My third question to Dave Halprin of Blogging The Boys talks about potential concerns about Dallas transitioning to a new system without the benefit of a full offseason to install it.
With the short offseason, installing a new scheme might be more difficult than in other years. To what degree if any do you think Rob Ryan will scale things back on defense early while his players get adjusted to his system?
My guess is that Ryan will push the limits of what he can call, but will be forced to back off if he sees the Cowboys defense in confusion. In the preseason, the Cowboys defense was often confused and talking to each until after the ball was snapped. You could see they weren't totally comfortable yet with the new scheme. They started to do that less and less as the preseason wore on, but there's no doubt there will be growing pains learning the new system. Ryan will be aggressive, but if the Cowboys are getting burned, he'll have to back off some.
I generally do not think OTA's are terribly important, but there are some exceptions. A team putting in a new system is an example. It is tough to do that on the fly. Tonight the Cowboys still will only have a few weeks of trying to digest the system. Communication breakdowns could lead to something big.