Snap Judgments: Cowboys snap counts vs Seahawks

One of the unique things about yesterday’s game against the Seahawks is that both teams rested most of their presumptive starters. The Cowboys gave three of their presumptive starters (Shavon Revel, P.J. Locke, Caleb Downs) and two core backups (T.J. Bass and Luke Schoonmaker) only a little more than a handful of snaps before their day ended early. And that gives us ample room to review the snap counts from Sunday’s game to get a better feel for what is happening to the depth across the roster.

One of the quirks of only starting backups is that somebody still has to start, which effectively already establishes two tiers among the backups: Starters and subs, or second-team and third-team players.

The first thing to look at is a simple snap count which details which player was in on how many plays. And that’s exactly what the table below shows for the offense.

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Cowboys’ offensive snap count vs Seahawks
	OL		WR		TE		RB		QB
Tier	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps
Starters	Thomas	22	A. Smith	39	Schoonmaker	8	Blue	20	Howell	26
	Keegan	45	Valdes-S.	18
	Bass	7	Mingo	17
	Cornelius	45
	Shelton	45
Subs	Johnson	44	Hudson	37	Rogers	33	Abanikanda	19	Milton	40
	Leverett	38	Brown	27	Trigg	32	Mafah	15
	Wingfield	21	J. Smith	14	Kuntz	18	Davis	12
	Glaser	21	Johnson	11
	Pete	21	Holden	9
	Gutierrez	21	Mims	1

At first glance, the numbers for the OL appear a bit confusing, but this is driven by two key coaching decisions: the team wanted to give T.J. Bass a few live reps but took him out early and replaced him with Nick Leverett, and they yanked Nate Thomas after just 22 snaps and replaced him for the rest of the game with Marcellus Johnson. No official word yet on why.

The O-line starters played a total of 45 snaps, which was the entire first half and five snaps in the third quarter, the O-line subs played 21 snaps the rest of the game. Here’s what that looks like:

Cowboys’ OL snap count distribution
POS	45 snaps (mostly 1st half)	21 snaps (2nd half)
LT	Thomas (22), Johnson (23)	Johnson (21)
LG	Keegan (45)	Wingfield (21)
OC	Bass (7), Leverett (37)	Glaser (21)
RG	Cornelius (45)	Pete (21)
RT	Shelton (45)	Gutierrez (21)

The rest of the offensive snap counts played out pretty much as could have been expected. The question for next week obviously is whether standouts from the Seahawks game like Camden Brown, Michael Trigg, Malik Davis, or others might get elevated to the “starter” tier.

On to the defense.

Cowboys’ defensive snap count vs Seahawks
	DT		OLB		ILB		CB		Safety
Tier	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps	Player	Snaps
Starters	Toia	32	Liufau	22	Robinson	46	Revel	6	Downs	7
	Withers	32	Lawrence	17	James	14	Carson	37	Locke	7
	Overton	17
Subs	Dunn	25	Wheat	23	Barron	37	Bridges	33	A.Clark	45
	Gilliam	20	Houston	18	Patterson	15	Kendrick	27	Bell	33
	Odeyele	8	Land	16			Speed	18	Wood	22
			S.Williams	16			Butler	15
							Steward	10

As a unit, the defense provided a lot of reasons for optimism, and was perhaps even more impressive than the offense, but it’s harder on defense to find individual standout players.

Curtis Robinson led the team with eight tackles, James Houston and Isaiah Land had a sack each, while Trikweze Bridges and Tyrus Wheat shared a sack.

Who do you think should move up into the green tier next week against the 49ers, a game in which the Cowboys will again rest their starters?

Special teams is often the deciding factor for the bottom-of-the-guys to make the final 53.

Special Teams snap counts
Player	POS	ST snaps
J.Wood	S	8
DJ.Rogers	TE	7
C.Robinson	LB	7
T.Wheat	OLB	7
I.Land	OLB	7
M.Trigg	TE	6
C.Brown	WR	6
J.Barron	LB	6
C.Carson	CB	6
A.Clark	S	6
L.Patterson	LB	6

It’s probably too early to deduce anything from these numbers, but we’ll watch them closely as preseason progresses.

Another thing that has to be mentioned in the context of special teams is the “hidden yardage” in this game. Bill Parcells used to say that a 100-yard advantage in field position, or “hidden yardage,” was worth seven points (others may use the same formula, he’s just the one I associate this with). Here’s a look at the hidden yardage differential in Sunday’s game:

Dallas: 134 yards (sum of starting field positions on all drives)

This is in part the result of the muffed by Traeshon Holden and two good punt returns versus zero for the Cowboys. The Cowboys were lucky to have the defense bail them out on not one but three (!!) red-zone drives by the Seahawks. The hidden yardage advantage alone should have been worth 14 points for the Seahawks, according to Parcells, so special teams should get some very special attention in practice going forward.

An finally, Curtis Robinson is this week’s ironman, having played a total of 53 snaps, 46 on defense and seven on special teams.

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