CTB

[CJD]

(12-05-2022, 01:53 AM)Whatever Wrote: He had a chance to make a number of big plays, but didn't come up with any of them.  Could have had a pick.  Had a shot to make a tackle on both KC TD runs, as well as not being able to get JuJu down short of a key 1st down early.  

Not going to bag on the kid too hard, as he's a rookie and technically a backup, but he had a bad night tackling, which has been one of his strong suits to this point.

For what it's worth, when we signed Chidobe Awuzie, this is exactly what I heard Dallas fans say about him. Always in position to make a play, but never would. If I recall correctly, there were some kind of stats about average separation allowed and Awuzie was allowing very little separation, but his yards allowed were disproportionately high.

Now he's making the plays and is one of the best shut down corners in the NFL.

Sometimes, it takes a little time for a player to learn how to properly finish. But being there is half the battle.

EDIT:

Found an example of the talk surrounding Awuzie back in 2018.

Quote:Through the first 10 weeks of the year, though, only one of those two has maintained fans' excitement. While Byron Jones has been arguably the best cornerback in all of football, Chidobe Awuzie has been damn-near an automatic completion when thrown at.

Awuzie has a -5.8 coverage rating this season, 65th among cornerbacks in the NFL. Coverage rating is a metric which factors in how often a cornerback is targeted as well as how many passes they've defensed per target. Quarterbacks also have a 116.6 passer rating when targeting Awuzie, compared to just 64.5 when targeting Byron Jones. For comparisons sake, Jones' coverage rating is a +45! So you can see why “cornerback opposite of Jones” is becoming a need for the Cowboys.

What's perplexing about Awuzie's season, though, is that he is only giving up an average 0.95 yards of separation, 27th in the league (courtesy of playerprofiler.com). So while Awuzie is playing relatively sticky coverage, he's still being targeted often, and he's still allowing completions way too often.

https://insidethestar.com/do-or-die-chidobe-awuzie-must-improve-sunday-or-cowboys-season-could-end/