the league make sense, except one. Here are the worst players in first downs per catch:

• Peerless Price, BUF: 37%
• Dennis Northcutt, CLE: 40%
• Wes Welker, MIA: 47%
• Drew Carter, CAR: 48%
• Reggie "Dance Machine" Williams, JAC: 50%

A lot of people think of Wes Welker as a possession guy because he comes in on third downs and he's, um, suntan challenged. He's definitely Joey Harrington's checkdown target on first and second downs, but on third downs he's a big-play speed demon.

The worst players in first downs per intended pass:

• Northcutt, CLE: 19%
• Price, BUF: 23%
• Chris Chambers, MIA: 25%
• Brandon Lloyd, WAS: 25%
• Michael Jenkins, ATL: 26%
• Carter, CAR: 26%

Chris Chambers is a talented athlete and an incredibly overrated wide receiver. Bill Barnwell wrote about this a couple weeks ago.

As long as I'm running the numbers, I might as well hit the tight ends.  Here are your leaders in first down per catch:

• Desmond Clark, CHI: 77%
• Tony Gonzalez, KC: 75%
• Dan Campbell, DET: 74%
• Dallas Clark, IND: 73%
• Alge Crumpler, ATL: 71%
• Courtney Anderson, OAK: 71%
• Tony Scheffler, DEN: 70%

It's nice that Tony Scheffler gets to the sticks when he catches the ball, since he doesn't catch the ball very often. He's caught just 38% of intended passes this year, which is just abysmal for a tight end.

The leaders in first downs per intended pass:

• Gonzalez, KC: 54%
• Campbell, DET: 50%
• Bryan Fletcher, IND: 45%
• Daniel Wilcox, BAL: 44%
• Clark, CHI: 44%
• Antonio Gates, SD: 42%
• Owen Daniels, HOU: 42%

And your bottom of the barrel tight ends.  First, first downs per catch:

• Anthony Becht, TB: 27%
• Steve Heiden, CLE: 30%
• Adam Bergen, ARI: 33%
• Anthony Fasano, DAL: 33%
• Alex Smith is not a quarterback, TB: 35%

There is a big gap between those five and the rest of the tight ends, who are all above 44%.  The worst tight ends in first downs per intended pass:

• Jerramy Stevens should shut up, SEA: 18%
• Becht, TB: 20%
• Fasano, DAL: 20%
• Bergen, ARI: 21%
• The lost rookie season of Vernon Davis, SF: 21%
• Smith, TB: 22%

Post by Aaron Schatz

Every week, Football Outsiders staffers e-mail each other with updates on Sunday's action as it happens. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"The Jets-Texans announcers must be the CBS "R"-Team. I am pretty sure the next broadcast team they'd send out would be Jeff Probst and the clock from 60 Minutes".

"Michael Vick may not be able to pass, and may be a 'coach killer,' but boy does he have moves."

"Baltimore's second touchdown drive was something Bronko Nagurski would have enjoyed: 8 plays, 47 yards, and six of the plays were essentially runs up the middle."

"Drew Brees just threw a 50-yard, half-ending Hail Mary TD. With triple coverage, the Falcons made a lame attempt at batting down the ball. The primary coverage was DeAngelo Hall, who was in such poor body position he wasn’t able to do any defending. The Falcons took a timeout right before the play began and Daryl Johnson noted, 'they don't get to take those into the locker room with them, so you better use them if you are unsure of what to do. The worst thing would be to get burned on the last play here, so it's best to take the timeout and be sure.' Guess they weren't that sure."

"Boredom is Texans-Jets. Long drive, field goal. Long drive, punt. Rinse, repeat."

"Ben Roethlisberger is getting heat on just about every play, and the distressing thing is how much of the pressure is unblocked. The only time this season I've seen a quarterback under siege to this extent was when Andrew Walter got sacked nine times by the Seahawks a few Monday nights ago. Yes, I just compared the offense of the defending Super Bowl champs to the Oakland Raiders."

"There's a really good chance that neither Edgerrin James nor Shaun Alexander will run for 100 yards in a single game this season. Between them, they did so 20 times in 2005."

"Is anyone really surprised by Edge, though? The guy never saw an eight-man front in his life, and then he moved to a team with an absolutely horrid offensive line. I'd have to say he is who I thought he was."

"It's time for the general populace to realize how good this Oakland defense really is. In the first half, the Chargers - who are currently ranked second in the NFL in offensive DVOA - have gained 55 total yards, have three first downs, are 0 for 4 in third-down conversions, and have had the ball for a whopping eight minutes and twenty-three seconds."

"Yeah, the Raiders defense is great, but their offense handed the Chargers the ball on the 12-yard line and couldn't execute a drive longer than four plays in the second half. The defense can't hold on forever."

"If any of the subjective power ranking writers drop the Bears because they lost, they are complete and total idiots. They just lost by four points on the road against one of the top five or six teams in the league. This does nothing -- nothing -- to prove that the Bears can't win against the best team the AFC has to offer on a neutral field in February.

"Guess who's on my fantasy bench this week? Joseph Addai. Time to trade someone for a receiver."

"The Eagles can blame a lot on the McNabb injury and bad luck, but there is no excuse for the complete and total disintegration of their run defense over the past few weeks. I know they are in nickel a lot tonight, but last time I checked you weren't supposed to stop tackling people just because you had one less linebacker on the field."

Check out more in this week's FO Audibles at the Line.

post by Mike Tanier

This is the second year of the Football Outsiders game charting project, where we have an army of volunteers charting new stats during games that aren't kept in the standard play-by-play. We can't use these stats much during the season, because the game charting lags behind the actual games by at least a week, usually more. But now that we have eight weeks mostly charted, I thought it would be fun to look at some of the data to see what we can find.

We'll start with yards per pass allowed by defensive backs. This is one of two stats we used to track DBs in Pro Football Prospectus 2006. The other one was Stop Rate, or the percentage of passes against a defensive back that were successful. Both stats are useful -- for example, in Indianapolis, Nick Harper has a great yards per pass allowed and a terrible Stop Rate, while Jason David has a good Stop Rate and awful yards per pass allowed. Harper gives up more first downs, but when David gets beat, he gets beat BADLY.

Keep in mind that this data is really preliminary. Really, really preliminary. A number of games from Weeks 4-8 still aren't finished, and this doesn't include Weeks 9-10 at all. These numbers include passes that are incomplete for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the defensive backs, although we've removed quarterbacks hit while throwing and passes tipped/batted down at the line. Also remember that there isn't much difference between being ranked first and being ranked ninth -- the difference is between being ranked in the top ten vs. the bottom half of the league, or something like that.

That being said, let's look at yards per pass allowed, according to our charters. Here are the top dozen defensive backs so far with at least 10 passes charted. The numbers represent charted passes and net yards per pass.

1. 43-T.Polamalu PIT 12 1.8
2. 38-T.Poole OAK 14 2.1
3. 42-D.Sharper MIN 12 3.0
4. 25-K.Rhodes NYJ 15 3.9
5. 20-B.Dawkins PHI 18 3.9
6. 22-F.Thomas NO 43 4.0
7. 25-A.Cromartie SD 17 4.2
8. 28-L.Bodden CLE 23 4.3
9. 40-M.Williams CIN 12 4.3
10. 21-B.Pool CLE 10 4.4
11. 24-M.Huff OAK 10 4.4

That's certainly a mix of surprises and non-surprises. Let's start with the non-surprises., We've written many times that Leigh Bodden is one of the top corners in the league, and the most ignored by the press. Tory Polamalu is good and rarely plays deep, a good combination for this stat. Darren Sharper was near the top for safeties last year. Dawkins is a Pro Bowler. Below this list but still in the top 20 are Champ Bailey, Adrian Wilson, Deltha O'Neal, and Asante Samuel.

Now the surprises. Tyrone Poole???? Yes, really. We made fun of Oakland for picking up the veteran cornerbacks who sucked in New England last year, but actually only Duane Starks sucked last year -- Poole was just injured. I doubt he's really going to be this good all year, but this is not an issue of Poole only playing short or something -- three of the incompletes are passes of 30 yards or more. And he's allowing less than three yards after catch on the few completes he has allowed, none of which went more than five yards in the air. Seriously.

Let's see who else -- New Orleans should be happy to get Fred Thomas back from his hamstring injury. Thomas also did far better than Mike McKenzie in this stat for 2005. Yes, Jets safety Kerry Rhodes did well in this stat last year too, believe it or not. Antonio Cromartie really is having a shockingly good rookie year, and he's not the only rookie that we were completely wrong about -- Donte Whitner is in the top 20 too. Mea culpa. Michael Huff is also playing well, and Brodney Pool is another part of the emerging Cleveland defense.

OK, now the flip side.

1. 27-R.Whitaker MIN 11 15.4
2. 21-O.Atogwe STL 10 14.6
3. 22-S.Rolle BAL 29 14.2
4. 20-M.Adams SF 16 14.1
5. 23-J.Phillips TB 14 13.1
6. 22-M.Manuel GB 13 12.8
7. 32-M.Lewis PHI 14 12.6
8. 20-E.Reed BAL 11 12.4
9. 26-D.Landry BAL 12 12.2
10. 26-E.Wilson NE 16 12.1

What the hell are all these Ravens doing here? Aren't they the best defense in football so far? Remember -- this doesn't include the game against Tennessee, and every Baltimore game from Week 1-8 is fully charted except for portions of Week 4. I seriously have no idea what's up here. Reed was very good in this stat last year. Samari Rolle was much better than Chris McAlister last year, but this year, McAlister is allowing just 6.2 yards per pass. We have 22 of 29 passes with Rolle in coverage listed as complete, including a 72-yard touchdown to Steve Smith, a 58-yard touchdown to Braylon Edwards, a 47-yard touchdown to Marques Colston. One of the two interceptions was actually by Bart Scott, and three of the five incompletes are listed as drops!

Is Rolle just losing it? It seems like it should be a fluke, but the cornerback numbers are a lot easier to trust than the safety numbers, because there are so many more passes charted with cornerbacks as the defenders in coverage. I think everyone else on that list is a safety. Other cornerbacks who do poorly in this stat are Terry Cousin, Gary Baxter (surprise!), Brian Williams (also surprise!), Ahmad Carroll (completely not a surprise!) and Tory James. At least quarterbacks taking on Cincinnati know who they should be throwing on.

By the way, Dallas safety Pat Watkins barely misses the list because he only has nine charted passes, but he allowed a mind-blowingly awful 21.6 yards per pass. Has he considered becoming a linebacker, perhaps?

Post by Aaron Schatz

Every week, Football Outsiders staffers e-mail each other with updates on Sunday's action as it happens. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"Wonderful game called by Terry McAulay's crew so far in Washington. McAulay might want to give Mike Pereira a call regarding the 'ingredients of a hold.' Evidently, the Cowboys do not possess those ingredients."

"The Giants seem to have figured out that Eli shouldn't be allowed to throw the ball more than 10 yards downfield without Burress there serving as a backboard."

"The Dallas safety is a perfect example of why teams should go for it on fourth-and-goal from the one-yard line. Even if you don't get it, you pin your opponents deep and you have a good chance of either a safety or forcing a punt from the end zone. "

"Dan Dierdorf just said Rex Grossman will always have the starting job in Chicago 'because he wins.' Wasn't that the exact same reason people gave last year for giving the job to Kyle Orton and keeping Grossman on the bench?" "Haven't you heard? All Damon Huard/David Garrard/Rex Grossman does is win ballgames."

"Larry Johnson is having a field day."

"Tampa Bay's second quarter rally ruined my plans to rake leaves after halftime."

"Are we obliged to argue about Parcells' dcision to go for two early in the game?" "Why argue? Don't we all agree that it was really, really stupid?"

"Tony Romo just threw a bomb to a wide open TO, who had beat the cornerback and safety, and he dropped it. The cornerback, not surprisingly, was Carlos Rogers. The safety wasn't Adam Archuleta because he wasn't even on the field due to his inability to cover anybody."

"There's nothing quite like the reaction in a Philly sports bar after TO drops a pass. Except maybe for the reaction in Indy after Mike Vanderjagt misses a game-winning field goal.

"CBS just broadcast two "g**d**n"s and a "f****n" as Brian Billick stood a little too close to a microphone when he cursed out an official. It's amazing how much more NFL coaches get away with than NBA coaches. "

"It looks like the Browns are going with the "death by a thousand Phil Dawson field goals" game plan against the Chargers."

"Is there any more frightening phrase to Steelers fans than 'Santonio Holmes takes it out of the end zone?'"

"That Hines Ward play was a microcosm of the Steelers season. I mean, how could you come away from that play saying 'Hines Ward sucks and the Steelers suck?' Ward made some amazing moves and I think everyone agrees he's a great player. And yet, here we are."

"That taunting call on Troy Brown proves the ridiculous nature of the NFL. What used to be a fun and visceral sport is now a kangaroo court for the benefit of referees who are directed to act like the old cranky lady in your apartment complex. 'Turn it DOWN, you hooligans!!!'"

"Next team I hear 'Tom Brady's favorite receiver is the one who's open,' I take a hostage.

"Today has been the worst accumulation of dunderheaded calls since the 2005 postseason. The lack of public accountability when it comes to officiating is the NFL's black mark."

"The Patriots didn't run the ball enough, their playcalling got too funky, and they outsmarted themselves."

Read more at FootballOutsiders.com.

post by Mike Tanier

So, a lot of people have sent e-mail or made comments in the FO discussion threads about our ratings, which still have Pittsburgh in the top 10 despite a 2-5 record. The complaints come in two flavors:

• We're wrong to say that things like fumble recovery, interception returns, and opposing kickoffs are random.
• One single game, Pittsburgh's blowout win over Kansas City, is screwing up our ratings and we need to figure out a way to count blowouts less.

At this point, we're done trying to convince the people making complaint number one, but the second comment is made by readers who generally get what we're trying to do at Football Outsiders. So let's talk about blowouts.

I've mentioned this a few times, and it comes up in our book, but I have tested the DVOA ratings numerous times in an attempt to minimize the importance of blowouts. Every single time, the ratings become less accurate. I'm still not personally convinced that the ratings are treating blowouts properly, but until I figure out a way to make them less important while also improving the ratings, I'm not going to take them out or change them in any way.

Furthermore, the Pittsburgh situation is really strange, and somewhat unprecedented. I went back to see if there had ever been a team where DVOA and record disagreed so strongly because of one big blowout win.  I decided to look at nine weeks, not eight, simply to save time -- I just ran every year through nine weeks as part of improving my midseason projection formula, so these numbers represent DVOA as it would have looked after nine weeks of that season, not how it looks at the end of the year when opponent adjustments are different.

Pittsburgh has a single-game DVOA of 94.7% for their victory over Kansas City. The next highest rating is 27.7%, for the overtime loss to Atlanta, and the Steelers also have positive DVOA ratings in their losses to Cincinnati and San Diego. They have one large negative, -42.0% for the loss to Jacksonville, and two small negatives for the win over Miami and the loss to Oakland. 

I went looking for other teams between 2000-2005 who qualified under these parameters during the first nine weeks of the season:

• One blowout win, defined by single-game DVOA of 75% or more;
• all other games with DVOA below 40%;
• but also, no blowout losses, defined by DVOA below -75%.

Nine teams qualify.

Two of them aren't good comparisons for the Steelers because they were terrible in pretty much every other game of the first half: the 2002 Vikings and the 2003 Jets. Those teams were also near the bottom of the league in DVOA despite one blowout win.

Other teams don't make good comparisons for Pittsburgh because even though they had one blowout that looked out of place on the schedule, they were winning their other games too -- often, with luck as good as Pittsburgh's has been bad. Teams like this include the 2005 Redskins, the 2004 Chargers, the 2001 Bears, and the 2003 Seahawks.

That leaves us with three teams that I think are somewhat good, but not great, comparisons for the 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers.

The 2005 Packers had five bad losses in their first six games. The other game was a 52-3 blowout over New Orleans. Then the Packers started to play better and narrowly lost in Weeks 8-9. At the time, people thought the 1-7 Packers were way too high in DVOA at -5.5%, I think they were ranked 21st if I remember correctly. The next week, of course, was the famous Football Outsiders Message Board Curse game where 1-7 Green Bay beat 6-2 Atlanta, which was ranked 20th.

The 2000 Green Bay Packers were 3-5 after nine weeks, with a DVOA of -5.5%. They had one huge 29-3 win over Arizona in Week 4, but they won their other two games by just 3 points each, and their losses were all very close: 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9 points. The Packers went 6-2 over the rest of the season, although they missed the playoffs.

The 2001 Tampa Bay Bucs were 4-4 after nine weeks, with a DVOA of 17.4% -- which was fourth in the entire NFL at the time, behind only St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Oakland. Those four Tampa losses came by 1, 3, 4, and 7 points and the wins came by 3, 4, 4, and 27 points. Which number does not belong? The Bucs went 5-3 over the rest of the season to slip into the playoffs as a wild card.

That's it.  There really never has been a team with a record as bad as Pittsburgh's and DVOA so high due in large part to one big blowout. One team had a record as bad (2005 Packers) but the DVOA rating wasn't anywhere near as high.  Two teams had DVOA ratings as high, but better records. All three teams won more games over the second half of the season.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that I think the Steelers are still a good team if they have a healthy quarterback, and it isn't out of the realm of possibility for them to finish the year 6-3 or even 7-2. Of course, that won't get them into the playoffs, but it will make things interesting.

Post by Aaron Schatz

Each week, the Football Outsiders staff e-mails one another with updates about Sunday's games. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"At 1:55 PM EST, I witness my first Eagles first down. I am not a happy dude."

"Wow. Steve McNair just threw a ball directly at two Saints defenders -- both of whom whiffed on it -- and Todd Heap gets a touchdown surprise with

seconds to go in the first half. Man, this Billick guy really is a genius."

"The Bears took a 24-0 lead before the Niners executed their 8th play from scrimmage."

"Reggie Bush has been off his game all day, and he just tried to bounce a running play outside for a three-yard loss. As #### Engberg so aptly noted, this is the difference between the Pac-10 and the NFL."

"Boomer Esiason said on CBS post-game that David Garrard was the reason the Jaguars beat the Eagles, and that the Jaguars just play better with him in there. Unbelieveable. Garrard threw for 87 yards. The Jaguars ran all over a Philly defense that bit on every misdirection and completely forgot how to wrap up tackles. The Jaguars defense was all over the Eagles, who couldn't hold onto any passes. And Garrard is the reason they won. Sure."

"David Carr has been lifted for Sage Rosenfeld. Ouch!"

"The Titans seem to have gotten their defense together the last few weeks. If they finish 5-11, will Jeff Fisher still be fired? If so, how many teams will fire their coach and hope to pick Fisher up?"

"Who had Owen Daniels in his fantasy league?"

"Note to NFL quarterbacks – if you’re facing the Seahawks, and you have third and long, just heave the ball over the middle. Your guy will have 20 yards of open space all around him."

"When Ty Law is considered for the Hall of Fame, this game won't be on his highlight film. He dropped what could have been the easiest interception of his career. A couple plays later, he fell down and Darrell Jackson was wide open to catch a floater from Seneca Wallace for the touchdown. I think there was a pump-fake and maybe Law wanted to make up for the missed interception."

"This current defense will keep the Seahawks out of the playoffs. And it should be thing that gets them in, from a talent standpoint."

"Just got back from the Giants game. However bad the wind looked on the field, it was worse in person. Neither team could do much of anything in conditions like that. Still, I didn't like Jon Gruden's gameplan, throwing 50 passes with a rookie QB in those conditions in a game they never trailed by more than two scores.

"Imagine what the Cardinals could do if their skill position players all had a good day at the same time."

"The Colts Broncos game has turned into a battle to see which is more powerful, the Peyton Manning offense, or the colossal power of suck emanating from the galaxy-sized Hoover that is the Indianapolis run defense."

"I liken Ben Roethlisberger to an old television set. If it's a little fuzzy, you hit it once and it works great. You hit again and it's back to being fuzzy".

"Roethlisberger just threw his fourth pick, this one for a 100-yard touchdown return. The rest of his throws have been awful. I mean, they've been so bad that somewhere Tommy Maddox is saying, in between giggling uncontrollably, 'Now that's an awful interception.'"

"When was the last time you saw Randy Moss do something really impressive?"

"The Jets got screwed. Don't get me wrong, the rules are the rules, and it's a split second decision. However, they got screwed. It's their own fault. They made so many mistakes during the game to eventually putthemselves in a position in which they could get screwed. So it goes."

"It seems like Bill Parcells is auditioning for Weekend at Bernie's 3. Has he reacted to anything? False starts, turnovers, questionable calls by the official ... he just stares into space like Art Shell."

"Jake Delhomme just went through a very Drew Bledsoe-like progression. He held onto the ball too long, threw late to his first read into double coverage, and got intercepted. All he needed was a star on his helmet and cement feet."

Read more of this commentary in Audibles at the Line at FootballOutsiders.com.

post by Mike Tanier

BlueStarDude: I’m really surprised by Dallas’s continued high defensive ranking (happy, but surprised). So often they seem to give up four or more yards on first down. Are they propped up by an overachieving third-down defense? An ability to force turnovers? Or is my anecdotal memory that far off?

Aaron Schatz: To be honest, I didn't even realize while I was writing the commentary today that I complimented three defenses that gave up 36, 38, and 41 points this week -- Dallas, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh.

I think part of the issue is the natural tendency to think of things in terms of the last game. Obviously, this wasn't the best week of the season for the Dallas defense, although the worst defensive DVOA for Dallas was Week 1 against Jacksonville. (This was the worst week of the season for both the Pittsburgh and Atlanta defenses.) And while the Dallas defense moved up one spot in rank, the actual DVOA rating declined, from -19.5% last week to -15.5% this week.

But Blue Star Dude is a hardcore fan and FO reader and he knows there is more to this than just a single week, so let's go a little deeper into that Dallas defense.

He is not mistaken that the Cowboys often give up a ton of yards on first down. In fact, the Cowboys are giving up an average of 6.8 yards per play on first down, the worst figure in the league. That high average is in large part caused by four very specific plays, and those four very specific plays can probably be named by every single Dallas fan out there, and those four very specific plays are all tied to a single player who is currently the glaring weakness of the Dallas defense:

• The 60-yard pass to L.J. Smith with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.
• The 87-yard touchdown pass to Hank Baskett with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.
• The 40-yard flea flicker touchdown pass to Reggie Brown with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.
• The 50-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.

I don't want to be rude, but as I stated in the DVOA commentary two weeks ago, the Cowboys might want to rethink the way they use Pat Watkins.

Having given away all these yards on first down, however, the Cowboys really buckle down. It's not an overachieving third-down defense, because they are playing exceptionally well on second down too.

• On first down, Dallas has a defensive DVOA of 14.2%, which ranks 28th.
• On second down, Dallas has a defensive DVOA of -36.5%, which ranks third. Only Baltimore and Chicago are better.
• On third down, Dallas has a defensive DVOA of -37.75%, which ranks second. Only Denver is better.

If you don't get at least four yards against Dallas on first down, you are screwed. On third or fourth down with 7+ yards to go, the Cowboys are allowing 2.1 yards per play. In these 41 situations, the Cowboys have more sacks (9) than conversions allowed (8).

The final issue is opponent strength. The three other teams in the NFC East are ranked 2, 3, and 7 in offensive DVOA, and the Houston Texans -- who only managed two field goals against Dallas -- are 15th.

Honestly, even this week the Dallas defense wasn't as bad as it looked. The Giants scored nine points on defense, the interception return and the safety. They scored a touchdown on a drive that started on the Dallas 14 because of one interception, and a field goal on a drive that started on the Dallas 48 because of another interception.

What about the other teams?

I don't think anybody was questioning Pittsburgh's defense before they let Atlanta score 41 points. Remember what they did to LaDainian Tomlinson and Larry Johnson? They just had a bad week.

Atlanta's defense has been much less consistent, and their above-average rating comes from three strong games: the 20-6 victory over Carolina to start the year, the 14-3 win over Tampa Bay, and the 32-10 drubbing of Arizona that began the Matt Leinart era.

Post by Aaron Schatz

Each week, the Football Outsiders staff e-mails one another with updates about Sunday's games. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"I think it's amazing that Joey Harrington threw 62 passes and Chris Chambers had TWO catches."

"Nice to see Ronde Barber clinch his Pro Bowl bid today. What I liked about the two touchdowns was that one was done with guile and one was done with physical skill. "

"I would rather see Donovan McNabb drained, puking, and throwing touchdowns than fresh and throwing easy interceptions."

"Can we check Matt Bryant for steroids?"

"The Jaguars only scored seven against the Texans because Byron Leftwich played like Drew Bledsoe on a bender."

"I really think Bengals tackle Willie Anderson should be named offensive player of the week for the job he did on Julius Peppers."

"The San Diego-Kansas City final score isn't really a big surprise. The halftime score was a big surprise, but not the final score. Losing by a field goal on the road isn't a huge upset."

"I think the two Steelers-Falcons games of the last five years might be the two strangest games of the last five years. Just so many different bizarre scenarios."

"I could read Bill Cowher's lips and he very clearly said after the false start, 'that's a bull---t call.' He's wrong. It was the right call."

"Oakland is beating Arizona, 17-0, in the second quarter. I'm off to buy stock in YouTube before the Dennis Green postgame press conference."

"I really think that the Washington offense with Brunell would be good enough if they had a defense even approaching last year's. Instead, it looks like the Jason Campbell era may be starting soon. "

"Ron Pitts after Chester Taylor’s 95-yard TD run – 'That’s probably the longest run Taylor’s had this season.' You think so, Detective? It's actually the longest run in Vikings history, and Steve Hutchinson was a factor as he walled off Peterson on the cutback. Meanwhile, Matt Hasselbeck'’s in the locker room with what we’re being told is a sprained MCL. Ladies and gentlemen, the value of elite guards has officially been established.

For more, read Audibles at the Line at Football Outsiders on Monday afternoon.

post by Mike Tanier