The “playbook being outdated” is lazy

[Vtwin]

I don’t see it. Not 95%. I see Dallas with a lot of comeback and curls. The WR or TE catching the ball while standing still or coming back to the QB. This limits the YAC. I know it’s not every single play, it just seems to be a lot of them. I see other teams like the Rams throw a lot to WRs and TEs on the run with plays designed to get additional YAC.

It's possible if not probable that these routes are being called to play to the strengths (or limitations) of the QB.

 

[BulletBob]

What drives me crazy is when we see a play work well and then it’s either used rarely or we never see it again.

Sending Zeke on a wheel route against the Eagles.

The screen passes approaching the red zone.

Dak on an option keeper.

And how about play action? The Rams use it on over 50% of their plays. But they have a great back in their backfield, so it’s effecti...wait a minute!!!

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

Funny, only the 90's playbook work with the 90's players and coaches not the 2018 versions.

 

[Haimerej]

Funny, only the 90's playbook work with the 90's players and coaches not the 2018 versions.

You must not have watched the '90's teams. This playbook is nothing like that.

 

[OmerV]

Ive seen everyone on here and radio/internet guys keep saying the playbook is outdated.

Nate Newton, who knows more than anyone of us on here said we run 95% of the same plays post snap as the Rams.

The difference and what we’d like to see changed is the presnap misdirection that causes defenses to hesitate which opens up holes in the run game and pass game.

I’ve said forever that most NFL teams are running about the same playbook since there no true west coast or only air Coryell schemes anymore.

What separates is the timing of the calls. The perfect example is the play vs the Eagles Cooper wanted changed. We didn’t put in a new play in the huddle, we just audibled to one that already existed.

Whoever the new playcaller is, they need to have the openness to change and add some presnap motion.

But they don’t have to throw out the entire playbook.

Bingo!

Fans use the terms “playbook”, “play calling” and “scheme” interchangeably, as if they mean the same thing. Like you suggested, it isn’t so much what’s in the playbook as how the playbook is used. Needing to tweak things for some misdirection or twists, or doing a better job of play calling, doesn’t require an entirely new “playbook” or “scheme”.

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

You must not have watched the '90's teams. This playbook is nothing like that.

I must not can read, been reading the playbook was from the 90's, my bad. Also happened to be at most of the battles between the boys and niners in the 90's to see who was SB bound with my brother being on the niners.

 

[Whyjerry]

Ive seen everyone on here and radio/internet guys keep saying the playbook is outdated.

Nate Newton, who knows more than anyone of us on here said we run 95% of the same plays post snap as the Rams.

The difference and what we’d like to see changed is the presnap misdirection that causes defenses to hesitate which opens up holes in the run game and pass game.

I’ve said forever that most NFL teams are running about the same playbook since there no true west coast or only air Coryell schemes anymore.

What separates is the timing of the calls. The perfect example is the play vs the Eagles Cooper wanted changed. We didn’t put in a new play in the huddle, we just audibled to one that already existed.

Whoever the new playcaller is, they need to have the openness to change and add some presnap motion.

But they don’t have to throw out the entire playbook.

I love Nate but what the hell is he talking about. Sure teams run between the tackles. They run outside. There are only so many receiver routes, formations, etc...

95% overlap? No way. The 4 teams playing this weekend have next to nothing in common with the Dallas offense.

 

[Typhus]

Ive seen everyone on here and radio/internet guys keep saying the playbook is outdated.

Nate Newton, who knows more than anyone of us on here said we run 95% of the same plays post snap as the Rams.

The difference and what we’d like to see changed is the presnap misdirection that causes defenses to hesitate which opens up holes in the run game and pass game.

I’ve said forever that most NFL teams are running about the same playbook since there no true west coast or only air Coryell schemes anymore.

What separates is the timing of the calls. The perfect example is the play vs the Eagles Cooper wanted changed. We didn’t put in a new play in the huddle, we just audibled to one that already existed.

Whoever the new playcaller is, they need to have the openness to change and add some presnap motion.

But they don’t have to throw out the entire playbook.

Didn't Nate get busted with like 75 Lbs of crazy cabbage in his trunk... in his trunk... think about that level of intelligence for just a moment.
And he even knows whats going on,,, Ice Cube logic t=right here

 

[MojaveJT]

We don’t have the creativity to confuse the defenses and make them think one thing when in reality we’re going to be doing something else.

That’s what a real OC should excel it. You create that confusion and keep the D on their toes. I agree it’s not the actual plays that should change but everything that happens pre-snap and in between that needs to be fixed.

 

[khiladi]

Here's the 2018 version, same author.

These are all Dak’s years. People try and claim we didn’t change the offense for Dak, but this isn’t true. Even if we were ‘predictable’ on offense, this doesn’t mean the offense was the same.

 

[OmerV]

I love Nate but what the hell is he talking about. Sure teams run between the tackles. They run outside. There are only so many receiver routes, formations, etc...

95% overlap? No way. The 4 teams playing this weekend have next to nothing in common with the Dallas offense.

The point you are missing is that 2 offenses can look very different on the field and still have similar playbooks. It’s a matter of what you do with the playbook, what plays a team is more prone to using, which plays are called in different situations, a few different shifts etc ...

A simplified example would be if 2 playbooks were identical but one team passed 65% of the time, and another ran the ball as much or more than they threw it. Same playbook, but on the field one appears to be a pass happy offense, and the other is a run based offense.

 

[JustChip]

I think it may also come down to plain old experience. Linehan leaned on the run and we had the O-Line and murray to run the ball. But Romos experience of reading defenses allowed him to call really good audibles when needed. Dak needs that experience. And we need to shake up the playbook.

Yep, like the one in Philadelphia in the 2nd game of 2015. The one he audibled to and the backer blitzed and broke his collar bone.

Most definitely Romo was much, much better because of his experience his last years. That should be true of any QB and will be with Dak as well.

 

[TwoDeep3]

The playbook is like a recipe book. It contains all the plays the head coach has acquired during his time as a coach....not just a head coach. As time progresses, and new wrinkles are discovered, the playbook has additions made.

After watching film on the up coming opponent, the plays for that game are selected. Then they are given the the players who learn them. The QB has to know every play and the responsibility of every player on offense and who fits what play.

Half time adjustments are not calling up plays that were not rehearsed in practice. It is more along the lines of tweaking a responsibility of a specific player, or players on any given play to defeat the opponent.

To suggest the playbook is out of date is naive at best. Think of it as if you were playing golf and had all the clubs, but chose the wrong ones at the wrong time.

If Nate said Dallas runs the same plays as the Rams, then there are two possible reasons they don't work.

Coaching. When assembling the game plan the coaches made an incorrect assessment of what would work, therefore they cobbled together plays that were doomed to fail. Also, the other team could have created a game plan that capitalizes on the plays chosen by the home team coaches who did a poor job of preparing the game plan and the players to execute.

The second is execution. Coaches can assemble a perfect game plan, but if players do not get to the spot required for success and to complete the task required, then it is the fault, of the player. Now one can make a point that what is being asked is something the player cannot do, and the coach should know this. Which means its a little bit of both.

Sometimes it is difficult to blame a coach for a player either not having the mental acuity or outright talent to deliver. If so then it goes back to the GM who created the roster. But then a little bit of that does fall on the coach for not express exactly what he needed.

A caveat for this is a GM who doesn't know his elbow from a hole in the ground and builds a team doomed to fail.

Perhaps even over 23 years.

But the original premise of the play book being out of date is something fans think without having the entire story to make that decision. They would be wrong.

 

[CowboysExchange]

It's not just the scheme that's broken. It's the personnel groups.

There's never 2 rbs coming out of the backfield

There's never dual slot wrs

It's a set it and forget it te scheme and we haven't had a talented te in 5+ years

Theres no bunch formations, picks, hurry up. Rpos

The biggest problem is the offense doesn't have enough player involvement

They only target the top 3-4 players and everybody else is a designated blocker or a diversion and it's easy to predict who is getting the ball.
The tes are over involved between the 20s but they don't have any deep ball skillsets. In the red zone the tes are underinvolved and don't have any Scoring abilities.

Who uses a one dimensional fb in the modern NFL

If they had Zeke and Earl Campbell one rb would have to wait until the other guy got hurt in order to play .

The starting te never comes off the field even though he only has 1 td all year. It could be 3rd and 30 and we still have a te running routes even though he's never caught a 15 yard pass in his career.

Zeke is the only rb even though he only has 6 TDS all year.

We run the most predictable run plays on 4th and 1

75% of the problem on offense is we don't have a te that can threaten anybody deep or in the red zone. Just a bunch of designated blocking schemes. Our tes have a long history of being allergic to scoring and we put them in scoring situations way too often. And they always come up empty handed

Maybe the tes are improving but it's always subpar and we don't involve our slot wrs except on spot plays

 

[khiladi]

Linehan was brought in as a play-caller within the same offense, meaning with Romo. It was a compromise with Jerry and Jason, because Jason wanted a guy that wouldn’t change the offense in the first place.

That’s one of the main problems with Dak being named the starter. It was based on temporal success and they are making superficial changes surrounding the offense, meaning scape-goating. He clearly doesn’t possess the tools to operate that type of offense, so in reality they had to change the offense somewhat for Dak. We ran way more short crossing routes and roll outs, along with plenty of play-action with Dak. We ran more bootleg to, obviously requiring different route combinations.

Dak was getting one deep safety, man press coverage on the outside looks ALL YEAR. Any QB worth a grain of salt would make defenses pay on these looks.

And Linehan did add some wrinkles, with Cooper in the slot more, particularly because teams started shifting more coverage his way. Against Seattle he had key catches directly from the slot and had a drag route catch that got him isolated 1 on 1. In the Rams game they got the TD on a slant isolated 1 on 1. And even in the Giants game when Dak threw one of his TDs to Jarwin, it looks like Cooper was his main read on a post and had him wide open, but he went to the safer Jarwin who was even more wide open.

WBs are also required to make reads before the snap as well.

 

[Zman5]

Even if we run 95% of the same plays (I don't believe we do) as the Rams, what does that prove? We don't have Rams' personnel.

We should be running plays that gives our personnel best chance to succeed.

 

[HungryLion]

There’s a reason Romo ran the play clock down to 0 on almost every single snap.

It wasn’t for show or just for the hell of it. He was calling the plays himself and changing everything. Linehan wasn’t doing jack squat at that point.

 

[Creeper]

Let's be honest, there are only so many plays you can run. An A Gap run is an A gap run. Every team has one. But, running the same play from the same formation or running a play almost every time you show a formation is unimaginative and that's how I would describe the Cowboys offense most of the time. Linehan did mix in some clever plays the last few weeks of the season but mostly he runs a pretty vanilla offense. By vanilla, I mean he shows a formation and tends to do the same things from it. Every team does this but there are a few offenses, like the rams that run a variety of plays from one formation or show a variety of shifts. What his does is it keeps the defense guessing about where the ball is going. Same plays, only the defense is never sure about who gets the ball. This gives the offense an advantage.

We watch a lot of Cowboys games, how many of us can tell if its a run to Zeke or a pass just by the way the Cowboys line up and be right most of the time? If we can do it 50% of the time, then a trained professional who has watched the tape can probably tell 90% of the time.

 

[xwalker]

Ive seen everyone on here and radio/internet guys keep saying the playbook is outdated.

Nate Newton, who knows more than anyone of us on here said we run 95% of the same plays post snap as the Rams.

The difference and what we’d like to see changed is the presnap misdirection that causes defenses to hesitate which opens up holes in the run game and pass game.

I’ve said forever that most NFL teams are running about the same playbook since there no true west coast or only air Coryell schemes anymore.

What separates is the timing of the calls. The perfect example is the play vs the Eagles Cooper wanted changed. We didn’t put in a new play in the huddle, we just audibled to one that already existed.

Whoever the new playcaller is, they need to have the openness to change and add some presnap motion.

But they don’t have to throw out the entire playbook.

He is really talking about what the Rams do relative to other teams and then saying Cowboys instead of other teams.

McVay (Rams HC) has openly talked about the fact that what they actually run post snap is not complicated. The difference is pre-snap in how the disguise what they're doing.

IMO, the best thing the Rams do is execution not scheme. When they run a reverse or fake reverse it appears that they've practiced that play to perfection. When the Cowboys run similar plays, it often appears that they have not had many practice reps doing it.

The Rams OLine is very precise in their execution. The Cowboys have more talent on the OLine but their execution has declined every year since Bill Callahan departed.

I do think the WR coach is a big improvement from the past and the 2018 TE coach has a decent track record as a college OC.

We saw what a difference legit NFL coaching can make with Kris Richard on defense. The previous DB coach had Byron Jones playing Strong Safety much of last season. The CB Brown said that the previous coaches let him decide what technique he would use from snap to snap; whereas, Richard was coaching them in great detail on technique and it is part of his play calls.

The year that the Cowboys coaches were the coaches for the Senior Bowl, they showed (with audio) Scott Linehan giving the play calls to QBs in practice. It was a very odd process and he didn't appear to be a good communicator. The play calls seemed random and unorganized for a practice setting.

On the flip side, we saw and heard Kris Richard coaching players in training camp and there was no possibility that he was not a good communicator.

Football schemes are not that complicated. It would be easy to make them more complicated than most players could understand.

Great coaching always comes back to getting players to execute correctly on a consistent basis.

We saw a very complex scheme with minimal focus on execution when Rob Ryan was the D-Coordinator. Sometimes he had a good day calling plays and it worked. Other days they gave up many big plays because there was no way they could practice all of his various alignments and overall complex scheme.

They replaced Ryan with Marinelli/Kiffin and their ultra simplistic scheme; however, the.the defense started to improve over time as they learn to execute the details consistently.

The execution on defense took another big step with Kris Richard who puts an extreme emphasis on teaching players how to know which technique to play based on straight forward "keys" from what the offense players are doing.

Summary:
Many people could come up with complex schemes but not many people can get players to execute those schemes to perfection.

I could come up with a complex scheme that would look great on a computer simulation going against most NFL schemes; however, I could never get real players to execute my scheme. In fact I probably couldn't get NFL players to execute a 5th grade scheme because I don't have the Jimmy/Parcells/Kris Richard type power of persuasion over people.

 

[Cowboys22]

It's possible if not probable that these routes are being called to play to the strengths (or limitations) of the QB.

I don’t doubt or dispute this but don’t then tell me Dallas is running 95% the same offense and plays as the Rams are, Dallas just doesn’t do well on the pre snap stuff.