CFZ Can they successfully run the football again?

xwalker said:

No, I'm referring to his time as the Cowboys OL coach. He is not a good scheme guy...only individual technique.

Bill Callahan is the man. I would spend a lot of Jerry's money to get him back.

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quickccc said:

- So when we need to turn right, we're gonna turn left ...??
you have rhythm time based offense vs packers west coast offense, they may see a run game, and pass game entirely different .

- An offensive HC that has to serve and bow to the OC that he did not hand picked and force to let him be 100% play caller ?

- This is the leading reason what makes me eager to have Sean Payton as HC, as it will be HIS offense, not part time house maid.

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Cowboyny said:

Last year was a tale of two offenses, one prior to Dak's injury to his calf and the other after the Denver blowout loss. Elite offense to more of a middle of the pack one.

We have discussed this in the past numerous times, teams started taking away the big passing plays and forced the Cowboys to run the football, take the underneath passes and drive the entire field. Several issues happened:

-They just couldn't run the football, even in light boxes. We can point to injuries to both the OL and the RB position, Zeke probably should of been playing more of a limited role as he clearly was hurting the team more then helping it.

-When they did have success on the ground, they just couldn't avoid the big penalty. Penalties were drive killers throughout the 2nd half of the season, in which they led the league.

-Most QB's would struggle moving the chains with consistent 3rd and longs. Add in Dak was reluctant to use his legs, defending this offense became much easier.

-Finally, when drives stalled, they had a very inconsistent place kicker, who missed managable FG's throughout the season, even struggled with extra points.

Have success on the ground and play more clean football will force defenses to get out of that so called shell, coverage defense. Question is, have they done enough to fix this #1 problem area?

-Connor Williams who led the league in penalties is now playing in Miami. However, they are replacing him with Tyler Smith who was a flag machine on the college level. Yes, many of his flags were over aggression, but he still must improve.

-Their TE's must do a better job blocking inline and in space. Not much turnover, but the loss of Jarwin certainly helps as he was more of a big receiver. Ferguson, McKeon and Sprinkle need to help in this area.

-Kellen Moore must be more like his predecessor and stick with the run game to keep teams honest. If you make a team one dimensional, much easier to defend.

-Even if risky, Dak has to threaten teams with his legs. He came into this league as a dual threat QB, he must bring that aspect back to the field.

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CowboyRoy said:

If you cant understand what you see, educate yourself. This will help you.

https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/202...-mid-season-2021-despite-declining-efficiency

At the most basic level, rushing frequency did not change. Moore did not try to “establish the run” in the first half of the season and then stray away from that philosophy in the back half. Before the bye, in neutral situations (when the win percentage is between 30% to 70%) the Cowboys were passing on 55% of plays. Compare this to the back half of the year where they passed 56% of the time in neutral situations.

The neutral pass rate is nearly identical. When it seemed like Moore was passing more in the back half, it was because he had to, not because he was changing the offense. When the Cowboys were in a competitive game, Moore was running the ball just as much in the first half of the year as the second.

But the passing and running game took a nosedive in the second half of the year. So did something change with the play-calling?

Well, in terms of rushing, the answer is no. The primary complaint about Moore in weeks eight through 18 was that he was continually running the ball up the middle instead of bouncing it outside. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Before the bye, 58% of Dallas’ rushes were between the guards. After the bye, that number dropped to 53%. So, Moore was actually calling more outside runs post-bye. Once again, the rushing efficiency plummeted. But it is not because Moore was adamantly running it up the gut.

However, there is a lot more to dissect to determine if his passing game play-calling was different.

Let’s start at the most basic level, Moore was dialing up just as many deep passes over the second half of the year compared to the first. For one, Dak Prescott’s average depth of target actually increased by .2 after the bye. In weeks one through six, 15% of Prescott’s targets were deemed “deep,” but that number jumped to 19% after week seven. There is little to no evidence to suggest that Moore was employing a “dink and dunk” offense after the bye. He maintained, and actually increased, his aggression on passing play calls.

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DandyDon52 said:

good post, thing is I dont think kellen wants to run alot, just here and there. He is a passing oc, so no telling what we will see.
I also dont think kellen knows how to use a run game .

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atlantacowboy said:

Sure, we just let our best run blocking OL, La El Collins, walk. All signs point to improvement.

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xwalker said:

No, I'm referring to his time as the Cowboys OL coach. He is not a good scheme guy...only individual technique.

Bill Callahan is the man. I would spend a lot of Jerry's money to get him back.

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DandyDon52 said:

good post, but this is all based on statistics,and frequency.
Other things factor into it, like when you run, and how you run, and how you block, blocking schemes etc.

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CowboyRoy said:

You have to be joking. Pollard stops him initially and gives the QB enough time. Thats the RB's job. That is Budda Baker a top 3 safety and Zeke has problems blocking him for more than 2 seconds.

The myth has been busted. I've seen Zeke completely whiff in blocks worse than that.

RB's run and catch first. IM sure we could use Zeke at FB.

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CowboyRoy said:

If you cant understand what you see, educate yourself. This will help you.

https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/202...-mid-season-2021-despite-declining-efficiency

At the most basic level, rushing frequency did not change. Moore did not try to “establish the run” in the first half of the season and then stray away from that philosophy in the back half. Before the bye, in neutral situations (when the win percentage is between 30% to 70%) the Cowboys were passing on 55% of plays. Compare this to the back half of the year where they passed 56% of the time in neutral situations.

The neutral pass rate is nearly identical. When it seemed like Moore was passing more in the back half, it was because he had to, not because he was changing the offense. When the Cowboys were in a competitive game, Moore was running the ball just as much in the first half of the year as the second.

But the passing and running game took a nosedive in the second half of the year. So did something change with the play-calling?

Well, in terms of rushing, the answer is no. The primary complaint about Moore in weeks eight through 18 was that he was continually running the ball up the middle instead of bouncing it outside. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Before the bye, 58% of Dallas’ rushes were between the guards. After the bye, that number dropped to 53%. So, Moore was actually calling more outside runs post-bye. Once again, the rushing efficiency plummeted. But it is not because Moore was adamantly running it up the gut.

However, there is a lot more to dissect to determine if his passing game play-calling was different.

Let’s start at the most basic level, Moore was dialing up just as many deep passes over the second half of the year compared to the first. For one, Dak Prescott’s average depth of target actually increased by .2 after the bye. In weeks one through six, 15% of Prescott’s targets were deemed “deep,” but that number jumped to 19% after week seven. There is little to no evidence to suggest that Moore was employing a “dink and dunk” offense after the bye. He maintained, and actually increased, his aggression on passing play calls.

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DanA said:

Budda Baker might be a top 3 safety but he's 5'10, a buck ninety-five, and has never had more than two sacks in a season. His reputation certainly doesn't come from his pass rush. If you can't see a difference in Pollard's blocking vs Zeke's then I don't know what to tell ya. No joking, it's not the same, I'm all for Pollard playing more but there's a deficiency there that needs to be considered. It's okay to acknowledge their different skill sets.

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DanA said:

It's funny, people bang on about not running, dinking and dunking, etc but to me, the real issue was injuries and our ability to adapt over the course of the season. Its clear defense changed mid-season, Zeke's performances changed, Dak was carrying injuries, and we lost a lot of our effectiveness in 12 personnel with Jarwin out. But I still feel a bit disappointed in how Moore faced this adversity. We seemed to just stay the course and accept our fate when I feel like we had the opportunity to change it up and still be a winning team.

Even with all of the above we still had some pretty good offensive weapons. Pollard, Ceedee, Cooper, Cedric, Shultz even with how Dak looked (comparatively) I feel like we could have reinvented the offense, adapting to the new reality. I didn't see much adaptation though and to me that's something we've seen in every Kellen Moore season. We come out of the gates hot and by mid-season, it's a different story.

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Bullflop said:

The FO should be willing to procure better backup RBs to augment our running game. Their refusal to do so confounds me.

A lingering question persists, in that, Ezekiel Elliott has displayed a tendency to diminish in his ability to avoid late-season injuries.

Waiting until 2023 to correct that situation doesn't instill a great deal of confidence in this team's chances of post-season success.

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CowboyRoy said:

So now we are down to "Zeke can block better" from "Pollard cant block"?

Mission accomplished.

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• Pollard's blocking is a liability relative to his NFL RB peers
• Zeke is the best blocking RB in the league.
• When Zeke was running at 5.3 YPC he was deserving of the no.1 running back spot. That's despite Pollard running at 5.8 YPC (because of that disparity in blocking).
• When Zeke was running at 3.6 YPC (post PCL), I don't think he had any business continuing as our no.1 RB
• If Zeke is healthy, it's close, but I think I would still keep him as the no.1 RB because of the stability his blocking brings and the protection afforded to Dak
• I want Pollard to see more snaps than last season, I just also want is to schemed away from blocking assignments a little and play to his strengths.

CowboyRoy said:

Your right in everything you say...............but the thing is that you could have all the weapons in the world, but you cant get them the ball consistently without time to throw and holes to run.

Once the Oline went, Zeke went , Dak went, Moore went. All at the same time.

AND.........on top of that, Zeke got hurt, Dak got hurt, Lamb got hurt, Cooper missed two games, Pollard got hurt, Gallup got hurt.

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bonafidebanter said:

AND OL. I'm still not convinced of our RT and C. Our rookie LG needs to be a HUGE improvement over last years G. Our run/pass blocking became an issue and it wasn't even pretty. When defenses can control your OL with minimum defenders, you're in trouble. Hopefully our glorious 12 personnel can come thru for us this year.

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DanA said:

I feel like there are some semantics and word games here. I don't think I made the goalline shift you are implying but ultimately, my thoughts are:

• Pollard's blocking is a liability relative to his NFL RB peers
• Zeke is the best blocking RB in the league.
• When Zeke was running at 5.3 YPC he was deserving of the no.1 running back spot. That's despite Pollard running at 5.8 YPC (because of that disparity in blocking).
• When Zeke was running at 3.6 YPC (post PCL), I don't think he had any business continuing as our no.1 RB
• If Zeke is healthy, it's close, but I think I would still keep him as the no.1 RB because of the stability his blocking brings and the protection afforded to Dak
• I want Pollard to see more snaps than last season, I just also want is to schemed away from blocking assignments a little and play to his strengths.

Last year it was 70:30 Zeke/Pollard and I think I would like to see it more 60:40 while Zeke is healthy and if/perhaps when he's not, then Pollard can be given the reigns.




I know there was adversity and I am not saying Kellen Moore is trash. I just felt like we ground on to an inevitable conclusion by continuing unchanged when there was a chance that in trying something new, we could have discovered a new way to be competitive in the play-offs.

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CowboyRoy said:

Pollard is NOT a liability that is a myth that YOU bought into that is now been proven false.

Zeke is also not the best blocker in the NFL. Thats a homer statement.

Your stats are also off. When Zeke was averaging 5.3 ypc Pollard was leading the NFL with 6.7 ypc. So no, Zeke was not deserving of more carries, Pollard was.

Plenty of backs could have averaged 5.3 ypc during that run. Pollard proved that.

Glad to hear you agree Pollard should get half the carries.

Personally I go with hot hand and I make Pollard a major part of the offense including running receiving. I don NOT feature Zeke unless the hot hand goes that way. I would also bring in a 3rd quality back to get into the mix.

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