The Short Passing Game

buybuydandavis · Jan 25, 2022

Crown Royal said:
BONUS - the planned dump off - sometimes it's better to make the dump off/flat player your first read, rather than your last. Catch the LB/Safety out of position and chew yards that way.

In short - i feel like our offense RESENTED the short passing game. They would try to throw it out of necessity, but just assumed that if they did that, the defense would HAVE to respond. Rather than use it as a weapon and be totally find with the defense being stressed to stop the yardage.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this makes no sense. But it's how I feel even a week after the loss. We never figured out the short passing game. It kind of felt like the old Raiders teams of the mid 2000s when Al was still running the show. Vertical passing game or BUST.

Dak throws bad short balls, and we haven't made the short swing pass a *first* choice since 2016, and before that Kitna. We've got the whole COryell thing going, of making deep reads first.

I was hoping McCarthy would add more WC quick passing to the offense, but I didn't see it. Hoping that Dak would fix his short ball in the offseason, and didn't see that either.

nalam · Jan 25, 2022

Zman5 said:
Did you ever watch Rodger or Brady play?
Many QBs throw quick passes from shotgun.

Yeah , they make a decision and let the ball go in about 2 secs .

But Dak cant do that for some reason, he cant even dump off in the flat precisely , how many passes in the flat to Rbs succeeded ?

Big D · Jan 25, 2022

Crown Royal said:
In short - i feel like our offense RESENTED the short passing game. They would try to throw it out of necessity, but just assumed that if they did that, the defense would HAVE to respond. Rather than use it as a weapon and be totally find with the defense being stressed to stop the yardage..

I feel like they resented the run game.

Cboyfan4ever · Jan 26, 2022

Zman5 said:
Did you ever watch Rodger or Brady play?
Many QBs throw quick passes from shotgun.

Brady has had a pretty good career throwing short passes to his running backs.90% of his throws are quick ,short passes.

CowboysFaninHouston · Jan 26, 2022

Crown Royal said:
EDIT: I should have called this thread "The short passing game."

I don't have time to study film so I can only go off my hunch. A big feature of the Cowboys attack this year was the deep pass (obviously), with some slants, a little bit of tunnel screen and the occasional dump off.

I feel like there are three concepts that are not a big piece of the playbook - looking to be challenged -

The drag route and hi-lo concept, and the comeback route and the seam attacks.

It's no secret that the NFL corrected this season to cover 2 shells. Lots of deep zone with either man under, cover 2, or even cover 4/cover 6 concepts (really decreasing traditional cover 3). THe way to combat these is to chip way underneath and stay patient until the defense adjusts.

The Chiefs and Buccaneers LOVE the underneath passing game. Drag routes and hi-lo that forces the zone to make a decision are bread and butter. I feel like the nearest the COwboys tried with this was quick hits to Cedric Wilson and Schulz, but so often those routes are run and turn around in the soft zone. Which is fine, but not sustainable.

Seam hits - how many times did Garappollo, Mahomes, Burrow, Stafford and others hit their TE RIGHT at the snap while running down field on the steam. No option route, not turn around and catch - catch it in stride and let them make a guy miss/run in the defense.

You want to play soft zone? Fine - we'll influence your flat defense with a TE or RB, and hit CeeDee on the quick comeback since you're playing soft zone.

BONUS - the planned dump off - sometimes it's better to make the dump off/flat player your first read, rather than your last. Catch the LB/Safety out of position and chew yards that way.

In short - i feel like our offense RESENTED the short passing game. They would try to throw it out of necessity, but just assumed that if they did that, the defense would HAVE to respond. Rather than use it as a weapon and be totally find with the defense being stressed to stop the yardage.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this makes no sense. But it's how I feel even a week after the loss. We never figured out the short passing game. It kind of felt like the old Raiders teams of the mid 2000s when Al was still running the show. Vertical passing game or BUST.

we have a short passing game...well, only one. its called the WR screen...we run it 8-10 times a game

Cowboysheelsreds053 · Jan 26, 2022

CowboysFaninHouston said:
we have a short passing game...well, only one. its called the WR screen...we run it 8-10 times a game

That junk needs to be scrapped, shows how innovative our OC is.

khiladi · Jan 26, 2022

According to the Moore haters, we threw too many screens.

Dak always takes the check down against zones and he’s a risk-averse QB.

I’ve seen Dak miss plenty of wide open shallow crossing routes to guys like Cooper and Dalton.

I don’t know where this latest myth arose, but Dak processing the field slowly doesn’t mean it’s because we don’t have shorter routes.

Dak can’t throw a well-timed pass under Center. Whether Linehan or Moore, we’ve been bottom of the league in drop back attempts. If anything, we are more limited in our intermediate to deep passing game as far as drop backs are concerned. Dak basically needs to throw out of shotgun all the time. I don’t even know if Dak can do the 3 step shotgun either.

The problem is issues like third and long. Dak is not an aggressive passer, he’s a system QB that needs his early reads to get open. He doesn’t challenge the seam routes.

This was week 1 against Tampa, which was arguably Dak’s greatest performance as a QB. Please tell me how this doesn’t qualify as short passing.

Kolemmitt · Jan 26, 2022

conner01 said:
Yet he was near the top in completion pct in the NFL

The Dak hate is just getting ridiculous at this point.
Was he elite the 2nd half? Nope. Buy some of these guys are acting like Dak couldn't start for a middle-school team.

Crown Royal · Jan 26, 2022

khiladi said:
According to the Moore haters, we threw too many screens.

Dak always takes the check down against zones and he’s a risk-averse QB.

I’ve seen Dak miss plenty of wide open shallow crossing routes to guys like Cooper and Dalton.

I don’t know where this latest myth arose, but Dak processing the field slowly doesn’t mean it’s because we don’t have shorter routes.

Dak can’t throw a well-timed pass under Center. Whether Linehan or Moore, we’ve been bottom of the league in drop back attempts. If anything, we are more limited in our intermediate to deep passing game as far as drop backs are concerned. Dak basically needs to throw out of shotgun all the time. I don’t even know if Dak can do the 3 step shotgun either.

The problem is issues like third and long. Dak is not an aggressive passer, he’s a system QB that needs his early reads to get open. He doesn’t challenge the seam routes.

This was week 1 against Tampa, which was arguably Dak’s greatest performance as a QB. Please tell me how this doesn’t qualify as short passing.

I don't think the first game really tells us much. That's back when teams were playing more single high and trying to blitz him. Started seeing that change mid season on where teams just played cover 2, cover 4/6 and other cloud shells.

Here is his passing chart against the 49ers. 5 passes in seam out of 43 attempts. Only 2 less than 10 yards. To his right, 7 attempts <10 yards with 5 incompletions.

Haimerej · Jan 26, 2022

Crown Royal said:
I don't think the first game really tells us much. That's back when teams were playing more single high and trying to blitz him. Started seeing that change mid season on where teams just played cover 2, cover 4/6 and other cloud shells.

Broaddus asked Kurt Warner specifically about the shell looks and cover 2, and his response was that those looks should open up the playbook entirely. It seems only Cowboys fans think those zone looks kill offenses.

khiladi · Jan 27, 2022

Crown Royal said:
I don't think the first game really tells us much. That's back when teams were playing more single high and trying to blitz him. Started seeing that change mid season on where teams just played cover 2, cover 4/6 and other cloud shells.

Here is his passing chart against the 49ers. 5 passes in seam out of 43 attempts. Only 2 less than 10 yards. To his right, 7 attempts <10 yards with 5 incompletions.

Excellent stuff. Obviously, some of it is predicated on the fact this offense was built on top of the Coryell, where the outside of the hashes is attacked first. The issues about attacking the seam though generally do go back in his earlier years as well, meaning I don’t think it’s as much a scheme thing as the facf he often doesn’t even challenge down the middle.

I was trying to find the passing charts for the later games, when like you said, they started playing more zone. but I couldn’t as of late, so I was assuming Next Gen has it as a pay feature. I remember previously being able to find more charts.

khiladi · Jan 27, 2022

Haimerej said:
Broaddus asked Kurt Warner specifically about the shell looks and cover 2, and his response was that those looks should open up the playbook entirely. It seems only Cowboys fans think those zone looks kill offenses.

That’s basically how teams defended Romo. When we played Herbert, we were in cover 2 shell almost all the time and even Diggs was playing off. Great QBs get the cover 2 treatment all the time.

I remember even in 2018, Schwartz, who played us man against Dak with no safety help over the top with Amari, played Goff and the Rams with cover 2 shell a lot.

Coogiguy03 · Jan 27, 2022

Aven8 said:
Tom throws as quick as anyone because he takes steps back out of shotgun and gets deep in the pocket. No time to even get back there.

Toms guys aren't running 38 yard routes every play

Haimerej · Jan 27, 2022

Coogiguy03 said:
Toms guys aren't running 38 yard routes every play

Look at that passing chart earlier in the thread. Over half his completions against SF are less than 10 yards.

black label · Jan 28, 2022

its zeeks fault rofl that a qb cant c bra

PAPPYDOG · Jan 28, 2022

khiladi said:
According to the Moore haters, we threw too many screens.

Dak always takes the check down against zones and he’s a risk-averse QB.

I’ve seen Dak miss plenty of wide open shallow crossing routes to guys like Cooper and Dalton.

I don’t know where this latest myth arose, but Dak processing the field slowly doesn’t mean it’s because we don’t have shorter routes.

Dak can’t throw a well-timed pass under Center. Whether Linehan or Moore, we’ve been bottom of the league in drop back attempts. If anything, we are more limited in our intermediate to deep passing game as far as drop backs are concerned. Dak basically needs to throw out of shotgun all the time. I don’t even know if Dak can do the 3 step shotgun either.

The problem is issues like third and long. Dak is not an aggressive passer, he’s a system QB that needs his early reads to get open. He doesn’t challenge the seam routes.

This was week 1 against Tampa, which was arguably Dak’s greatest performance as a QB. Please tell me how this doesn’t qualify as short passing.

All aboard the Bus is departing in 5 min......

black label · Jan 28, 2022

not getting on then dak cliff bus haha

Crown Royal · Jan 28, 2022

Haimerej said:
Broaddus asked Kurt Warner specifically about the shell looks and cover 2, and his response was that those looks should open up the playbook entirely. It seems only Cowboys fans think those zone looks kill offenses.

No one is suggesting that teams play ONLY cover 2, in which case you would be right - QBs would feast. But teams stopped blitzing (because they realized it got them hurt) and started playing more more shell coverages, modulating between Cover 2, cover 3, Cover 4 and even 6-cloud looks. It changes play by play.

The counter to these is to hit quick passes in the seam (doesn't seem to be a big part of our playbook), drag route and hi-lo stressors, designed check downs and runs.

We couldn't run the ball as the year went on, but didn't even try the other ones.

charron · Jan 28, 2022

The problem is Dak was off more than normal this last half the year. He's not the most accurate but typically the wr can still make the catch but when he's off then the ball is too far behind or sometimes too far out front and the receiver can't make the catch. Guys on the move give him the most trouble which is why these quick dump passes aren't a good fit for him. He likes the curl and sit down routes where he can throw to a spot. Dak really needs to be vocal with his we'd and get with them this off-season to really get these plays down and continue to work at it all season long.

SteveTheCowboy · Jan 28, 2022

conner01 said:
The easiest way to get open in the NFL is crossing routes
We have guys with good YAC ability
We should be running way more crossing routes

We can't run a rub/pick route at all. I see it all the time in other teams short pass game.

The Short Passing Game

Well-Known Member

The realist

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

CowboysFaninDC

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Insulin Beware

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

There are no Dak haters just Cowboy lovers!!!

Well-Known Member

Insulin Beware

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member