Roy Williams saw limited action in his Cowboy debut
Tarell Brown - Tarell had a decent day at nickel back for the San Francisco 49ers. He ended the day with four tackles and no pass breakups.
Cedric Benson - Benson got his first start since he left the Chicago Bears. He had a solid day, carrying the ball 14 times for 52 yards. Benson recorded his first reception of the year but has failed to reach the end zone. The highlight of the day came when he blew up Steelers safety Troy Polamalu.
Jamaal Charles - With starting running back Larry Johnson “suspended” by his team Jamaal received more playing time but the rookie running back and his team failed to get anything going against the Titans. Charles finished with three carries for 17 yards and four receptions for 26. He may be the starter next week.
Tim Crowder - Crowder provided pressure that forced an interception by Matt Cassell on Monday Night Football, but his team got crushed on national TV. Crowder has yet to record any stats but continues to get snaps in a backup role.
Leonard Davis - The Cowboys are hitting rock bottom and the offensive line has had a lot to do with it. Tony Romo is out because of a pinkie injury he suffered because pressure had gotten to him. New quarterback Brad Johnson had little time to do anything in the loss to the Rams.
Phil Dawson - Dawson made one of the two field goals he attempted in the loss to the Redskins. He is nine for 11 on the season.
Derrick Dockery - Buffalo has become one of the better teams in the league because of a strong running game. Dockery is earning his huge contract with big play up front.
Cedric Griffin - It was a tough day for the Vikings defense. The group gave up 48 points in a loss to the Bears. Opposing teams continue to attack Griffin in order to avoid Antoine Winfield’s side of the field. Griffin had nine tackles and a pass breakup in the game.
Michael Griffin - Michael Griffin recorded seven tackles in his team’s destruction of the Chiefs. Griffin is becoming one of the better players on arguably the best defense in the league. It is only a matter of time before he is a Pro-Bowl type player.
Ahmard Hall - The Titans are one of the only teams left that use a true fullback and it is because of how well Hall has played. The tailbacks he leads the way for combined for over 300 yards in the game on Sunday. The Titans gave him a carry towards the end of the game which he got six yards on.
Michael Huff - Huff had two tackles and two pass breakups in the overtime win over the Jets. The Raiders defense played much better this week than they did last week against the Saints.
Quentin Jammer - The Bills avoided Jammer’s side of the field for most of the day. Lee Evans did make an incredible catch over Jammer for a touchdown. After a rough start to his career, Jammer is becoming one of the better corners in the league.
Derrick Johnson - It was a bad day for D.J. and his defense. The Chiefs gave up over 300 yards rushing to the Titans. Johnson continues to struggle taking on blocks in the run game. He is great in space, but gets manhandled too often in the trenches. He finished the game with six tackles.
Cory Redding - Redding has been banged up all year, but is without question the leader for the Lion defensive front. That may not be a good thing. He recorded five tackles and a sack in the loss to the Texans.
Shaun Rogers - When Rogers is healthy and into the game there may not be a better player at defensive tackle. The big man had seven tackles and a sack in a defensively dominated game.
Bo Scaife - Scaife is still putting up numbers with Vince Young on the sideline as the backup. The Titans did not have to pass much in the blow out win but Scaife finished with three catches for 48 yards.
David Thomas - Thomas didn’t record any receptions but continues to get playing time as the second or third tight end and on special teams for the Patriots.
Nathan Vasher - Vasher missed another game with an injury.
Ricky Williams - The Heisman Trophy winner had his least productive day of the year. He only carried the ball four times for 16 yards with no receptions. The Ravens did a great job stopping the run and it forced the Dolphins out of their game plan. Ronnie Brown is the clear number one in Miami.
Roy Williams - Roy Williams thought he was making a huge step up by being traded from the Lions to the Cowboys. Not so fast. The Cowboys played horrible and Roy never got involved in the game recording no catches.
It was a very good weekend to be a former Texas Longhorn offensive lineman. Former first team All-Americans Leonard Davis and Derrick Dockery both signed megadeals last week as NFL free agents.
Davis officially agreed to a seven-year, $49.6 million contract with the Dallas Cowboys yesterday. $18.75 million of Davis’ contract is guaranteed. It’s the richest deal for an offensive lineman this offseason. “Big” was the number two overall pick out of Texas by the Arizona Cardinals and was a solid but unspectacular player. For the Cowboys Davis will either play right guard or move outside to play right tackle if the team can’t resign Marc Columbo. He should be a big upgrade over the hurt/mediocre Marco Rivera.
Dockery’s deal is almost as rich. He signed with the Buffalo Bills for seven years and $49 million. $18.5 million of the deal is guaranteed and he’ll earn $23 million in the first three seasons. Dockery was a third round pick in 2003 and spent all four years in Washington as a starter at guard for the Redskins.
Great to have two former Longhorns getting big pay days, hopefully they can both improve on their play and earn those big checks rolling in. Both players are also going to teams I’m much more interested in watching on Sundays. I have to watch the Cowboys on TV every weekend and can’t catch many Titans games, so it’s great to see a Longhorn join the Cowboys.
Probably a pretty useful recruiting tool for any 2008 or 2009 offensive line recruits. Come to Texas, get fifty million dollars.
In an effort to measure which college programs have been the most successful over the last five seasons, the Wall Street Journal has come up with The Dow Jones College-Football Success Index. I’m not sure why, but they have chosen to use a formula that calculates the success of college football teams using only NFL information. They use the number of players starting/contributing on NFL teams as one factor, which also includes how many games their NFL teams win. The other factor is a team’s “draft success” which attempts to determine whether a team’s players have lived up to their draft promise.
The Longhorns land at number sixteen, which isn’t too low except for the fact that teams like North Carolina and Texas A&M land ahead of the Horns. That’s a pretty tell-tale sign that your ranking logic is horribly skewed. They list only Derrick Dockery, Casey Hampton, and Derrick Johnson as standout players. I guess Pro Bowlers Nathan Vasher and Shaun Rogers, who might be the best defensive tackle in the league, don’t count as standouts.
Here’s their comment on Texas:
National champs sent only three players to the NFL this year from the nation’s top offense. One problem: Longhorns’ shotgun formation isn’t popular in the NFL.
Not a very good argument there. I’m guessing a better reason we only had three offensive player’s drafted is that the team has seven returning starters this year on that side of the football. It’s kind of hard to be drafted when you’re still in college. Vince Young went third overall, tight end David Thomas went in the third round to the Patriots, and tackle Jonathan Scott was the Lions’ fifth round selection. Guard Will Allen signed a free agent deal with the Saints and backups Matt Nordgren and Ahmard Hall also found teams despite not being starters at Texas. Actually seems like a pretty good success rate to me.
So basically they took a faulty premise and backed it up with terrible analysis. There’s a lot of ways to determine a successful college football program, but how many backups a school has in the NFL is probably one of the last things you should consider.
Via: The Wiz
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