Gorgon
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 340
- Reaction score
- 351
Many of you have touched on this in different angles but let's look at the Zeke situation this way.
2016, with the great OL of Frederick, Martin, Smith, Leary, Zeke rushed for 1600 yards.
2017 We lost Leary, replaced badly by Cooper, but added Collins at G and sometimes T. Zeke's #s fell accordingly, to 900.
2018 Frederick diagnosed with his nervous disease
2019 Zeke resigned for $90m
2020 Frederick retires.
You can condemn Jerrah all you want but there WAS a philosophy here. I think Dallas gambled and lost. They expected Frederick to be there, and, once diagnosed, thought he'd come back (which he did). They viewed this as a rushing team first, but they had to plug at least one big hole of LG---and assume Collins could hold up at RT. So far, they have not succeeded. But then Frederick was gone for good, and, as we know, Smith has had health problems.
In other words, I think a major factor in Zeke's big contract was the presumption they would have, more or less, the same OL as in 2016 and slowly, it disintegrated as a run line.
In the meantime, Moore comes in. It was abundantly clear in the loss that his scheme was NOT a bad one---from a certain perspective, that is: take exactly what the D gives you over, and over, and over. This is very "Madden-esque" except Madden would periodically heave the ball way downfield just to keep the other side honest.
Meanwhile, Zeke does nothing but block. Why? Six or seven men in the box PLUS two of the most difficult DTs in the league to run against (Donald maybe the other). Moore's philosophy in this case looked sound: you can't run, why not throw to the open guy & force them out of their scheme?
Here is my caution about the pass offense---which believe me I know is in vogue today. When we were a "running team" Dak was getting massive time on play fakes. I don't know if you recall, but he would have a LOT of time in the pocket when Zeke was a threat.
Back to the OL, despite being (so far) a terrible run blocking OL, they did pretty well in pass protection. No, the pocket wasn't as clean as I'd like, and too many times Dak threw with people in his fact, but given that he threw on almost every play, that's understandable.
Long and short: Zeke has no role in this offense as Moore apparently has designed it. Worse, the OL can no longer run block the way the 2016 line could. The personnel is not fitting the scheme.
2016, with the great OL of Frederick, Martin, Smith, Leary, Zeke rushed for 1600 yards.
2017 We lost Leary, replaced badly by Cooper, but added Collins at G and sometimes T. Zeke's #s fell accordingly, to 900.
2018 Frederick diagnosed with his nervous disease
2019 Zeke resigned for $90m
2020 Frederick retires.
You can condemn Jerrah all you want but there WAS a philosophy here. I think Dallas gambled and lost. They expected Frederick to be there, and, once diagnosed, thought he'd come back (which he did). They viewed this as a rushing team first, but they had to plug at least one big hole of LG---and assume Collins could hold up at RT. So far, they have not succeeded. But then Frederick was gone for good, and, as we know, Smith has had health problems.
In other words, I think a major factor in Zeke's big contract was the presumption they would have, more or less, the same OL as in 2016 and slowly, it disintegrated as a run line.
In the meantime, Moore comes in. It was abundantly clear in the loss that his scheme was NOT a bad one---from a certain perspective, that is: take exactly what the D gives you over, and over, and over. This is very "Madden-esque" except Madden would periodically heave the ball way downfield just to keep the other side honest.
Meanwhile, Zeke does nothing but block. Why? Six or seven men in the box PLUS two of the most difficult DTs in the league to run against (Donald maybe the other). Moore's philosophy in this case looked sound: you can't run, why not throw to the open guy & force them out of their scheme?
Here is my caution about the pass offense---which believe me I know is in vogue today. When we were a "running team" Dak was getting massive time on play fakes. I don't know if you recall, but he would have a LOT of time in the pocket when Zeke was a threat.
Back to the OL, despite being (so far) a terrible run blocking OL, they did pretty well in pass protection. No, the pocket wasn't as clean as I'd like, and too many times Dak threw with people in his fact, but given that he threw on almost every play, that's understandable.
Long and short: Zeke has no role in this offense as Moore apparently has designed it. Worse, the OL can no longer run block the way the 2016 line could. The personnel is not fitting the scheme.
